Unshielded

A poem about the fear and anguish felt by the parents of autistic people and people with learning disabilities locked up in psychiatric hospitals during Covid 19. You can listen to the poem in this video or read it below.

https://youtu.be/5hBO5–_eLs

Unshielded

Did they hold down my lost child today?
Did they torture his limbs, tear already bruised skin?
Did they drug him and shut him away?
Let him sleep on the floor where the blood stains the walls?
Did they shatter his spirit today?

I so wish that they’d call me to say
That they did set him free, that they gave him his tea.
But they say that I get in the way,
‘Now Mum, don’t make a fuss and just leave it to us.”
They can hide all their failings that way.

Seems these times give the perfect excuse
And the reasons I’ve heard border on the absurd.
Something they’ll never write in reviews
Is tormentors abuse when they’ve nothing to lose
And we’ve let all the closed cultures loose.

So who pays for the rights we have lost?
I just can’t comprehend all that money they spend
And there’s always a far greater cost.
With their backs to the wall, there’s no comeback at all.
Who will pay for the lines they have crossed?

And when everything’s finished and done,
Seeing nothing was gained, only trauma remains.
It’s a battle they think they have won
Leaving people bereft in the pieces they’ve left
And a mother who cradles her son.