A small girl, alone, on her bedroom floor

Crying, too young to fully understand

All that goes on outside her four walls

She knows about the empty beer cans

Littered across the home, but she doesn’t know

Why it makes daddy so angry.

She sees the tears in her mother’s eyes

But she doesn’t see the pain that put them there.

She has the bruises, the scratches

The effects of her father’s drunken rages

But she doesn’t realise that she’s done nothing wrong.

She lies down, sobbing, cowering

Hearing the slurred shouts of her dad

Foreign words that she doesn’t know the meaning of

Addressed to her mother with such bitterness

“You slut! You dirty whore!”

From the bedroom she can hear

The slap of the hand across mommy’s face

The footsteps moving towards her door

She creeps under her bed, hiding

Hoping that she can’t be seen

The door opens, in walks daddy

Destruction reigns within him, he looks under the bed

Grabbing her ankles, he drags the innocent child

Away from her shelter

She clutches the bed, but he’s too strong

Screaming for mercy, tears from her eyes

She weeps as her father tightens his grip

Around the young girl’s neck

Her shouts weaken as his grow louder

“Shut up, you stupid bitch!”

She’s gasping for air, he doesn’t stop

Strangling the child as her eyes shut slowly

Her body limp, face discoloured

He keeps going, unaware of his daughter’s dying pulse

Moments later, her soul leaves her battered body

And daddy’s little girl is dead.