2025: Jasmine

She has bright blue eyes and a heart of gold.

She loves animals and is now 10 years old.

She dances and sings and plays tag with her friends.

She plays tennis and Roblox and doesn’t want the fun to end.

Though we’ve been away for 8 years now.

She still struggles to sleep at night.

Scared her Mum will be stolen from her

Scared of what could come in the night.

Scared of the things she experienced,

Ever happening again.

Reassured Mum is safe with her

she tries to sleep again.

Despite what she’s been through,

She perserves through.

Mum works hard to provide for her

She won a partial scholarship- because she loves to study too.

But the child support stopped.

And Mum couldn’t cope.

She was slowly reaching the end of her financial rope.

So they had no choice but to move and leave her friends behind.

Leave her scholarship dreams.

Because they couldn’t financially meet the line.

Then news came through- Dad dodged tax returns too.

Now years of child support need to be reconciled.

We may have a debt too.

Mum didn’t realise ‘provisional’ would mean this could happen.

And some people lose everything when reconciliation happens.

It was reconciled okay but still no support came through.

We spoke to all who would listen but there was nothing they could do.

Though we left family violence all those years ago,

He still had control and he wanted it to show.

A little girl, heartbroken.

A Mum not knowing what to do.

Picking up the pieces

Even years on without you.