A Rough Education

                                             A rough education 

Those who went through the special school system 

In the 70’s and 80’ know it was no cake walk 

Not an enjoyable enlightening experience 

A rough tough education in a school of hard knocks 

A cesspit filled with emotional sewage 

You needed to be a strong swimmer 

To survive the liquified **** 

Dodging the solids that floated on the surface 

You learned not to swim against the tide 

To go with the flow 

It was a dog-eat-dog environment 

Where the strong fed off the weak 

Where the weak were the fodder 

I was bitten once or twice, but I must admit I fed well 

I do not seek or expect forgiveness,  

though this is an act of contrition  

Some blame the staff for these conditions 

Although there were those who revelled in their 

Positions of power and privilege 

Most were victims of the system as we were 

In our school all the toilets were disabled 

In those places we learned survival skills 

How to neck neat spirits, while other pupils  

Held the bottle, controlled the flow 

I  soon realised that although I could not compete 

With my more able peers in the classroom a playing field 

I could drink them under the table 

All survivors of special school suffer different wounds 

Yet we bear similar scars 

It takes fellow survivors to spot the signs