No-one Loves Me

Recently the father and step-mother of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes were convicted of torturing and finally murdering him in June 2020. They recorded audio and video of him in distress, and at one point the dying child cried “No-one loves me.” I found that very difficult to hear about. It got to me in the same way as the murder of James Bulger in 1993 or the murder of the children at Dunblane Primary School in 1996.  I love my three boys, and even when they are annoyed with me I am sure that they know it. I tell them that I love them and I hope that I show it. And the idea of that wee six year old boy dying at the hands of the people that should have loved and protected him, and in the end thinking that no one loved him, hurts my heart. 
I read a poem recently that I think balances the good in the world with the bad. It’s written from a new mother to her children. I think it’s very good.
Here it is: 

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. 

The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake.

Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. 

I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? 

You could make this place beautiful.