Author: Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

Diffraction

Judith Staff

She senses it, anticipates it, as it’s preceded by a look; His eyes are on her, even though she doesn’t meet his gaze. His hands smoothing her hair down her back, he kisses her lips. His breathing warm, softly delivering “You’re so beautiful” into the curve of her neck. He Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

The Color Code: Underwear, An Invitation For Sexual Misconduct?

Judith Staff

“I see London, I see France, I see [child’s name]’s underpants!” (unknown origin) A familiar childhood chant, guaranteed to wreak playground-wide humiliation on the child, usually a girl, whose name was tauntingly inserted into the rhyme as she practiced perfecting her cartwheels on the grass, or flipped somersaults over the Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

Prize of Poison

Judith Staff

I want it. No,need it, the panacea; Or, perhaps the exhilaration of the release trailing after it – unsure which; Does it matter? Drink to numb. Calories purged. Caffeine pulsing. All drenched in familiar relief. The isolation I don’t want, but it’s mine, handcuffed to me, by a rusted padlock made of shame. Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

WASTE

Judith Staff

My thoughts are eternally submerged in a mire of self-disgust. I watch, aloof as the filth of this cruelty is accumulating around me, repugnant insults carried on the glistening spittle flying off my tongue. Hate-filled thoughts create a layer of crusty grime, hardening on the floor, in time, I can Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

The Hungering

Judith Staff

She does not notice him watching her with her friends. At late o’clock he swoops, grinning, then kissing her intently lotharioesque, appearing from the peripheral shadows of the bar. She’s kissing back like the vodka tells her to, as if she desires him, a “Rookie cop” he tells her, “From Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

Shoeboxes in the Heart

Judith Staff

There are alcoves in our hearts Hollowed and laying vacant, ours to fill Like boxes which new shoes once came in, Now housing old photographs and mementos Stowed far under the bed, wrapped in shadows. Those shoeboxes, dusty-lidded and hushed, just sit Waiting. So are the heart-spaces, unobtrusively holding our Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

Her

Judith Staff

A rare chance to leave work early, and pick my youngest child up afterschool. Parents I recognize only vaguely, cluster in the playground, some talking in groups, others marginalised, standing alone on the periphery. I stare into my phone, looking preoccupied, the stark divisions shredding my nerves with anxiety. She’s Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.

TEASE

Judith Staff

“Empty-headed!” Her mother scoffs, Trampling on her quest To attain The Look. Unthwarted, she persists, Craving the boys’ attention Willing them to notice her. Maybe even want her. Maybe. Her hair; long, wavy locks Deliciously scented, coconut-ish Her makeup; she’s a Maybelline girl Hot, rosy-blushed cheekbones Her lipstick; applied to Read more

Judith Staff

Judith Staff’s background is in teaching and early years education. She still teaches occasionally, though now her main focus is in child welfare and safeguarding children. Her work includes delivering training, presenting at conferences, and engaging in collaborative projects with schools around child abuse awareness and sexual violence prevention. She enjoys writing blogs and poetry on topics she feels passionate about. Judith loves running, gym classes and karate. She is married to an art lecturer and they live in Northamptonshire, England with their three free-spirited children, a 12- year-old son, and daughters aged 11 and 9.