My eyes are man holes, avoided
like the beggar by the corner shop
in need of change. He is ignored, I am
just as cold, with my three coats and even more layers
under this wrapping paper skin. I am unused teeth
and like an abandonned stomach something clatters
inside, glaring at passers by,
wanting to be loud, wanting to be seen.

These homeless hands do not work well
anymore, they touch last-years skin like a solitary sigh
with stories to tell, of a heart with no more stapled on love to spare,
just hooks and dirty laundry under blankets and a blue bicycle
a boy gave me in March, so I’m packing my things
and peddling down those streets the police warn us to avoid.
The wheel spin to the sound of ‘I do not want to go home’ because really
home is a evening infront of a fireplace
with too many smiles and roast chicken dinners,
I do not know if my heart is there anymore.

My clothes are expanding and I cannot figure out why,
this is not as planned, this half-hung thought and click of tongues
almost a tut but not quiet. I am just a battery, uncharged
and flashlights are never as bright as when they once were
but heaters help a little. I lean over sinks,
eyes are dragged towards the mirror where a girl with bags and Goosebumps
enough to smother, supports weight on wrists as if something inside
has gone unconscious.

Sometimes, I am afraid to write the truth in poetry, to say that really
in that mirror, I saw something behind the rice-cake bones,
and the handle bar clavicles
disengage.