Messages Lost

1

As the world slides by on old steel rails.
And your seat reminds you it’s too hard.
And thoughts wander, breathing slows.
Everything is fine.

But it’s broken.
A deafened sound.
Emotions and frustrations.

Bursting, breaking, bolting in all directions.
Unprovoked.
Unexpected.
Nearby.

Unwelcome.

Words mashed as one.
Protesting innocence and injustice to her smashed phone as if it cares.
The boiling emotion for all to experience without choice.
One anger coalesced from many.

Heneverdidit!
Wasnhisfault!
Binevicted!!

N thekids!

I’llpayemallback.

You can’t shut it out:
This noise.
You listen anyway and compare your life.
Judging and unmoved.

It’s probably her fault.

Mams preggo!
Agin
Arghh…
 

2

Time slows to a crawl
Like the train.

She’s lurching around.
Coming toward you.
Eyes down, read furiously, read anything.
 

Beside you she awkwardly stumbles and trips.

An elbow solidly glances your ear as she falls.

It’s was only a matter of time.
Spectacular – somehow.
Torn Aldi bag contents scattered.

Scratchie cards and cigarettes
Empty Woodstock’s, a bracelet - dress jewellery.
A black G string plus a lighter,
Sad things.

The slow train slows more.
Stops.

On her knees gathering the sad things.
Her boney shoulder exposed.
A blurred purple snake’s head looks at you.
Stupidly you feel caught and look away.
And imagine her world of dodgy friends,
Pay day loans.
Then understanding; her struggles briefly sated by these sad things.

 

3

7 am.

A text – be there.

Some casual work blows in.
Arriving slightly late in clothes shabby and torn.
Drink on her breath.
Her story etched on her prematurely old face.
But the rebellious days are past her.
No energy for that now.

You sit there, in a comfortable middle-class life.
Maybe you are wrong?
Judging again.
Thinking…

You feel above it.
With your own (good) alcohol and desperation.
And your children, the strangers in your house.

She stands up and looks around aggressively at the world and then at you.

This time you don’t turn away and you see more.

Her eyes so tired they don’t want to see or be seen.
They lost their childlike wonder even before school.
The skinny frame beneath the clothes shouts the drama.

It all shouts ‘There goes any one of us’...

That message always last and lost.

                Its hidden by the Sad Things.