I’m not quite sure

when it was I disappeared

the precise moment, minute, hour

I only know that one day

it happened

I ceased to exist

to count,

to matter,

to be.

 

Nobody told me so,

the milkman still knocked,

neighbours still smiled,

kettles still boiled,

and children still cried,

but somewhere, somehow

someone flicked a switch

and rubbed me out

from flesh, to ash, to nothing,

this graphite emptied page

of scratchings blown away.

Gone the feet that minded well the gap,

gone the grip that firmly shook Director’s hands

gone the brain that stormed complexity of task

and in its place this nothing, this nobody,

automated moron with no guarantee

to please, achieve or satisfy,

faulty to the core, what’s more

a non-returnable product,

unfit for purpose

and shite marked INCAPABLE

of washing, ironing,

stacking of dishwasher

(to required standards),

of choosing cup, curtain or cushion,

in short, incapable.

Access denied to automated moron,

drawers out of bounds,

financial affairs out of bounds,

all areas deemed responsible.

out of bounds.

 

I remember well

the point of re-entry,

it started with the eyes

energised, transporting back to life

the brain and then the feet

and last of all the tongue,

from stifled, to unrestrained, to me

Lazarus reborn but angry

that he should have to die

to prove some point...

Now it’s all just memories,

inconceivable memories,

fuzzy round the edges

stuffed in dusty albums,

dragged out

by poems,

other people’s poems.