There are few things comparable
to how remarkable it is to see
and understand
the way in which a closed fist
can become a held hand.

I wear her disapproval
on the worn-out sleeves
of a warned-about dress
and look smaller in it than anything else.
It makes me more of a mess
than I was already, it's lack of fit
will always outdo how well
I can fit into anything else
I could ever possess.

Not sure how this one will go down but I put together the most frequently used words of late on HP and saw a definite trend so devised this:*

Leaving behind another year, a tired taste
of floating mistakes, of public raging gates,
violence exposed, awful gifts to mend a liar,
backwards hugs to choke at the level of desire.

Radio decay, nuclear energy nightmares tick
and bloom into panic and the safe feel the mental sick
until pills pass from pocket to palm
and they won't cure the nation's ills
but they caress the curse until there is calm.

The cares of the chosen ones- a company
that sees the fruits of some labour and wears a grin.
In their shirt and their tie, chosen to witness
those who laboured suffer and die, but they teach
not to notice, just follow a look to your watch with a spin-

that watch, would they give it up for a real change?
Or would they keep choosing to stay blind
in a prison of pretending, and still exchange
for the price of innocent faces wearing a scar
a piece of art just for hanging, or perhaps a new car?

Left Brain

I am not a scientific test or analysis, a mathematician
or an algorithm. I am not a linear graph or a statistician.
I am the reason that you can colour inside the lines,
why you don't fall off your bicycle anymore and never forgot
how to ride it. I am the force behind your smiles-
eighteen different smiles. The reason you can hold a book
or ball and learn what to do when it's in your hands.
I take credit when you remember the name of your childhood
babysitter. Thanks to me, you can play with jigsaw puzzles
or cards or checkers or dominoes. And thank me too
for your vocabulary. You don't necessarily remember
just how it is you came to remember sequences like getting dressed
or driving, decoding or analysing. I am the reason
you can probably look at someone and learn their name.
I suppose you could complain about how I dictate your days.
How you get up, go to sleep, lend you the seconds and minutes
and hours and months and years. I am the one who taught you
time. I'm also there for you to know that it runs out.

Right side**

I am no dancer or artist made for television. Instead,
I'm the vibration you feel in the tips of your fingers
when  you make a toast and ***** your wineglasses.
Those eighteen smiles you can smile? I gave you the gift
of being able to count your crayons while you are smiling.
But it's more than box sets of crayons and toasts.
I am the reason you want to be. Everything you yearn for-
every penny you ever tossed into a fountain, every star
you have wished on, and every eyelash. I am the reason
why you prefer wearing blue to green, and why you may
fill a blank page with words for what you want, how you feel.
I am the excitement that waits for you at Christmas
or reunions. When you saw the sky full of stars, felt snow
or went in the sea for the first time, I gave you that gasp.
I am your eyes on the world. Blame me for your wanderlust.
I am not time. I am how you know sometimes
that there is no way you'll ever have enough of it.

Y.

That perfect letter.
Wishbone.
Fork in the road.
Emptied glass awaiting a refill.
If you look close enough, tiny prints of sparrows in sand.
The half of the chromosome couple half of us don't have.
A question we ask, again and again.
Second to last- almost there- in the alphabet.

Coupled with a L, and you can describe
the way in which what is done is done.

Modest X. Kiss kiss. Legs closed.
Y or N? Yes, of course.

It's a peace sign,
upside down.

Y- a Greek letter- joined the Latin alphabet after
the Romans conquered Greece
in the first of all centuries we've counted by their numerals.

Y is a double agent- a vowel, a consonant,
or both?

Before Y was given to us, we couldn't talk of someone smiling happily
or know to help someone in need quite desperately.

Before Y we couldn't ask for the answers we wanted.
I don't think we could have been happy.

I.
Last night I lost my voice, somewhere on the streets
of central London, sunk in winter, and I wonder where it was
my frostbitten words dropped right out of my throat.

II.
My vocal chords feel torn. My voice box is raw
and all worn out and when I speak it sounds as though
I was screaming all night.
My chest is tight.

III.
Everyday I realise she's not here and every day
I forget, so as far into the future as I can see
it will be repeatedly realised, like it's today's news,
that my cousin has died and that I'm not meant to be here
to even be hearing the news because it should have been me.

IV.
Fate played the cruellest trick, the most unjust card
in the pack and dealt it, when it took Ella
instead of the one who had tempted it.

V.
The End isn't anything like I could have imagined.
It's clean as a broken mirror.

VI.
Rest in peace.
Rest in pieces.
Reflection
in fractured glass
cut in half.
Splitting image.

VII.
Number seven for the years of bad luck.
Superstitions, suspicions of guilt, make for a curse.
Morning comes like hell with a garbage truck.
I miss my cousin, who left for heaven in a hearse.

Don't look at me.
When you look at me with a smile,
you must be mocking me,
silently.
Making fun. I'm a joke.
Look at me.
When you look at me, for awhile
I feel recognised,
not forgotten
and not just anyone, until I choke
on *Don't look at me.
When you look, your eyes flicker my way
you must be disgusted by me,
I'm an eyesore, an annoyance,
the space I take up, the words I say
an irritant, an inconvenience,
an offence
for just being there to see,
there to hear.
Everybody knows
A joke.
A joke.
This is how it goes
I choke.
I choke.
Look at me.
Since you woke
I've been right here
for you to notice.
Look at this.
It is fear
This fear
This is fear.