for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to ****

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux ****
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
***** girl,
Thumb stump.

i am alone
totally and completely
it wasn't like this before

i had so much attention recently
slowly i was trying to pull away
i was crumbling under all of it

i'm not used to people seeing me
i'm the invisible one
i'm the one no one pays attention to

i cut off my hair thinking it was time for a change
the only thing i feel is more vulnerable
i don't have my shield anymore

so here i am, alone,
waiting for somebody to save me
when all i do is push people away

I am still looking up
Still looking up
For you

When I was little I was afraid of the dark.
Who knew what was creeping around in the shadows.
But now that I'm older I am not afraid.
Because the darkness took me in
When I was alone