Poem: Hide and Seek

impr0v

Hide and Seek

Little sister has been hiding,
Her pale face with shy smiles.
Siblings complain about back-at-home boredom,
They bring her big city presents, give her ‘goodbye’s.
Little sister is the kindest of five.

Little sister under mammy’s wing,
On mammy’s knee, shouting at mammy, cursing,
Drinking gin neat at fourteen and feeling nothing.
Little sister is up too late for breakfast,
At the gate she can’t be found in her uniform.

Little sister hides cries for help in stories of bad dreams,
They promise to find her for 120 an hour.
She fills their notebook with jagged writing,
Fear in the loops of capital ‘I’s and
Traces of ripped out pages in between.

Little sister has no dad,
She spends his lunch money on cigarettes.
Boys initialled in tippex’ed relief on her bag,
At the end of vowel-less text messages,
She can relate, just not to him.

Little sister can’t hide for long in a small house,
The smell of despair travels,
Little sister with a stomach full of mirror shards,
Heaving.
Little sister’s on holiday, mammy tells her friends.

BEAT

hmmm, very interesting really. I see what the unspoken references are...

thanks for posting...show us some more when you can