100 Doses of Powder

The little girl holds her daddy’s hand.
She wears a black and white check dress.
They are going out for dinner.

I ate my way out of the purple dress.
And I didn’t have a daddy who held my hand and took me out for dinner.

We did not break bread.
I fill the hunger left behind with a hundred doses of powder.
Funny how I can stomach the swirl of powder but the spin cycle on the washing machine scares me. Leaves me spinning in confusion. Befuddled and lost.

I am no Dorothy.

My shoes turn red with blood. Not fancy plans.

The sun has come.
The boat with holes floats into the middle of the water.
I ask the man with no teeth why it is there.
He tells me the tide is strong even though there is no wind.
We smile at each other. He says be lucky. I say you too.
He shouts out wanker.
Not at me.
I guess you can’t trust words once you lose them.
Once conversations are only kept at the bottom of a Lidl bag. Exchanged with passers-by. Like receipt slips rotting under dog shit and fag ends. Evidence of that thing you really wanted but now forget.

The church is closed on Saturdays.
The thick door keeps me out.
I would like to put holy water on my neck.
I would like to look at his feet and watch the candles.
Red and blue.

I clutch my box of cereal and walk in circles.
It’s not so bad.
Just a day.
Just another year.
It will go.
And at any time I can reach in my bag

and and and

We all know what.

I walk until the blood seeps through the second layer of padding in my shoes.

I eat a bowl of cereal and my heart races.
I don’t believe I will ever stop eating.
I will never find a dinner that fills me up.

Of course it’s not in a box or a can or a supermarket.
It’s in a big, warm hand and a neatly ironed dress.
A dress they gave you because they thought you were pretty.
Not because it was the only thing left.

I lie on the floor and listen to the little girl and her daddy chitter-chatter.
I try to feel.
Like the little girl can give me her seven and I will forget mine.
It does not work.
They drive away in the shiny black car.
I roll up on the carpet.
Waiting for the sun to fall and hide the holes yawning in my teeth.