Shopping for an Invisible

The whole thing is to make sure you’re ok.
They say that to the pretty girl.
The girl who had something to lose.
I linger in the chiropody clinic.
The waiting room with no windows.
OK isn’t even a five.
Nothing creeps up that far.
Five days to get through.
Two to ignore.

Everything spins but doesn’t dance.
My eyes get closer to the ground.
Outlined in black.
Lost in the middle.
Hazy like the sun I dodge every time I leave the house.

I am disappeared but nobody knows.
There was no existence to begin with.
I am a fabrication.
Adamant to forget who I might be.

In my dreams I visit the new shop.
It is full of doors and the escalator doesn’t work.
You have to walk on it like a treadmill and you can’t find the beans.

The doors lead out onto landings.
From one I can see the sea.
The door is oak.
It is old and bruised.

Beside the sea is a white cottage. Maybe for a fisherman.
I miss the sea.
I cannot go home and feel it.
Although home on the map is only 20 minutes away.
The peculiar place from where I came.
The place which made me but does not want me.

I go through many doors.
Up and down.
I expect the new shop to be shiny and efficient.
But the one I visit is confused.
Each door a thought.
Each landing a decision.
I get stuck in the shop I have never visited.
There are many people there but I pass them like a counter sliding off a ‘snakes and ladders’ board.
Like the little snakes in the pet shop window.
Shoe laces with no shoes. No legs to run away.

I look for faces.
Hands.
I am shopping for an invisible.

The whole thing is to make sure you’re OK.
I cannot imagine a place. A time. When those words will be given to me.