Today I will wrap a horse hair blanket around me

and let it sting that patch of constant weeping eczema

whilst I find a way to tie myself in knots

and put my soul at risk;

it is never hard to find a way to hurt yourself,

it saves time letting others do it for you.

 

I will sit either in my leather chair, as cracked and damaged as I

or I will find a way to make the third stair

as uncomfortable as possible, make it creak

like my spine, make it rasp against my skin;

it is the pain that makes the mind forget

how invisible you are.

 

Today I found myself closed off, a one way street

in need of repair because the sink hole

had widened, it was dragging me down

and I clutch against the sides, scrambling at dirt;

I don’t know how I ended up here

yet I always seem to lose my footing.

 

I am holding onto the point with a few fingers intact

as the man above hits me with a shovel,

“Dig your own grave boy whilst I smoke a Cuban”

I await the use of the heel smashing down and falling down into the wreck;

no hands, no safety net, no sense of purpose, in the end

my life leans out of synch and throttles me.

 

I am invisible, the cursed spot, the eczema on the skin, the pus in the deepest vein, blighted by their words, Sylvia Plath’s oven is on and roaring in anger at the diet that has been imposed upon me; it is easy to become lost, it takes real skill to become

Unseen.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016