Haley never cut on wednesdays
To see the inside outside
All screaming bloody murder in a streak
down her thigh, rimming her socks
“issues! the girls got issues man”, a statement
meant for the grip of a seagulls beaks
over the city dump near a Thamesmead estuary
She let the river run the rest of the week
she dragged the children’s home for
broken glass and compass points,
discarded bits of metal car parts, barbed wire
Haley, patterned kente and celtic cumulus cloud
in her daydreamed skies
Anything to pretty up the walls
of the St Augustines care home for girls
waiting for the next fostering
brown girl out of a catalogue
cheap as an Argos sovereign
Wanted for the money, not wanted for the money
She raided the stationary cabinet for something to do
her heart was honeycombed like
Each hole a puncture in the photo
She brutally hole punched faces first
her brothers eyes as empty as in his mug shots
then necks, let it out
let the scream out through that black hole
White washed into stats and perforated facts about her
Mixed heritage and marked middle ground
Nothing is sacred in St Augustines
Just logged but nothing’s regulated except lights out
Written by Zena Edwards©
