Although the bright sun touches my skin
and the tiny paper flowers are shivering
all around me, all over the world -
my insides feel like twisted up industrial materials,
and when they are removed I will be empty.
I cannot express myself
My mind is dull from junk food
and lack of education
I am a shit-kicker filled up
with industrial waste.
I am missing out on something
but I don't know what else there is.
A feeling I can't shake - even if I won lotto.
Could money make a difference to the life I've had?
My mouth watering for paper and coloured paints,
I paint my portrait with blood and sweat.
My starvation for music and books - and
my far off dreams of travel are over
Life means nothing to me.
When you feel your tired bones
being ground down into chalk.
When you know it's not your body
that is dying but your heart.
Something told me
I should be dead already,
but I insisted on surviving -
crying in broad daylight where you could see me.
Sometimes you came to my aid begrudgingly
At other times you thought it best to ignore me
Harden up or you won't last (you hoped, you said).
But she didn't die -
she just kept crying out the poverty
of a third world child on TV.
I stuck around as an embarrassment to your society
Just to give their consciences a little tug, now and then.
The worst thing
is when you can't
feed your dogs,
or do your art.
Thank god, I have no children.
There was an add for the salvos
where a worn out mother looked down
at her kids going hungry at the dinner table.
You could tell they had been poor for a long time,
but its harder around christmas.
Anyway, she couldn't feed her kids
with big eyes and pale grey faces sunken in.
They were bone-thin, pyjama dressed, and<
br>in some ways they looked as old as her -
that mother who looked straight into the camera.
Her face had so much misery in it
that it cracked like a mirror
shattered onto the lino.
Thank god I am childless -
my dogs will forgive me.
Charity begins at home -
for those that live in one.
Text & Photos (C) 2002 Coral Hull
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