Skinless

I have no skin

My skin has abandoned me

I am now vulnerable, defenceless and fragile

–

It left me with my memory

With all the memories of my birth

And of the wound I received when I jumped over a fence to savage my prey

–

It stole my milk and the stream from which I drank

It was my memory, my native land

It engraved  my landscape on its jacket

–

It carried my nerve endings to the copper tables

I was left alone with my identity’s other face, with a stranger

Whom I spoke to of my projects

–

I tried to seduce her by explaining the benefits of my progress

It put on the leather I handed her

I am now more naked than ever before

–

Unable to fill the space between skin and leather

So I grew wider, overflowed into places

Places replete with unfulfilled promises

–

Places of the stranger within me who displaced my body

 Wrecked my home

Who toppled my kinship to the world.

Since I last saw you   Someone invented the mobile phone. Telegrams died. People started tweeting. Messages got shorter. our pockets no longer have coins and paper Just plastic, screens and codes   In our street the stones were stolen and replaced with concrete. The chestnut trees are gone.   The pubs we used to go to are car parks, luxury flats, office blocks. Imagine that.   No one sends letters any more so I couldn’t write to you even if I did know where you live.   Since you left everything is different, even me, even me though in my mind, you haven’t changed.   There’s a photo of you online, you forever