Haley Never Cut On Wednesdays

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©