pocket stones again

my pockets are all full of stones

catch on fingers fumbling round

fragments broken from age-old cliffs

pebbled weights that hold me down

sometimes I spread them out on the ground

stones like stars brought out to shine

stand there looking for joining lines

a thread to stitch some meaning in

my pockets are all full of stones

the only people I’ve ever known

all these people have been wearing my name

there’s more of us in here than I can count

there’s a fork in my tongue, a great crossroads

there’s barbed wire stuffed inside our mouth

there’s photos and scars but they’re waterproof

all surface and nothing left behind

I’m not sure what they’d have said back then

like a taste that’s hard to identify

swirl it in my mouth like an ageing wine

til all I’ve got is the urge to swallow it down.

I’ve shed my skin, I’ve bled them out

I’ve been slowly replacing all of my cells

I don’t know them and they don’t know me

and yet they’re all I’ve ever been

I thought I’d turned my back on you

I’ve been red-orange-yellow-green-two-toned-blue

I thought I’d made myself anew

but there’s traces stuck like hardened glue

running between my muscles and bones

and I don’t know if I should shake them loose

or if they’re what’s been holding me through

my pockets are all full of stones

pebbled weights that hold me down

I stand there looking for joining lines

but my thread is bare and I cannot sew