Refugees

This is no small thing
to hold the shaking cup while others pour the tea
and the eyes are everywhere except on you.
There is no wishing you were somewhere else
you were always for this time,
always the waiting to be touched by rough cold hands
and such minds;
such minds as these could easily make you bleed.
There is bruising in this territory
but mostly it is the heart that feels distressed,
”why me?”

There is no precedent for this disease
everyone is kind
at such times that do not impinge on individual liberty.
Desperate for the concerned look
you follow their progress as they disturb the peace.
Everything is flung rudely,
you are turned over but abuse is a strong word
and their time is precious and you are an element,
a sack of things to do;
that will be crossed off eventually.

Time is the cold enemy,
it presses you firm into high-back ancient chairs,
it provides dull company,
it murmurs of the somewhere better
and lets you out like a skein
at painfully slow degrees.
Consciousness is a dreary process of contact interrupted
your gaze is drawn to other strange grey faces
barely visible behind the grotesque masks that drugs induce,
and where is the relief?

It’s not where night draws you to itself
or in the malted drinks, luke warm and never quite sweet enough;
but in the visits
from that other world
where hell is just a noun of verbal abuse
and not a urine soaked reality;
where the faces are remembered for true normal kindness
and not costed for the expected paybacks.
It’s in warm family
where you are known
and acceptance is taken for granted:
“You don’t have to bring me anything,
just you and you loving me!”

The criminality of age,
such abuses would have a saner society screaming for retribution
or absolution.
There are a million faces tilting to a million cracked china cups,
a million dreaded twilights in a million dusty rooms
and the perfect aloneness of `homes`:
cold harbours for refugees.