I fear there will be no time for natural beauty today,
Such as sitting outside with the sun on your back.

Today I am expected to stay inside my bedroom
With little natural lighting,
And compose letters to long lost friends
While my family play endless games of Monopoly in the living room.
Mother said that this is what I am supposed to do;
I am supposed to allow my innermost emotions and desires to
Be scrutinised by others.
She says that this is what makes the world more open
In my head I argue that she is wrong
But wrong answers are non-existent to some.

Abba, Father, where art thou hiding today?
It seems as if you left a lifetime ago.
I expect you didn’t intentionally leave me here
With cold air and the tendency to overeat in solitude
And unfulfilled promises to myself ringing in my ears.
Perhaps I have simply lost the ability to fly
And instead remain grounded in order to write
Lines of poetry
On spare scraps of paper and napkins.

Pictures of plastic dolls dressed in wedding lace
Remind me that I need to be able to fit into my own dress
In approximately fifteen point four years time.
Perhaps I should already be detoxing
On watermelon and sunflower seeds
With hope that dieting will make a difference.
Perhaps I should be writing my guest list now,
For it will need to be refined soon enough
Free of the family members who I never speak to, but
Who have the reputation for public drunken spectacles.

Instead I sleep, and am roused
By my sister’s deep guitar riffs and heavy metal music,
With the typical ‘I scream for you’ sounds
Shouting to me in a way that I have never heard before.