I feel like an outsider.
In my own skin
As if I tugged it on over my organs this morning
Fresh and new.
I don’t recognise the face?
It is peaceful and calm
But there are parts that are not mine,
The nose perhaps.
Perhaps I will own the nose
But the rest cannot be mine.
I look at the wrinkled hands
They should be red from years of washing up
The water was always too hot
Red from detergent overuse
Flaky from hanging out wet washing
Yet they look pale and unyielding
The hands I decry as not mine.
The legs, more stumpy,
not long and elegant as I remember.
The toenails,
a variety of yellow and greens,
browns and grey.
Those are not the colours of a rainbow
the colour of toes worn down
years of shoes that never fitted,
shoes that were damp and fusty.
Before trainers were de rigueur.
I want to look at my breasts
They are covered by the dress
but I can see they are sagging
down and to the side.
These flaps of skin that once affronted me,
both literally and in metaphor,
they were so often in the way when I was young,
These saggy heaps of flesh are not mine.
I wonder at my ability to look so calm.
People mill around.
They are looking at me,
but not really seeing me.
I can hear them talking.
they are all talking about me.
Nice words.
None of it is about how I look.
I wonder what crazed event this is.
Is it a dream?
A place where everyone talks of how much they like you.
This is definitely not the internet.
Then someone hands me a program
I look carefully at the words.
‘Oh, I see,’
I say loudly but no one hears.
This is my funeral.
A Tuesday Latte 