Ruined

You search my open belly

And I can do nothing but let you roam.

With every billow of dust rising,

I am reminded of myself,

The pieces of me.

I feel the sole of your soul

And the imprint it leaves on mine:

A rigid ridged fossil that will sit

Until it is disturbed by another,

Skittered across by the tiniest tread

Or lifted in its particles by the wind.

*

Magazines flap as you snap.

I hate the white teeth and perma-grin of celebrity.

Spiders watch you beadily from the corners,

A clock stares from the mantelpiece.

Do you feel them watching you?

*

I don't like you here in my heart.

You are here to use me.

Once, when glass shone,

You would have approached me with more deference.

You would have halted, paused.

I would have gazed out at you, my mouth closed

And you would have scanned me and been curious.

But you would not have dared enter

As you have today.

With rust comes the revelation

That I can be explored;

With my cracks and hollows bared,

A glimpse can be caught,

Like a glory hole of kitsch decor,

Drawing you in

To find the vestiges of the past.

I am disgusting in my dilapidation

And I crave the touch of a light brush

To tickle my ribs

And stain me back to life.

I'll creak with warmth,

And the polish of housekeeping

Will provide the gloss to allow

Someone new to slip inside me

And possess me again and I will want them to.

I would love them to.

Fingertips will trail on my skin once more.

*

I long for boards covered in colour;

I long for heavy drapes to cloak my shattered eyes;

I long for the scent of food and farts and family

To percolate within my middle

And for lights to soften my solidity

Into the comfort of home.

Mice will flee with fleas and activity;

Only brave arachnids will madly dash.

Dust will be dusted away.

Brightness will festoon my quiet corners

And the thud of life will beat in my core once more.

I am nothing without people,

Nothing.

Just a stone cold shell.

Possess me again, will you?

Stay a little longer?

*

You won't, I know.

You're just an interloper,

A ranker of ruins, an explorer of architecture abandoned.

You are a voyeur, come to probe and record

And you will leave again,

Scarring me further with the tattoo of your footprint

And the lingering steam of your breath

Will tease me

And I will languish, sinking, eroding,

Slowly in, slowly into the silence of my stillness,

Remembering what I was

And how I am now seen to be:

A boil, marring the landscape;

A retreat for subversive and curious teens with cans,

"The Home for Small Creatures".

*

I long for life but how do I bring it to me?

I am static.

*

This is my undoing.

I attract Time's cruel gaze

Unable to run.

And Time passes and Time etches

Upon my immobile form

Like a cruel carver

And when it's done

Time will leave me

And what is left,

And I will be

Ruined.