Nowhere to Go – Koestler award winning poem written by a Clean Sheet Member It’s not time to find a sleeping place yet. The food shoplifted from the supermarket is in my bag, as is the paperback I found. I’ve washed up in the mall restroom, enduring disapproving looks of shoppers. I’m now in the park, on a bench, my bike and I sit motionless, waiting. The afternoon turns into evening, everybody is rushing somewhere: home, to visit friends, a night out. I am restless but not in a rush. I am 17, kicked out or runaway? Either way, it means homeless. When it’s very dark, I can sneak into a warehouse with a loose backdoor to sleep on a mouldy carpet. Or I can walk out of town to the horse-barn with its hay loft. But for now I wait nowhere to go. I am 25, sitting in my clapped out van, parked along the ocean cliffs. A couple of cans of beans and a gas stove to cook them on. Landlord kicked me out of the apartment I shared, he had every right, we were irresponsible. Now I don’t have the deposit for a new place to stay. I take extra hours at my job, washing up in the bathroom at work. My next shift starts in the morning. I kill time at friends’ houses. Just dropping by to say ‘hi’. Their faces look pained when I visit, they don’t want my troubles to stay so I don’t bother. My portable radio runs on batteries, filling the silence of the van. It’s cold. My sleeping bag will be unfurled soon. But for now I wait nowhere to go. Friday evening. It’s been a long hard week. I’m in my new car in the office parking lot. My tie is loosened, suit jacket folded on the passenger seat I am 45. Before I put the key in the ignition I think of where I’m going. It is many hours’ drive to the house I own, but there is no one there except the ghost of my wife, recently passed away. An empty space. My friends are nervous around the ache I try to hide. Their faces look pained when I visit they don’t want my troubles to stay so I don’t bother. I take the key out of the ignition and search my mind for a destination. Nothing. I wait nowhere to go. To learn more about Koestler Arts, click here Email: info@cleansheet.org.uk
Nowhere to Go
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