with Robert

Nobody was at home
I was very, very hungry
I became very quiet
I was an angry, quiet kid

The pound is a concrete cell
I used to think, I’m here forever
I was frightened, really frightened
I became a little puppet

I’ve been sober eighteen years
I’ve been clean twelve years
From that, I get a life
I’m part of the universe now

Voices with no home: poems mined by Rachel McAlpine from the pages of Te Ha Tangata: the breath of the people, a human library on homelessness. Editor Elspeth Tilley, published 2018 in Aotearoa New Zealand by Te Puaroha Compassion Soup Kitchen and Massey University School of English & Media Studies.

Photograph Dan Dickinson cc by 2.0