I'm outside in groups & inside out groups

I'm a round peg in a square pigeonhole,

Bo-peep's lost sheep dressed in wolf's rigmarole,

I'm in the 'cap fits but face doesn't' group.


My roles are more like swaddling garments,

Restrictions drawn tight as neighbours' curtains,

The outskirt lurk, site shirk, face dirt, migrant.

I am on the outside of every group


Keeping to the edge of the playground chat,

Snubbed at P.T.A. social functioning,

The mother, unlike the other one's mums

Not married, not even separating.


Without blue blood or plum stained dialect,

The eternal stranger, known many years,

A tight-lipped keeper of wounding secrets.

Or a quiet nobody, drying tears.


Working in marble-less mad people groups,

The isolate you, stigmatise you groups.

These are out of touch, hatter tea party

Very un-birthday, pass the tissue, groups.


Let's get arty with blades on our wrist groups

Hide sharp knives in a locker, sort of group

Not on our doorstep, medicated and

Dumped on by social services, type group.


Maintaining an ecstatic depression,

I'm mediocre not spectacular,

Trying to write despite dyslexia,

Seriously painting, just for pleasure.


Scapegoat, Billy (no mates) goat, black sheep goat

Charging coin for the best things in life goat,

A trip trap, trip trap, who's that, Billy goat,

My own gruff family's sacrificial goat


Catholic church, where the 'we all lapse' stoop

It's a beg for forgiveness, bended knee,

Look at nativity, bells and smells group,

Quick mistakes, repented at leisure group.


Bread and wine warmness lingers like sin group

Cleansing the palate till the next judgment

Of this counterfeit group humanity,

Where I belong nowhere especially.

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