Clothes are stacked
in my room, as usual.

I watch them build for years
Then pull apart my teeth
like seams
Peel the Sellotape seal
from my lips,
Un-knit my tongue, explain,
Unfold pressed pain
Tug on hems, snagging
the arrogant cloth’s cross-stitch
Un-buckle my belt,
reveal the stomach-soft flesh curtailed,
embedded with stars.
Pull a needle through hems,
Force them loose
Crinkling the fabric in foiled faces, button-words pop
In ‘O’s’
from the blouse draped curtain of my mouth.

Until I’m hurled
Split material dispersed
with negligence
on a bedroom floor
They come in, turn-take picking me up, sewing me back
But I’m botched,
the colours don’t match.
Stitching askew, textile stained
No resemblance of how I was dressed in the first place.