I have your smile

when I look in the mirror I see you

I have your laugh

So when I chuckle I hear you

I have your humour

when I’m sharing jokes I owe it to you

Billy chased me round the playground
with hands full of fists

Billy yelled at me across the football pitch
with a mouth full of stings.

When Harry went away
he stole a part of Mum.
No-one warned us. 
No-one said.
We looked and looked for ages – 

It's New Year, 1979, at Funderland in the RDS in Dublin. 
In the cold calculation of the January air, a young girl tries to talk 

The building is white,
ivy eating its way up the broken walls,
windows small
and scratched.

The walls of the room are white and clean -
all sign's of yesterdays sorrows scrubbed
away with bleach.

I am angry. really angry. angry,
angry, angry. I'm so angry
I'll jump up and down. I roll on the ground
Make a din. Make you spin
Pull out my hair. Throw you in the air

I like to stay up
and listen
when big people talking
jumbie stories

I does feel
so tingly and excited
inside me

Once everything was big
and you were small,
but year after year your shadow 
crept up the wall 
and you grew tall.

Nobody can see my name on me.
My name is inside
and all over me, unseen
like other people also keep it.
Isn't my name magical?