A Poem a Day (738): Pulling the chain

Pulling the chain
 
Spend four months kipping in hotels
because you don’t have a choice –
no job = no flat – and they’ll soon lose
their idyllic, romantic charm.
 
In the capital you’ll hemorrhage cash,
so choose the cheapest chain,
the buildings you think are the safest.
Can you fork out £100 a night?
 
Down the leafy high street you collide
with a ragged man begging, a girl huddled
in wet cardboard, and you feel sick
at throwing so much money away,
 
wonder when it’s going to run out,
how long til you’re on the same road,
asking for money from everyone you meet,
the cold searing through your veins.
 
In the end the chain just looks the same,
purely functional: a bed, a shower, a desk
and a chair. But it’s a roof over your head,
with your suitcase of your life.
 
You miss the books you want to reread.
You miss the music you used to play.
You miss the festival boots, band T-shirts,
hippy shake skirts – your unique you.
 
Paint-splattered posters, quirky postcards,
personality for your wall, body and soul –
the things you wrote, the things you drew,
the wishes that meant something true.
 
People say objects don’t make you happy,
that striving for them is superficial,
but you spend a lifetime working for them,
to create a comfy world for yourself.
 
In a hotel, you feel anonymous, an actor,
a wanderer adrift in frames devoid of
your expression, each one a carbon copy.
It’s only the angle that changes.
 
Sometimes a stranger disturbs your space,
enters uninvited, thinking the right belongs
to them, as if you’re a pet, an object.
A scarlet heart in this too-white box.
 
People come and go. So does this pursuit of things.
Not for greed or want, but to feel at home.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, October 20, 2025