There's A Man Poem by mestup poems

At the side of the street
There’s a man using the curb
As a balance beam
Walking in straight lines
Going nowhere

If you watch carefully
He’s dropping minute crumbs
As he goes, little pieces of himself
This broken man
Unfixable inside

He decided long ago
After crashing down
That something was terribly
Wrong with him
A feeling he was missing
Some essential quality
Something that made him worthwhile

If you look closely
His hands are smaller now
Shrinking as friends
And lovers leave him
Snapping off his fingers like twigs
Taking their share of him
As if he were owed to them

Still he walks along the streets
His arms held out for stability
Becoming less and less each day
Smiling as best he can
Because he doesn’t know
How to be anyone else