Hope Resurfaces For the Girl at Greggs

I saw your forearm as you got my sausage roll

from the hot counter and placed it in a brown bag.

The long line of cuts from your wrist to your elbow

a message, a plea, a cry for help, a hashtag

to the like-minded of life blighted by self-harm.

I would never have known from your warm smile, charming

service that you suffered any mental anguish

of some kind. Yet there they were; neither new nor old

scars, but that bright red in between-ness where you wish

they didn’t itch so much and the relief of cold

water felt like the slow resurfacing of hope

to bring you back to life, to manage, to cope.