My Hometown by Elsa Kallio

My hometown is messy, confusing and people there are characters rather than actual humans on this earth.

There is a man who looks like an elf, who tried to kidnap a woman once, now everyone has seen him and everyone has pepperspray in their tight grab at nights. 

In my town, there wonders a man with rubber boots and smelly clothes,
clothes that smell like pee and cigarettes.
I haven’t got the courage to speak to him
to see him
and the thought of him
silently dying
and no one caring
is too much to bare.

There is darkness and light where I live.

There are people who are best friends with substances.
Who sit at the terrace of the bar when I go to school in the morning.

There are alcoholics in a building on my street

who are so far gone
that a nurse keeps their smoke
in their mouth at night.

There is a church that’s too big for our town

In my town
there used to be a woman
who would talk to girls
and warn them 

about life

about people

and what they could do to you.

She once peed on the floor

A woman mopped the pee and she went away.
In a year after that she was gone.
I used to see her everywhere but then,
she was just gone

Photograph by Jonas Hoss