TFE'S Pocket poem prompt

This week, after lots of false starts, I decided to have a bit of fun with TFE's Pocket poetry prompt (www.totalfeckineejit.blogspot.com)
and not take it too seriously.


The thief of self-belief

Yesterday there was a poem
in my pocket. By lunchtime
it was gone. Instead all I found
when I reached in my hand
was a tiny, wizened man.

He stood on my palm,
chest pushed out,
eyes darting greedily round.
‘I am the Thief of Self belief,’
he said. Seconds later he’d gone.

I hunted him out of the bedroom
where he’d built an effigy
from my red suede shoes
and my green silk dress,
with a yellow balloon for a head.


‘I am the Thief of Self-Belief’
he cried, sweeping across my desk,
smashing my cursor key,
shredding my poems like confetti
all down the stairs.

I tracked him down in the garden
where he’d started
to dig up my bulbs.
‘I’m the the thief of Self Belief’
he yelled, laying waste to a bed.

So I fled back inside and as fast
as I could gathered up the words,
words that littered the stairs,
the floors - I even found
some in my hair.

Then I stuck them all
back together and crept outside with the page. But I am the thief
of self belief he hissed
as I dropped the poem on his head.