twenty four and a half

it’s wine in the fridge and empty cupboards and stomachs

dead flowers in the vase

you can never go back!

nothing fits the same

it’s permanently the last week of august, everything is ending yet beginning and you must be ready for it

none of it will matter in the long run

your future depends on it

you’re in the back of a cab in the middle of the night

head out of the window as you cross the bridge

it’s the last time you’ll make the trip under the circumstances

the air will always smell the same

he will follow you

one, two, three clementines for dinner

the peel stays in your room for a week

they keep the spiders away

the wine is empty and you use the bottle for fresh flowers but the dead ones are still in the vase

let’s go out tonight

new city, old friends

your skirt and her top, her bag and your shoes

transferring from your savings again

he’ll notice you but you’ll pretend not to see him

and you’ll feign indifference when he asks you to come over

you’ll go anyway

look into his eyes and try to find the reason you came

he’ll look into yours so he can come

stare at the poster on the wall until it’s time to leave

the streets the next morning are cold and the reception colder still

there’s a couple in the park lost in each other before the suns had a chance to settle in to the sky

you start to yearn, undyingly

that’s all you do these days

a mother with a child, two friends laughing

they accost you on your way home

there’s no breakfast on the table

you spill the details as she eats at your words

she’s been hungry all night

cupboards and stomachs still empty

you buy another bottle of wine for the fridge

Comments

to the daughters of builders who drive white vans

on the 6am train the men smell like my father; red bull, cigarettes, dried cement - they wake up like my father i feel safe in this carriage, these men are my father, any man with a van and one arm out the window, sunburnt from the elbow down - the infamous builder’s tan - seats so dusty i can’t breathe and i have lungs like my father, full of second-hand smoke and concrete, a touch of asbestos, i should weep for my father but my pockets are healthy i am told by my father whose hands shake as he brings another beer to his lips at 10am on a saturday morning, this is coping for my father these men cope - cope like my father - with the asbestos lungs, uneven tans, shaking hands, muscles in constant pain, water on the brain, the ever encroaching grasp of old age; with substances up the nose they unwind like my father this kind of masculinity doesn’t last forever, you know...

i can only write when i am thinking about God

I can only write when I am thinking about God and sometimes God is God and he loves me, most of the time he does not the hand that feeds me overpowered by teeth that bite he visits me at night like a shark smells blood he smells lust, guilt, and greed brought to my knees, voice hushed he picks apart my greed and my lust promising to forgive, to forget he will make me repent and regret, any pain or pleasure at his expense provided in selfless restoration a gift of his affections exchanged for endless loyalty God is not always God, sometimes he is my lover he tells me he loves me, most of the time he does not I can only write when I am thinking about God

crisis of faith

and when i meet god i will ask him why he punished me on earth by denying me the pleasure of being known by anyone other than him intentionally, innately, irrevocably known in a way i could have remained silent forever whilst always being heard i will ask him why the world kept spinning as i screamed and spiralled into the sins he’d laid out for me for me to fumble in my guilt on my knees, raw from repentance and retribution who is to beg for forgiveness now? and i will apologise to my mother for carrying her burdens in my womb it was her first time too, on earth longing for something she’d never known please tell me i did it right, that i made you proud please tell me i lived how you wanted me to give birth to me again and i’ll try harder would it heal you to see me leave, or would it hurt because you never did will i see your face one day in the mirror and touch it to feel your skin and i will ask you if you could not love...

my love

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