Modern, female poetry about adulthood and the masks we wear
Beer-soaked bellies tend to bash my chair
as they rumble past, making me jolt,
drink spilling, temper flaring.
Gazing at my caramel concoction,
a tooth-fairy blend of Coke
and sickly-sweet, candy-cane Malibu.
“I’d rather just have the Coke,” I say
And the whole room chuckles
because a spiritless double or gin-less tonic
is just crazy, apparently.
Driving around Florida was perhaps the happiest I’ve been.
This was back in June when responsibilities were low and expectations were high
when the orange-clad Disney-donning streets always led us to Chick-fil-a or Moe’s at the height of hunger
stomachs beaten by pangs, the allure of burrito bowls and buttery milkshake broths awaiting.
We stopped in at all the parks and scaled iron-fisted fortresses and dropped
down vicious clanging paths
took oodles of pictures for the ‘gram and drank pint after pint of poisonous soda
to ward off the southern sun, bleeding onto our skin…
while fabric Mickeys and Minnies gasped for air
through the winter-laced fibres of their bulbous heads
probably paid a pittance
to stand in the sun and boil like broccoli
skin wretched and pasty at the end of the day; ours firetruck-red.
We went to Medieval Times because you said I ought to get a taste
of American pastimes
there we watched horses charge up and down with stout little fellows on their backs
wielding sticks and swords
jousting like they might have done back in the day
while we hunkered down over a medieval meal
turkey leg, garlic bread, tomato soup and enough Coke refills
to disintegrate a steak, and rot my molars.
To myself,
I do not give you permission to message him.
No matter how twinkly Thursday night’s sky is or how uplifting Friday’s morning is, you’re not to reach out. You’re not to slide into his DMs with a flirty quip about how your peach is the same size and does he still live in Notting Hill or has he gone home home.
Are his family fine? You don’t care. Is he working? You don’t care. Has he cut his hair recently? YOU DON’T CARE. (Except if he has cut his hair, that makes him a tenth less attractive so let’s just imagine he has cut his hair and it went horribly wrong and he now looks like Phil Mitchell.)
When loneliness curses your name, yanks your hair, spits in your face, you still don’t have permission to reach for your phone. Oh but we had something special – oh but you didn’t. You had rough and tumble, frothy, hazy delights last summer where you travelled two hours to see him.
The current situation – you know, the one where you’re sat at home, wondering about boyfriends and getaways and how much you’d need to earn to afford one of those studio flats with the spiral staircase leading up to the bed – does not permit you to punch yourself in the face romantically. It doesn’t mean you need to start treading water after starting to swim again. It doesn’t mean you need to mow the lawn of introspection, not when things are just starting to grow.
Starve yourself of flirtation, make do without a flurry of grade A bullshit “if this is still a thing in March we should go on a bike ride in the countryside” messages and learn to live and love yourself and not the dreamboat, duvet-lipped figure of irrelevance.
You used to make me feel like I couldn’t dress myself
Like every piece of clothing lurking in my wardrobe
Wasn’t fit for purpose
You swatted away every pairing I attempted
Frustration etched across your face, thick like butter
And marinating your tone
‘Of course that doesn’t go with that’
‘Gosh you’re useless’
‘Let me do it for you’
Choice escaped me, driving off
In a sedan car, roof open, wind tugging at carefree hair
Because no matter what I chose, you would berate me
Belittle me
Bemuse me
And suggest your idea was better
You made me feel like I couldn’t dress myself
Like every attempt I made was childlike
Like everything I picked when we went shopping
Was five years my junior
The result is a current questioning of everything I buy
From the t shirts to the shoes
To the dresses to the playsuits
I feel incapable of dressing myself
And knowing what looks good
Even when parcels from far-flung places arrive at the door
And I unwrap exasperated, excited
There’s something I’ve ordered that you dislike
And you’ll tell me, naturally
Why keep quiet after all these years
Why stop licking the nettle
Why stop hammering at my self-esteem
I can deal with the bile, the upchuck, the name-calling
Better than I used to
But it still stings like chlorine
And lingers like burnt toast
Gurgling in the pit of my stomach
Until the next parcel arrives.
the world stands mighty still
like a door swinging off its hinges
bust open like a weeping sore
bare, ready to heal.
balmy evening skies soak crisp lawns
freshly painted, manicured
nails scratching at the jet-sprayed slabs
of suburbia.
morning tones are a mix of silence
and the breathy earth panting
suddenly able to catch its breath
unchoked, unstrangled by smog
sitting pretty
air dripping with peace.
The weirdest time to be alive
Shut off, in concave houses
Dead to the world
Except the delivery man
A shell burning from the inside out
Due to family tiffs and full blown rows
Drifting from one room to another
Like mouldy, unshowered ghosts
Undecided, aimless
Wandering like wicker men.
Eyes darting from screen to screen
Big and bright
Then small and polluting.
Tiktok guzzlers
Stay at home Sally’s
Faux pro medics
Idiots dressed as preachers
Experts waxing lyrical about distancing
Stockpiling
Worrying
Dying.
In amongst all the chaos I sit
Like a bit of pavement in Syria
A bird above an explosion
A witness to a car crash.
Calm, serene
Calmer and serene-r
Than I’ve ever been-er
Fomo kept at bay
At home is where I stay
Drunk on harmony.
Sitting opposite a delicious meal
Spaghetti lips, wet and enticing
The fragrant fumes of a day’s speech ricocheting off your gums and then into the air
Catching at my nostrils
A bottle off the bat
A full one to kickstart the evening
An alien concept, a boy buying a bottle
And not quibbling over price or harping on about halfsies
We sucked it up like thirsty daisies
Mowing the lawn of first date etiquette and conversation
After our tongues played we said goodbye
Then comes the part that leaves me scrambled
A banquet of texts that just doesn’t arrive
The what ifs and waiting
Checking my phone, fully in the throes of dating
Perky alcohol sodden lips visit my dreams
But the phone doesn’t beep or buzz or chime or whine
I’ll text him today if he hasn’t texted first.
Eyeing up a bench
A bit of solid mass to sit upon and escape the cold
And my ridiculous self
Arrived too early and now I’m confused, anxious
I retreat into a toilet to escape a self that can never be escaped from
And it’s tough knowing I did this to me
A sort of torture you don’t imagine you’d put yourself through
And it’s hard to see where the wiring went wrong
Where the brain fell short
And why the calamities burst forth
You’re late as ever and I’m in a cubicle
Outside it’s chilled, like that bottle of babycham we left chilled in the fridge for months
Seeking solace in a loo
Because I don’t know what else to do
Thoughts of lemon groves and clifftop towns
Come flooding in like siren calls
Music to my ears, anguish to my mother’s
The word interrailing instils a jolt of excitement
A pang of yearning
It shocks me on this tube
And I sizzle under it’s electrical wave
Sicilian lemons and towns perched atop cliffs
Inked a teal blue
Etched in a haze of mythology
Parting the blue with our flippers
(There’s an “our” in this solo travel tale?)
There’s rusty coral smirking at the bottom
Fish wide eyed and grinning from fin to fin
I’m poised on the edge of adventure
And every reminder of Europe
Every soot saddled tunnelled journey
Makes me long for it even more
Those Sicilian lemons
That castle in Ischia.
Chug chug chug
There are looks and then there are stares
And wide-eyed candy floss pink blushes
Contained in dim lit, smoke studded carriages
Stuffed with meat and bodies and faces and breaths
Some of which aren’t as sweet smelling
As the dulcet tones of Elizabeth Bennett
Or Mr Darcy and his linens (I presume)
A meaty marathon of viewing this weekend
Has urged me to start saying “I am not 27”
Just like when they say they’re “not 16”
Or “not one and 20”
Because it sounds more abstract
A guessing game
And I’m sure I would be looked at quizzical
But I’d probably enjoy it
As that’s the kind of shit I get off on.
Talking to my pillow. 