essays | fiction | poetry | photography | art
My hand slips—crushed pepper
fills the pot, the water is boiling
not simmering as you said, you said
I needed to be careful, but look now
“We are prompted to savour each word, carefully probing between our teeth to discover new morsels of meaning.”
That albino slug
looks like mobile marzipan,
bending its neck for a nap
in the stitchwort
tufted beside the road.
You slid the nit comb through my hair
then rinsed and laughed about how
you loved hunting them down
legs floating, brush of seaweed
bulging water moves us
up and down
the shore seems very far away
I wanted to be a part of their club, their conversations, their laughter. Eating, I decided, was my way in.
Stevie busies himself trying to match two blue pieces of sky. You watch him working the corners and the glands in your throat swell.
If you walk along a path
between forest and shore
between grains eroded by the sea
they were mountains once
I found that writing and art keep me sane, they’re like a room of my own in a time when I’m rarely alone.
Am I livestock or the boning knife?
Amongst the timid lambs, half-dreaming
Inside the atoms of the cavity block extension live the remnants of a thousand John Players.
They say a lot of the work of being poly is scheduling. When I say ‘they’ I mean smug influencers with poorly produced podcasts, and when I say ‘being poly’ I hate myself.
