All writing is my own - please do not copy or use without my permission.
Reading my poetry at the launch of 'The Gallery', St Edmund Hall Oxford
The Divorce
Brain and body are getting a divorce. They’re stating irreconcilable differences.
Body wants to play but brain’s too busy fighting to play.
The fighting is wearing body down; she’s tired all the time
And she can’t escape brain’s shouting.
In a perfect world, brain would become a balloon and body would hold the string of that balloon in her hand. And she’d keep that balloon close, but not too tight. So brain wouldn’t be trapped.
And brain balloon would float closer and closer to the sun.
And body, who loves the sun so intensely, would never need look at the sun. Because brain balloon would be able to send the sun’s rays back down to her, through its stringpulse.
Rays of sunshine like blood.
And then body wouldn’t feel sad, like she does now, knowing that if she looked at the sun, she’d go blind. And she’d deserve it.
And brain balloon would let body’s eyes bounce around inside it. So they wouldn’t be trapped or under such extraordinary pressure // but what if brain balloon popped?
BANG
Like eyeballs, squirting jelly; like brain, squirting blood; like banana, squeezed too tightly; like people. Like people.
And what if brain balloon got too close to the sun?
Icarus fell. But brain balloon would burst.
Maybe it would burst into light.
Space
The space I inhabit
Could be folded neatly into concrete
Walls.
And the gaps in pavements.
Tie up my tiny offering with my vocalcordribbon.
So my silence would never need admit
I killed my brother in my dreams
Woke up and wished that I’d been born the boy.
Feared I was womb-raped empty
And hated my body because
Of how it shines in the dark,
A welcoming beacon for beer soaked lips.
Games
Let’s play a game
Where you chug a kettle of boiling water
And I curl up inside the kitchen cupboard and eat my fingernails.
Let’s play a game
Where we forgive all your tremble and all your shake
And I jump from Chesterfield’s crooked spire and land in a pint glass.
Let’s play a game
Where we name your orgasm paranoia
And fall asleep underneath the bed.
Trained like Japanese schoolchildren
Where to
Hide. From the earthquakes
Of my body’s anarchy.
Let’s play a game
Where we name every cut and every bruise after a Shakespearian villain
And chase down the pills with the muddy water from a supervised bath.
Let’s play a game
Where you’re tied to a lamppost in the middle of a motorway
And crushed by a stampede of horses.
Let’s play a game
Where we both pretend we’ve forgotten I ever asked you if the mortician would paint me pretty
And neither of us is ever scared of our humanity.
Detach my body from
Myself. So
I know where I am
Every time I wake up.
Let’s play a game
Where you chug a kettle of boiling water
And I curl up inside the kitchen cupboard and eat my fingernails.
Let’s play a game
Where we forgive all your tremble and all your shake
And I jump from Chesterfield’s crooked spire and land in a pint glass.
Let’s play a game
Where we name your orgasm paranoia
And fall asleep underneath the bed.
Trained like Japanese schoolchildren
Where to
Hide. From the earthquakes
Of my body’s anarchy.
Let’s play a game
Where we name every cut and every bruise after a Shakespearian villain
And chase down the pills with the muddy water from a supervised bath.
Let’s play a game
Where you’re tied to a lamppost in the middle of a motorway
And crushed by a stampede of horses.
Let’s play a game
Where we both pretend we’ve forgotten I ever asked you if the mortician would paint me pretty
And neither of us is ever scared of our humanity.
Detach my body from
Myself. So
I know where I am
Every time I wake up.
Remember licking the baking tray in the oven, 220°c?
Remember licking the baking tray in the oven, 220°c?
Blistering your tongue until we could smell ash.
Remember lying in the middle of a road in the fog?
Cars rushing over you at 80mph, until you were unrecognisably
Squashed.
Remember soldering off your thumb print in metal work?
You threw up in the sink and didn’t tell the teacher.
Remember pulling out each of your teeth with a pair of purple tweezers?
Stolen from your mum and hidden behind your
Bed.
Remember when you sliced open my stomach with a coat hanger?
Stuck in your hand and pulled out my uterus.
Remember running into my bedroom after I set it on fire?
And pulled out your favourite pink dress.
Threw it at me.
Watched me. Watch myself. Putting it on.
Remember licking the baking tray in the oven, 220°c?
Blistering your tongue until we could smell ash.
Remember lying in the middle of a road in the fog?
Cars rushing over you at 80mph, until you were unrecognisably
Squashed.
Remember soldering off your thumb print in metal work?
You threw up in the sink and didn’t tell the teacher.
Remember pulling out each of your teeth with a pair of purple tweezers?
Stolen from your mum and hidden behind your
Bed.
Remember when you sliced open my stomach with a coat hanger?
Stuck in your hand and pulled out my uterus.
Remember running into my bedroom after I set it on fire?
And pulled out your favourite pink dress.
Threw it at me.
Watched me. Watch myself. Putting it on.
Laundry (1 & 2)
(1)
Help me please
My friend is stuck in the washing machine
She climbed inside
I shut the door and turned it on
She’s shrunk now she’s very small
It’s hard to see her
Amongst the jeans and t-shirts
It’s very hot in there. I think it’s a
Boil Wash.
Her skin has all burnt off
She looks like a baby mouse without fur.
They’re called ‘pinks’
You feed them to little snakes.
My snake is too big for them now.
But if we get her out
And put her in the freezer.
Then you can get inside.
I’ll shut the door and turn it on.
And after an hour or so.
I’ll have two.
A nice dinner.
(2)
There is a problem
I guess
With the laundry
It ate my clothes
They’re gone.
I’ll have to buy some more.
They were all there.
It was a big wash
I’m very cold now
Standing here naked
And wet
After climbing inside
To look for them
And going for a spin
In search of them.
(1)
Help me please
My friend is stuck in the washing machine
She climbed inside
I shut the door and turned it on
She’s shrunk now she’s very small
It’s hard to see her
Amongst the jeans and t-shirts
It’s very hot in there. I think it’s a
Boil Wash.
Her skin has all burnt off
She looks like a baby mouse without fur.
They’re called ‘pinks’
You feed them to little snakes.
My snake is too big for them now.
But if we get her out
And put her in the freezer.
Then you can get inside.
I’ll shut the door and turn it on.
And after an hour or so.
I’ll have two.
A nice dinner.
(2)
There is a problem
I guess
With the laundry
It ate my clothes
They’re gone.
I’ll have to buy some more.
They were all there.
It was a big wash
I’m very cold now
Standing here naked
And wet
After climbing inside
To look for them
And going for a spin
In search of them.
Enough, Enough, Enough
Last night, I lay my head on my pillow
And chanted,
‘Enough enough enough’.
Thanked the horses in my knees
For always knowing when to run.
Held my breath so deep
A cave opened up in my lungs
And filled with a thousand bats.
I spat up all my food, like a mother bird
Regurgitating to feed her children
But I had no one to fill
Only myself to empty.
Last night I broke like bone
Turned every goodbye into a necklace
That I slept for days
And hung over my own body
Like a responsibility.
I bled out for ten years in a night
Didn’t realise how it hurt
Till someone told me to stop screaming.
So I pushed myself out to sea
Or wherever it is things go when
They are too tired to float
And made this girl a dying thing.
Last night I ate a tube of yellow paint
To try and keep happiness inside.
Dyed the under-colour of my eyelids gold
And two stepped waltzed with your memory
As if you were here.
Let the wound close over like a
Rusted garage door
And said ‘leave’ over and over
When what I meant was ‘helphelphelp’.
Who could blame you for putting
Your hands round my neck. When I was
The one
Who showed up with a neck in the first place.
Last night, I lay my head on my pillow
And chanted,
‘Enough enough enough’.
Thanked the horses in my knees
For always knowing when to run.
Held my breath so deep
A cave opened up in my lungs
And filled with a thousand bats.
I spat up all my food, like a mother bird
Regurgitating to feed her children
But I had no one to fill
Only myself to empty.
Last night I broke like bone
Turned every goodbye into a necklace
That I slept for days
And hung over my own body
Like a responsibility.
I bled out for ten years in a night
Didn’t realise how it hurt
Till someone told me to stop screaming.
So I pushed myself out to sea
Or wherever it is things go when
They are too tired to float
And made this girl a dying thing.
Last night I ate a tube of yellow paint
To try and keep happiness inside.
Dyed the under-colour of my eyelids gold
And two stepped waltzed with your memory
As if you were here.
Let the wound close over like a
Rusted garage door
And said ‘leave’ over and over
When what I meant was ‘helphelphelp’.
Who could blame you for putting
Your hands round my neck. When I was
The one
Who showed up with a neck in the first place.
I Dreamt I Was A Boy Last Night
I dreamt I was a boy last night, Mum.
With broad shoulders and razor bone hips.
I cut off my breasts and they
Fell to the ground like paperweights
Sprouted coarse hair from my newly
Square, toobig chin; protecting a mouth
Full of newly birthed certainty.
I dreamt I was a boy last night, Dad.
The girl next door peeled my adam’s apple
Crunched and swallowed it
And kissed my neck with rosebud lips.
Pulled myself erect to tower over her
Caressed her milk smooth cheeks
Jerked her hips hard against me.
I dreamt I was a boy last night, brother.
You tackled me into the floor, blackened my eye
And reddened my teeth.
Our fists dripped with one another’s blood
Told our mother to clean up the mess.
Surveyed my kingdom proudly and
Comfortably occupied every inch of space.
I dreamt I was a boy last night, sister.
Watched the girl I used to be shrink into shadow-land
Saw her silhouette curl up next to my grandmother,
Hold her newspaper hands and whisper,
“Dios me hizo mujer para castigarme.”
Allowed a tear to scar her crumpled face
Before weaving herself into the darkness.
The Giant Woman
