There was a girl made entirely of ice. Her friends made her sit in the sun so long, while they chatted to themselves about what to do, that she melted clean away without any of them noticing at all.
___________
Notes:
1. Written on July 5th, 2019
2. When it was very hot
3. I imagine
i keep writing
these poems
in 4/3/4
i don’t know why
but my brain
just will not stop
configuring
all my thoughts
into this form
tiny little
faux haiku
drifting away
a cloud of thought
barely formed
a ghost of words
miniaturised
groups of sounds
shorn of meaning
so anyway
here they are
you have been warned
***
#1:
no one loves me
even though
i think they should
***
#2:
i cannot breathe
with your hand
upon my heart
***
#3: (a dream)
the octopus
grips my arm
like a lost child
***
#4: echo
a delicate
dust shadow
revelation
***
#5: autobiography #1
i spent a pound
on some sweets
and ate them all
***
#6: unanswered question
what difference
would it make
if i smiled
***
#7: remembrance of shaves gone by
i keep looking
at the blood
trickling away
***
#8: self realisation
what is the point
of all this
with no-one here
***
#9: autobiography #2
watched the football
it was shit
yet i’ll watch more
***
#10: lunch
this glass of milk
has a fly
dying in it
***
#11:
i don’t feel well
anymore
and nor do you
***
12: yes
i am having
a breakdown
in poetry
***
#13: autobiography #3
it was busy
in the park
i ate some chips
***
#14: it is happening again
its so windy
all the bins
blew down the road
***
#15:
his twitter posts
came and went
and went and went
***
#16: email
it’s possible
i missed it
not ignored it
***
#17: book #1
the book was good
i liked it
i read some more
***
#18: book #2
Thus Were Their Faces
was the book
i was reading
***
#19: book #3
its title
did not quite fit
breaking all the rules
***
#20: autobiography #4
covered in ink
from leaking
cheap broken pens
***
#21:
I was offered
kind advice
Frightened, I ran
***
#22:
sometimes i try
to escape
the bounds of space
***
#23: autobiography #5
my headphones fell
on the floor
they were alright
***
#24:
wasting my time
as if it
means anything
***
#25: autobiography #6
the plastic bags
jellyfished
across the park
***
#26: FIN
if i could die
it would be
quite the relief
___________
Notes:
1. Written between 6th and 8th August, 2019
2. It’s okay I’ve stopped now
There was a cat on the roof, looking down at me. It was by far the best thing that had happened this year.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on August 8th, 2019
__________We walked the aisles
forever
never stopping
to worry
whether we could afford it
or needed it
or even really wanted it
The tills were so far away
we just piled it all up high
with an abandoned exuberance
in the baskets hanging from our arms
and the trolleys
which snaked ahead of us
like a cargo train
It was comforting
somehow
too
so alongside the excitement
and the glee
here was a feeling
of strange contentment
as we walked onward
through this labyrinth
we never wanted to escape
lost
in this dream
from which
we feared to wake
__________
Notes:
1. Written on August 1st, 2019
__________I sweat
I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I sweat and I
I sweat when I’m hot. I sweat when I’m cold. I sweat when I’m nervous. I sweat when I’m relaxed. I sweat when I’m eating. I sweat when I’m hungry. I sweat when I’m ill. I sweat when I’m concentrating. I sweat when I wash. I sweat when I shave. I sweat when I shit. I sweat when I’m alone. I sweat when I’m around other people. I sweat when I’m anxious. I sweat when I wear a shirt. I sweat when I drink. I sweat when I drive.
I sweat when I desperately don’t want to sweat.
I sweat at the thought of sweating.
Sweat is not allowed. Perhaps it is in others, the fit, the healthy, the confident, the liked, but in me, no, never. Clothes are chosen in colours to hide the stains as best they can, t-shirts covered by a jumper when that doesn’t work, even in summer, even in the sun. A jacket finally, in this ridiculous futile charade, this self imposed feedback loop of increased sweat production, as I hope to hide what I cannot stop, hope to hide what can’t, ever, be hidden.
I sweat so much.
I sweat so much it runs down my face in waves, drips from my eyebrows, runs in waterfalls down my glasses, drips from my chin, percolates through my beard.
I sweat so much the arms of my t-shirts get soaked down to the elbows, halfway down to the waist, so much that the two circles centred round my armpits almost reach each other in the middle, a venn diagram of shame.
I sweat so much my jeans stick thickly to my legs, making my knees ache when I walk. I sweat so much the material of my boxers clings wetly to the tops of my thighs, chafing against the skin there until its as bald as if its been waxed.
I sweat so much some days I can barely use my phone, the screen unresponsive under the wetness of my thumb, necessitating a frantic rubbing of the screen against the left thigh of my jeans, the drying of my hand against the right.
I sweat so much it drips onto the page as I write this, the ink running beneath the drips, spreading like fungus to the edges of each dropletted circle on the page.
I sweat so much my whole skull aches. I sweat so much I feel like I’m dreaming, a strange sense of unreality, a feverless delirium, that comes in waves and only slowly subsides.
When I wake in the morning, there’s a perfect outline of my body drawn in salt upon the sheets. At least if I die at night, the police won’t need to waste their chalk.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on July 27th, 2019
__________