A blessing on October days,
kaleidoscope of trees,
crunch of spent leaves,
withered conkers crooked shapes.
A blessing on spiders’ tiaras,
dew blanketing the ground,
mists snuggling round valleys,
berries shining in hedgerows,
pumpkins plump like cushions.
A blessing on Autumn.
You bought me food I’d never tasted before
So that I cultivated tastes I’d miss
You bought me a website
So that all my work was filtered through you
You bought me sheets
So I’d sleep in you
You bought me pillows
So I couldn’t even rest my head without your help
You bought me notebooks and pens
So I couldn’t even have autonomy in words
You bought me a Netflix account
So when I was watching something, you could watch me
You bought me a trip to France
So I could see worlds owned by you
I think you would have eventually bought me a ring
And the worst thing is
I would have let you
Buy
Me
The man beside me reminds me
of Rain Man, or
the character
Dustin Hoffman played, he who
could count hundreds of matches while they fell to
the ground but could not tie his
own shoe,
here at The Cloverleaf Plaza
an entire day can go by
without a single sin:
This day of wanted-signs,
lipstick samples and red onions (that are really purple)
husks of the corn islands
that scream we are alone
While most of us are born beneath
Fluorescent lights: screaming,
resisting,
he sits in his spot
rotating
the sun with each bend of his
head.
A man’s jacket, left at the bar.
She tries it on for size,
pats down the shoulders,
runs fingers along its tweed.
She sweeps back her hair,
makes the composed face
people use in dressing rooms;
a visual grammar,
the language of mirrors.
She looks at herself,
watches me watching her.
How does it look?
You make it work.
She hadn’t had a great thought for months. No matter how many cafés she went to for inspiration, how many pencils she held thoughtfully to chin, how many freak-show passerbys she tried to furiously encapsulate in iambic pentameter, she was left with nothing but a notebook of lifeless clichés and a head full of empty.
And so, as she continued to hold pencil thoughtfully to chin, she decided to stop being a writer and get into advertising.
Go fig.
Thought it would be easier to just not turn up and stay in bed.
As I laid there, festering in my pit I remembered one of the reasons Sissy gave me as to why she was leaving, “you’re lazy and have no hope, whatsoever”. I couldn’t let her to be right, so I crawled out of from my bed. Clean Versace jeans. Clean t-shirt with a screen print of two rag dolls covering the front.
The cycle to school doesn’t take too long, around fifteen minutes. Ten minutes into the cycle and a coach full of spastics or tourists knocked me off my bike sending me over the bonnet of a small family car. As I laid on the beautiful tarmac road with the screeching sound of a Ford motor car’s breaks approaching my cantaloupe of a head I curled into a ball. The Ford drove around me and the coach left. Leaving only a pair of swollen knees, headache and a small cut on left palm.
School had started. I walked in late. Apologised to my tutor, he said I didn’t mean it and he was right. I didn’t tell him about being knocked off my bike, all I needed was to sit down. After an hour of the tutor talking and making gestures with his hands, all the pupils were asked to leave the school because another tutor had died of a heart attack in front of his class. His wife also worked at the school. In a quiet and orderly fashion all the students left the building. It started raining. My knees were still too sore to cycle home, so I began to walk.
Thought it would be easier to just not turn up and stay in bed.