by PMRT
I tried to write fifty lines about thingsI loved and then the things that had hurt
the world but nothing would come out.
I tried to ask Ben what he would write about
and he wanted to hear about the way the wind moves
through hair on chilly winter mornings
while we’re stealing time
and kisses between classes, he wants to hear
how I tell him, “Look I’m a dragon”
while blowing CBD clouds in the crisp air.
But I don’t like that
because I don’t like those mornings; it’s dark
outside and these months bring another creeping
gloom, that neither he nor I like
to look at too closely. The clouds
of condensation are too similar to the billowing
puffs from the smoke of the too-many cigarettes
I smoke to keep
the anxiety at bay, leaving me
feeling suffocated by
the aggressive smell of stale tobacco.
The thought makes it hard to breathe and so I ask
Stephanie because she brings warmth in the form of whiskey-
coloured eyes and home-made cocktails I ask her
how to write something without a full
Stop and she freezes, upset, because she knows I’m always
looking how to put things to
an end- I hang up and make the next
call to Francis and ask her what she’d like
to read this week and she says something happier
than her own week something light and fluffy, like a hug
to the heart… and I think of how to describe her baby
hamster, the pinnacle of soft and cute…
But the winter months are neither soft nor sweet so
I call Alice because all things lead back to her.
She has the charming audacity to ask
if there aren’t any more poems about her
hair and eyes and the way her mouth
curves into the prettiest of smiles.
But there are no more lines
for her nor I, we gave up
each other and cocaine for a while- now
that we’re supposedly older but I still feel
none the wiser when
William calls – he always calls
At the right-wrong moment.
I’m slamming on the backspace key when he says
I should write about being in love with someone
Who doesn’t love me and then we have the same
Fight, the one we always have,
because my boyfriend might not love me like
I love William and him and still
they’re both there in my
bed and so I wrote fifty plus lines lying
in his bed while I was thinking
of yours and when he asked what
the racket was about…
I stopped.