The woman with her blond bob
across the table with her clipboard
asking questions to ascertain
if I am the “right” kind of person.
Can I belong here? and does it matter
where I come from? Can I answer
in these walls - thick with history,
holding the laughter of many girls
who came here to learn, and live
something of themselves. Although
I wonder who could really answer
who they are and who they were.
My stubble
Is ice scraped from the freezer,
When I scratch
It snows on leather
My skin melts
Under the white caps
Of my nails
As my chin spurts a leak
Down my neck.
It’s time to shave
These polar blues
And chip away
At the walls
That have kept me
Frozen.
This is great! =D
She had swum 32 laps to find herself
Immersed, where she had started from:
That is, inside her own skin;
Changing hands, and swapping hoods
To see the face beneath them.
As we claimed
each of us
that we desired
to be gay -
wishing to form
a better part
of the circle
of our friends -
you say, “It’s a thing now
to come out as straight.”
It feels to be an imposter
on the margins
riddled with guilt.
“What are we going to do about it?”
you say,
seemingly expectant.
As though I could solve the riddle
with a simple statement
to shack up
and make babies.
She would
burst from the shadows
at the edge ;
a magnificent vertical
arranged in the lines
of a stretching cat.
The water swelled
sliced up by the rock
foaming off.
Somersaulting
the tide dragged
her across
and the air
swam
in circles.
A small boat
on the horizon ;
the mast stood
without a sail.
- She hesitated,
in fear
of the sailor,
afraid to touch.
She saw
an aerial map
larger
than her own
pulled out
and forgotten ;
sunken
in a capsule
intefering
with radio waves.
A submarine cable
caught the anchor
somewhere moored
in her heart.
She was a
geographic
altercation,
flying devoutly
through this list
that was another page
she turned the corner of.
Here
I am all blank;
a body
waiting
to be written,
given shape,
moulded,
like dough
into forms
you recognise
and in which
you worship
your own
handiwork.
Drink up
the mix
of nothing
fixed.
I’d rather be
an ugly duck
than water
rush
to shreds
of better things.
You do not
have to worry.
Just take this cup
- my dear -
drink up
to buy a ticket
to the cross
and love
another body.
I am the general
and I claim
this space;
drawing maps
to isolate
the sections:
all of history
marching
across the skin.
Labels, categories,
ebb and tide.
But cut this river
in a dam,
build up big walls
and control the flow
of this wandering
desire.
She lived alone
Among her things
Like a visitor
Following scripts,
Leaving objects
In the way
Already set.
Her life, her body
Was a series of advertisements
Selling second hand furniture
On telegraph poles
With little tags
- fragmenting -
all the numbers.
Identity in love disappears.
Love transgresses identity
Invalidates it
Confuses the lines
Loses the Self.
Desire crosses boundaries
Mixed terrains
Of metamorphoses.
On the edge
The shell
Went travelling
Without the body
Caught a boat
Down a river
To a jetty
With a rope
Tied to something
On foreign ground
Where
Looking back:
People never change.
