I’m walking into a room made up images.
These are all images of myself
I assumed them from my figurative past,
Now they’re gathering dust on the shelf.
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Female Genital Mutilation// The Air Wr Breathe
6 years old.
‘That’ day has come
‘lay down’ ‘legs apart’
Hushed.
‘Strip.’ Forcefully stripped.
Crash Course
I’m sitting here, wondering, is there still an us. Will there be, an us? Or, was there never an us to save. Nothing left but pieces. The polaroid pictures strung like bunting in my bedroom, couldn’t you have ripped the rope and dragged it out, like you did with your things? It only took a single touch and I, unravelled. I wasn’t wound tight enough, besides, the knot is always tighter when you’re not the one tying it.
The Party
The sun had been exposed all day, uninterrupted by clouds, and now rested in the looming veil of evening like a lightbulb behind a curtain. The hall was the largest room in David and Lily’s house. It overlooked an abstract cauldron of water and mountain too vast to comprehend, and the guests nested by the huge windows, admiring this sight. Continue reading
Bacha Posh
At one her father and mother locked eyes
The birth of a girl brought dread to their lives
A parental love, too strong to watch ache
Emerging through doors, a babe in blue awake. Continue reading
Better an Empty House
This house
Is empty there is no
Tenant here they’ve left you left
First but left the door open
In case you’d come back and you
Did, shield yourself from the Continue reading
This Will Put You Off Having Children
For as long as anyone could remember, Shannon Fowler had wanted to be a Mother. Even as a toddler, long before her parents even contemplated having to give her the “birds and bees” talk, little Shannon Fowler could often be glimpsed in her families garden, pushing a gaudy pink pram around the perimeter and cooing to her teddy bear within as though it were her own flesh and blood. Indeed, this phase of playing with dolls as though they were babies was something that Shannon did not grow out of until she turned thirteen and even then, the decision to relinquish this once-endearing display Continue reading
Writing as Escape
When I think about George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four, the prime image of the novel for me is that of Winston hunched over in a small enclave of his room, frantically scratching out diary entries. He gains two things from writing: Firstly, an escape from his material reality; secondly an ability to record and transcribe truth, rationalise and make evidence of the reality he knows. Is it so different for us in 2019? Continue reading
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What I Never Said
I find it strange that you still live there, in the house your mother told us not to buy because the roof was falling in and the sink crawled with cockroaches. I remember the look on your face as you disobeyed her for the first time, a mix of exhilaration and fear. You put your half of the deposit down the next day and I did the same, even though it left me with $40 to my name. We were childhood sweethearts, and we thought this was us growing up. A week later, you moved your belongings out of your mother’s house and wouldn’t see her again for a year. I sent her a letter every month to let her know you were okay. Sometimes it was a lie. Besides, she never wrote back. She blamed me. Continue reading
