(a haiku)

everyone thinks you're contemporary but i think you're an avant-'tard

i wish there was a
postmodern theory for your
pretentious bullshit

i'm back, i think

small apples

on a lunchtime squeezed
between vinyl LPs he saw
them together and said she
looked dour, with a frown
that would taste sour
like small apples,
puckered and brown.

comforted by the concern
of his angry words -
“i could have killed him”
made moralities blur, as
i practised my sneer
in the rear view mirror
thinking how nice it would be
to soften in the sun.

the best thing for you would to be queen, so be queen

i am alive. i worked a lot, created bonds, had an affair, wrecked a home, got fucked around and left alone, bought some arts and crafts in a disused mill, got a tattoo of a raptor on my wrist, became ill.

there was a time when every day was marked on the calendar which hung on the wall above my desk. blackly inked X's told me what to do and my energetic, organic flatmates herded me into a pattern of how to be. i drank strong coffee and spread rumours inside my head to pass the time.

i am an angry young woman, i think.

this is the place i made my first mistakes

Rain

I
you never asked to see the weather report
said it made you feel cold and anxious
even if we were predicted sun.

II
you smelt of popcorn
or hope. a burnt shell atomised
and tumbling through life,

reminding me of that first fight
over nothing, saying something,
your body vibrating next to mine

or the day we caught the bus
to somewhere else, you snatched at
my fingers like a responsibility
and I pulled away.

we couldn’t be bothered to shout -
but dull clouds gathered overhead
as you took your things
and left my house.

III
last night I sat outside
my cigarette tracing the thought of you
and was surprised
when it rained.