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I’ve never known brotherly love.
I didn’t grow up fighting with siblings
or learning to ride a bike down my
street with a mocking grin and a
steady hand at my side. I grew up
with the knowledge that there was a
gaping hole where a boy should have been.
Where my big brother would have been.
But you,
the boys who are like big brothers to me
– even the younger ones –
are always working to fill the gap.
I.
The boy who said I could call him at 3am
if I needed to. The same boy who dreamt
I died and called me to make sure it
wasn’t true.
II.
The boy who can always tell if I’m not okay
and always checks on me. The boy who
supports my writing and encourages me.
III.
The boy who goes out to eat with me and
listens. The boy who I always laugh with.
IV.
The boy who was my inseparable friend
all the way through school – Sonic,
Animorphs, Power Rangers, marbles.
The fiercest loyalty on the playground.
The boys who laugh with me even when
my jokes are terrible. The boys who make
me feel like I belong somewhere, like I’m
important. The boys who look after me
and let me support them, too.
The boys who will always matter.
Thank you.
stand back:
I’m writing poetry
this requires two hands
one to hold the pen
one to grasp a piece of star
and determine how it feels –
what’s it like when those
jagged edges cut the skin
and does the blood glisten
as much as this artefact I
stole from the sky
stand back:
this is going to get messy
there is crimson on the page
crimson on my palms, crimson
on the pen and now crimson in
my mouth and the metallic tinge
is how I imagine stars taste but
I have to know for sure so I
lean down and touch the tip of
this fragment of space mountain
with my tongue and it is like a
silver shard of sugar tainted by
the darkness that has tried to
engulf it for a million years but
it has endured until now – now,
now it heaves its last breath as
it lies in my hand. I have plucked
it from its habitat and I have
killed it. turns out the darkness
was the only thing keeping it
alive, and it flushes gently,
dimming for longer with each
pulse until it is nothing but a
piece of grey coal and my
vermillion hands are glowing
as if it has given its life to them.
I realised this week that I have sort of come to be quite fond of my stoma site. Yeah, you can see where the staples used to be and the skin stretched, and the scar is a bit raised and lighter than the skin around it, and I can’t really feel when I touch it. But it sort of goes in a bit, like a dimple, and I think it’s sorta cute? If I could change something about my belly I would lose a bit of weight from it and tone it up a bit. I have come to love my scars and I wouldn’t want to get rid of them or change them. <3
Photo credit: PactoVisual
I can’t shake the thought of us
coming to each other’s rescue
It’s what you always do for me
and I want you to need me, too.
I am ten years old and it’s late afternoon one day in 1998. My mum is pottering around the kitchen part of our small kitchen-diner. My dad is taking a photo of me and I’m grinning. I’m wearing a baggy green camouflage-pattern t-shirt that used to belong to my older cousin, and black Adidas tracksuit bottoms (with three stripes going down the sides of the legs, which is always better than two, because it means I can run two of my fingers down my leg in between those three raised white stripes instead of just one finger between two stripes, which feels much better somehow). To top off my ensemble I’m wearing a hot pink hat which is soft with a furry rim, which is a slightly lighter pink to the rest of the hat but no less garish. I am surely the most stylish ten-year-old in Northamptonshire. Who needs matching clothes anyway?
Oh, and I’m singing into a banana. Obviously, because I’m playing my favourite new compilation album on the hi-fi, which is Now Forty-something-or-other. I’m probably listening to Perfect Ten by Beautiful South, or Horny, by whoever that was by, because that was on the album, and as a ten year old I have no idea what the word horny means, so I sing along as loudly as possible. I don’t know why this woman has horns on her head. Is she a devil or a unicorn? Who knows.
There are pictures on the fridge that I drew in felt tip or paints. This room is my art gallery as well as my concert hall. I stand on a dining chair because that’s all part of the routine – I have to stand on a chair. I’m an exhibitionist. My forefinger and index finger on my left hand sit between those Adidas stripes on my leg while I clutch my makeshift microphone with the other hand. I watch myself singing and dancing in the mirror hanging above the table. I’ve got moves. I am awesome.
someone opened the cage door
but I have nowhere to fly to.
I fear my wings won’t take me
far enough. what is the outside
world like? which way is right?
who would want me to fly to them
anyway? I’m sure I’ve no idea. they
might as well just shut me in. here I
will collect dust while those
around me take flight. I don’t
know where to fly or if I’m even
capable of flying, much less
going on my own.
