Homely House

Strolling side by side, all together;

a family of yours

is a family of mine.

Laughing at jokes outsiders wouldn’t get

even if they spent an hour listening.

Because we are from the same pit of clay,

just a year apart and

different blood in our veins.

The path we’re on we will always walk,

speaking our minds

and always comfortable with each other’s thoughts.

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Response to the Dead Poets Society

If you squash them,

if you bend them,

if you project your face onto theirs,

their minds will break:

reflections shattered, a mass of cracks and holes

where a person should be.

Their bodies will rot, bulge, blacken, weep.

Kindling that longs to ignite

if only to prove that it has some self-worth left.

And at the end of it,

still it will not be your name you see,

but theirs, as it only ever could.

You failed them,

yet stand where they still should.

Mantle

It’s the weight of this top that’s pulling me down. The fabric

tugs at my arms, my back, my chest, waterlogged even on dry days.

A friend offered to wring it out once, they gave it back to me after an hour

with a haggard look in their eyes. ‘It’s too much. Too much for me

to bear,’ they said. I wasn’t angry. It’s hard, I know.

I’ve tried dying it, changing things up to look more cheerful.

Sewing buttons and toggles, weaving in different threads,

but it never works. It’s never satisfying. Never satisfied.

I know the only way to take it off permanently

is when it disintegrates, but it makes me feel guilty and disloyal

to think like that. It’s been there for me my whole life,

keeping me warm,  protecting me. I should be there for it.

I should. Yet the weight is so much that I can barely move now.

Battle of Monsters

You’ve seen them before,

noses pressed up against you,

moist breath on your skin.

One side is right. So is the other.

They ask you to be the judge as they battle it out.

Please stop, you ask.

Your voice doesn’t work.

The lawyers do. Settling the disputes.

Settling the money.

Now, young one:

who would you most like to live with?