Racing
Mum told me that frigid
was another word for Jesus’s Mary.
You showed me that holiness was
holding my hand and
racing down the playground
until we couldn’t breathe.
We kissed like tangled sting rays
unwinding, swallowing
the words we hadn’t yet learnt to say.
Rolling paper like bicycle tubes,
and smoking the lit air
inbetween, just as
your older brother did with others
behind the willow trees.
You didn’t call me beautiful
but liked the puffy purple jacket
I was forced to wear.
You were the only boy I let win in an arm wrestle.
Elisha Owen is an English with Creative Writing student at the University of Birmingham. She is a regular performer on the West Midlands spoken word scene and is Comment and Features editor for Redbrick newspaper. Find out more at http://about.me/elisha.owen