Municipal Ambition

When I think of the neglect.
The years of untended want gone to waste.
My God – I could go down on my knees and weep.
Weep! like a silent movie heroine bathed in the torchlight of pathos,
and all my starved orifices would form a chorus of sobs
and pourforth, sputtering like outside taps.

When I think of the bodies I ran from,
throwing myself on the mercy of grass pastures and filthy mattresses.
Ach, the springs, the bedsits, the landscape miniatures…
And worst of all the way they sewed me up like a purse
so I wouldn’t try and get out again (or in,
they couldn’t decide which).

When I think of the bad love –
the girl who lost it again and again on that patch of municipal lawn,
hot sap running down her thighs:
the girl who held herself at arm’s length all her life,
who couldn’t bear to look herself in the eye
let alone love.

When I think of the pangs in windowless rooms,
the years of skulduggery and subterfuge,
or the telltale stains of fertility (otherwise known as the rites of woman),
I could swear it was someone else the whole time.
I could scream: Make way for more!
More bad love! More neglect! More pourforth!
 

Amy McCauley currently works as a life model in Stockport and has just completed her MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. She started her PhD in Aberystwyth in September 2012.