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It begins with a single selfish cell<\/strong><\/p>\n I forgot to turn the tap off and the sink over- <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Keshia Starrett<\/strong> is from Derry, Ireland and now lives in Leeds, where she is creating a series of visual\u00a0mental health poems for her PhD. She recently graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing. Her poetry most recently appeared in Unknown<\/em> magazine, and she has been shortlisted as a Poetry Rivals Finalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It begins with a single selfish cell I forgot to turn the tap off and the sink over- flowed.\u00a0I couldn\u2019t seem to mop it up fast enough. \u2018Wasteful\u2019\u00a0was the word my mother used, and she\u00a0swore for weeks afterwards\u00a0that\u2019s the reason the crack in the tile beside the washing machine got bigger. Like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14496"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14498,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14496\/revisions\/14498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nflowed.\u00a0I couldn\u2019t seem to mop it up fast enough.
\n\u2018Wasteful\u2019\u00a0was the word my mother used,
\nand she\u00a0swore for weeks afterwards\u00a0that\u2019s the reason
\nthe crack in the tile beside the washing machine got bigger.
\nLike that rogue cell in\u00a0your\u00a0kidney that rippled all the way
\ninto\u00a0the\u00a0bloodstream, a drop in the ocean \u2013 no more,
\nand somehow enough to upset the current and give
\nthe moon a day off because the tide didn\u2019t take us home
\nafterwards.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Stranded\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0at sea on a lilo\u00a0in the\u00a0kitchen
\nshouting for you. And my mother cast her eyes on me
\nand I knew, I knew she was waiting to see a tear roll
\ndown my cheek \u2013 another\u00a0wasteful\u00a0drop into the\u00a0ocean,
\nanother careless\u00a0ripple, another current turned into
\na whirlpool, spinning us like laundry\u00a0behind the glass door,
\ndrowning in\u00a0my single, thoughtless tear.<\/p>\n