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    I no longer prioritise, I choose who to disappoint that day I’m a cardboard loo roll with one sheet left wet grounds scraped from the coffee pot a biro tip scratching at paper in circles. Scrolling through my inbox I hold down the shift key, select all...

      Hope lies like the edge of a teaspoon, upward facing, a thickness perhaps enough solidness to knife through a banana or other soft fruit for safety for a baby or to get under the edge of the surface tension of the skin of a grape to start a peel....

      3am a wooden door slams shut in my brain a man perishes in a space the size of his grave from malnutrition eighty years ago (I travel on my mother’s electric waves that held their spoken words’ shape) I am sorry that the thud left a hole in your...

      Stonevale When I was born the house was full of stones, an old blacksmiths shed. Rubble became walls, became home. I used a brush as tall as me to brush debris, dust, oyster shells. In my blue gingham dress and boots. We lived down from the...

      Homeland And if a land      loses its people and they are exiled           will a land feel their absence will it dream         of their calloused feet on its warm skin      will it grieve the touch of hands familiar           with the ways of its...

      We Were Seeds Found poem from trans rights protest and counter-protest on College Green, Bristol, Saturdays 19th & 26th April 2025. The counter protest was quickly drowned out. I. God created man and woman — Let us piss in peace! Only a man...

      We turned a corner Still I notice the white mole above your lip. Shallow we breathe in leather yew leaves. Branches slackened by tomorrow’s dew. Like Cross Street is a steam room and we are clean white shrouding towels shawled around each others’...

      Tag He arrived with a Christian name stitched in place, forwards and backwards down each folded-back end. On the first day the other boys and girls tore it off, taking the surrounding cloth along. No way would they let him keep that tag. They saw...

    Ancient Rocks After Jon Robinson Like ancient rocks lying where they please I find myself prone amongst chilly grass Wrapped in a red windbreaker Bike discarded at my side The sky an invite to breathe in its expanse It is here that the day breaks apart...

    In Transit The carriage hums — rows of bowed heads, fingers scrolling, eyes tethered to small glowing screens. Outside, the city slides by, blurred lines of glass and rain. I watch my own reflection — half-face, half-shadow, and behind me, someone lifts...

    Broken biscuits for H and PB The days were huge and kind and sometimes after school we’d buy a bag of broken biscuits for the long walk home across the heavy heat of afternoon on lucky days she wouldn’t take the pennies offered up in supplication for the...

    Wallpaper I swear I felt the swirly patterned paper rip from the walls of my childhood bedroom. It was the same stained cream shade as my skin – pockmarked, cut and scabbed, dry and peeling – and I felt it tearing, dragging pieces of my grey flesh with...

    Starry Night Over the Rhône Vincent van Gogh. Oil on canvas, Arles 1888. A quay on the riverbank. Lovers dissolve in a sheen of violet and mauve — enveloped by a forget-me-not cold glow. The man’s harsh words are crests and troughs of Prussian blue...

    The Birds A bird skirts across the fence & I rush to the window to behold its flapping wings— It’s been ages since I last saw a bird. My only link to nature here is my landlady’s dog, locked in its cage, barking furiously at all but no one. I see the...

    Without Blood I used to think that suffering, although injurious, makes a good story. You know how it goes. The more tortured the artist, the closer the body is to brilliance. I still do not know if this is a myth. But mostly, I do not care now. I still...

    palm trees on the edge of farewell they are gathering seashells. the boy is shirtless and the girl is wearing a black dress that exposes broad shoulders soaking up the morning light. her hair tumbles a fiery orange down the length of her back. the same...