From under the wardrobe
the naked bulb on the ceiling
is an oddly lit glass balloon,
bobbing riskily upside down
in the winter sky.
There’s an unfriendly quality
in my shoulder;
I’m packed like a fugitive’s
suitcase, roughly. Buried
under hanged clothes
that belong to me. When I fell,
I saw flickering street lights
and his slurred yawn.
The winged doors flapped
open, fixed around me
like a mother’s jaws. I lie
awake inside my casket,
counting each crushed breath,
I wait for kinder voices
to reach me. The only thing
I recognise is the white tilted sky.
Leah Larwood has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck University London (2012) and is studying to be a Certified Poetry Therapist (CPT) with the International Federation of Biblio-Poetry Therapy (IFBPT). Her work has been published in various places and she was runner-up in the Poetry Book Society Mslexia Competition 2019 and won second place in the Poetry Society Stanza Competition 2018.
Note: She has dedicated her poem to Laura