We Secretly Hate You
Here’s our booth, come sit with us for a second.
Come share this necklace with us.
The vibrations here are excellent all night.
Have you read Mira Kirshenbaum? That’s okay.
Have a sniff of this. It’s meant to hurt a little. Listen:
Tonight’s soul night.
DJs churn out hits like celestial ice-cream machines.
Ballerinas crack their joints, long ribs
Curling like petals round the heart.
Tonight’s a night for admiring the brain’s pearl inlays.
Don’t waste it worrying about your mother’s operation.
We’re expecting a lot from you so pay attention.
Listen:
We have a secret.
Do you want to know what it is?
Feel our shoes thumping on the heart’s red dancefloor.
See the oblong men peeling scales from their knuckles.
Are you ready to dance?
Here’s a dance for you.
It’s that dance you do that says
Me Me Me, it’s always about Me.
Honey you’re a natural.
Oh come on, honey. You know we’re kidding.
You know we love you.
But sometimes it’s like there’s nothing
Between your legs, not even light.
Did we say that out loud?
Always so sensitive.
We don’t think there’s light between the legs.
There or anywhere.
Just a fleeting firmness burnt in by the bodythirst.
It gets pretty bad on nights like these
When it’s impossible to walk away from a good gory argument.
Look at all these scarecrows pining after the birds.
Look at all these lips colliding like steam-powered worm trains.
Look at all these limbs pouring out of people then back in.
Look at all this light pouring out the ceiling
Like how children pour from god.
Look at us, look back at us. We’re so totally here for you.
You’re practically our favourite person.
Oliver Sedano-Jones is a British-Peruvian poet. His work has appeared in FLAR, Marathon and The Northridge Review. He was shortlisted for the Yeats Prize in 2018, the University of Hertfordshire Single Poem Prize in 2019, and the Wales Poetry Award 2020.