Bellowed and bellied,
In heavy breath and daisy chain fingernails-
I realise
I have no idea
Where my light switch is.
I only know nighttime,
And yellow wine bottles,
And books on feminism
And Voltaire
And vanilla perfume.
I don’t know how to swallow the Valium of
Self-interest,
Or soak in the epsom salts of
Self-assuredness.
Yet there is some rose-gold
Lioness
In my sugar-cane hair,
And even in her moments of proposed
Delicate intimacy,
She is roaring against
The four-eyed responsibility
To normality
That sits on my temples
Like a crown too heavy for this
Vein-stained neck.
I like my voice,
But worry it’s only because beneath
The shimmer of
Home-wrecking
Fairy lights
That have dotted my back since adolescence,
You whispered to me in a voice
(I despise to like as much as I do)
That you did.
