In the knee-graze days of bikes and black ant tickles, my mum gave me a comfort snuggle hug. That’s when I heard a click-tick sound inside her, where her boomy-womby heart once thumped its beat.The furniture at home was on the ceiling now. This change made me cry and she wrapped me in that clicking, ticking cuddle. She softly told
Due to restrictions this poem has modified formatting. I did not understand the hardshipof texting are you okayuntil I rolled over in bedand there you were, okay – I did not understandhow badly with love you had bitten meuntil I learned to understand how to clean for twohow to scissor out your hair from the vacuumhow to fold a dress,
“Faith?”
Is he calling me Faith?
My name is Jane.
All we are is snacks and bonesCream cracker corpsesRaisin rainbows risingI am swept in a black currantOf flapjack flashbacksAnd breadstick blues.We have no mealtime, no time at allWe surf the currant from hour to hourOurs is a tasty one, without crustsWe are so empty yet so full. A born and bred Londoner, Li-Li Nectar is an avid houmous-maker and life-long
I watched your hands find their way to marbled kitchens—a sorcerer of pots and pans—you found it hard to stand so you would sit—sinking in the velvet of our dinner chairs—casting culinary magic—humming Noor Jehan slightly out of tune—I look at our photograph—the one in Aga Khan hospital—you enshrouded in sky blue comfort—butterflies etched on your purse—me at 5 or
laughter is vulnerability. i have given out all of my aching. the way you attach sunflowers to your name. i love you but i won’t tell you. i will let you call me beautiful today and tomorrow. i will hold your hand reaching out to me across the window of a moving bus. i will travel for you. i will
the marrow curbed in my bones has turnedinventor of dreams in the dark vegetation of night.say, every night comes with the nomenclatureof the dead (c)louding our dreams.or the names that will even/t(u)ally snug/ snugbullets in our skull as we lay on the duvet of the dark,unpaved street, eternal bedding.will my mother’s eyes swell with the sun or the sea?will i
Due to restrictions this poem has modified formatting. let’s say there is an eye above the cheekbone of the sky.though, not shaped like a star,but like a mouth that sneaks light into our bodies—sterilises us from the trenches of night.like a creep. like a seed. like hope.or let’s say there is a cracked wallon the navel of the earth. underneath,everything
Most of my childhood fantasies concerned my decimation. Particularly on nights where I could not sleep. Hot and wet nights, heavy as a slobbering dog on your chest. I would imagine being dragged over cold, sandy soil. I would imagine solid, bodiless hands. Sleep became a forest someone else was carrying me in. The skeletal shadows arching across the ceiling
Due to restrictions this poem has modified formatting. at 2:03pmI notice where your watch used to be.Day’s mathematics were perched abovejutting wrist bone, Time’s face restedon the inside of your forearm. Now –“can you pass me my tablets, love” –formulas: swallowed, digested, to fix youpiece by piece by limb by sinew.The hand of a hiding godnearly plucked you from us.The
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