pete davidson (ariana grande could never) by Ella Sadie Guthrie (Lucent Dreaming Issue 9)

recently i’ve been having daydreams of pete davidson.
this is not unordinary. they come to me like woodlice
crawling out of piles of damp leaves onto the knees of school children.

my daydreams are not jabberwocky’s caning cans of red bull, much simpler, instead
on one hour walks i look at wooden tables leaning against closed pubs, think hmmm,
if i happened to run into pete davidson on this street corner would we
fall in love with a badly delivered joke over a glass of soda and lime?
we’d sit outside, oblivious to onlookers scouring my hands for seven rings.

how long would it take for opportunists with cameras to get lucky? i can see it,
my head turned in slight shock, he, a library statue, all knowledge.

in my newest fantasy i am wearing sunglasses that don’t hide my face,
and he is pale, so pale the sun decides to shine on him directly like an investigator’s desk
lamp,
‘what do you do in the shadows?’ it asks.
i tell the sun to soften on his features and offer him factor 50,
he is grateful i am the good cop.

later, i walk along brighton beach, lick my lips between waves retching on the shoreline
and play this image in my head over and over again,
my feet the mechanism transforming my eyelids into a private cinema,
audio playing ‘this is okay’ with slightly too much fervour to be truly wholesome.

when i get home, i hesitate to write down this new fantasy.
what if one day he sees this poem?
my woodlouse fantasies, childish and toxic like a chalkboard

his ex wrote a song called ‘pete davidson’ in the whirlpool of their relationship.
now she is engaged to someone else i can’t help but hope he is not clinging to the side of his life, wishing for armbands.

pete, i whisper to the other side of the dark, don’t drown, i will be your lifeguard,

and halfway across the world, on the light side of the moon,
he drifts off and i sing.

Buy issue 9 today.

Lucent Dreaming is an independent creative writing magazine publishing beautiful, imaginative and surreal short stories, poetry and artwork from emerging authors and artists worldwide. Subscribe to Lucent Dreaming now, support us on Patreon and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

Ella is a writer, journalist and poet who began performing spoken word in 2016. She likes to write about matters of the heart with bizarre metaphors and captivating imagery. Her poetry is sometimes political, in 2017 she was commissioned by the #TurnUp campaign to write a poem encouraging young people to vote, later performing the poem in the House of Commons. Alongside fellow poet Ruth Boon, she co-founded WRIOT, a poetry collective for women and non-binary poets that facilitates workshops and events, but mostly she spends her time walking along Brighton seafront and daydreaming about various celebrities. Her words have appeared in Hecate Magazine, Drawn to the Light and SamFiftyFour, and are set to appear in Dreich Magazine.
@ellasadieog