Poems

An Ode to the Nice Guy

O here I will, my nice guy, speak of thee.
Long had a lack of love been cause of pain.
And shaped the pillars of the balcony
Thou hast so laboured to rebuild again.

Many true friends had mystery turned foes
Before thine eyes so gently pierced my mask.
With golden drink and cursed speech bestows,
This group a mark from every poisoned task.

And so was left a gallery of guilt,
In every shell of womanhood consumed.
Yet strong was thine intent to see unwilt
A heart so tough, convinced it never bloomed.

But since I’m neither male, nor dead, nor white,
Let’s break it down in modern terms, alright?

See, I had a type.
The problem is:
that physicality tends to go in hand with a questionable personality,
and lately I’m increasingly tired of the pretty people with the ugly insides,
which my mother could have told me would happen ages ago, 
but as all young adults will know- 
mums are always wrong until YOUR’E WRONG…
because mums are always right.

So, nice guy, this one is for you:
Because I like how I can act pretty much the same around you as I do in my finsta.
And I like how the jokes we laugh about are almost always about farts and almost never about the arts- it is much more aesthetic.

And the truth is: I don’t want to go to radical film screenings every week.
Sometimes, I just want to watch Pewdiepie videos and eat ice cream in bed,
and yes “I love the mystery” is what fuck-boy-phase-me may have once said,
but I really only joined murder mystery society because they got into my head
by saying they only offered it to really smart people, and I… 
have an ego problem. 

Anyway, leather jackets are cool, 
I get it, and if he’s got tatts a man-bun, I usually turn into a jelly shot that was taken out of the fridge too early.
You know- all shakes and no substance,
So fam, if you relate to this on any level, hear my wisdom.

Nice guy is so much better.
Nice guy beats the tatts and the man-bun any day
Not literally, of course, he’s tiny; but the way 
he makes me feel is how I felt at age 15, 
watching Joe Jonas emerge, a fucking dream,
from underneath the stage ready to sing the hell out of the first line of “Burnin’ up”,
which as every human in the world knows is “I’m hot.”
…and he really is.

So, I have a new type, 
and it is just like the description of the paper I wrote this poem on-
White, Tesco, Basic. And white tesco basic can be hot.

The fact that he doesn’t own, nor has ever owned, leather boots – 
white, 
tesco, 
Basic,
HOT!

The way his voice breaks a little in the middle of words every now and then – 
supah white, 
tesco, 
basic, 
HOT!

How his breakfast is ALWAYS protein weetabix served in the same bowl- 
super tesco, 
white, 
basic, 
HOT!

His steady, open path into a successful engineering career- 
super basic,
white,
tesco,
HOT!

His former student job as a Deliveroo driver – 
white, 
tesco, 
Basic,
SUPER HOT! 
Because, hear me…
He delivers. 

And as if it were needed, that is not all,
just like Joe Jonas sang more than Burning Up to 15 year old me,
Nice guy is not just one thing.

He is no replacement for the copy-pasted versions of the same daydream 
I decided to put on a pedestal one day.
Nice guy does not belong in museum or galleries,
he is not made to be collected, 
he has no copies of himself,
he is the enemy of fake.

Unlike marble, Nice Guy is warm to the touch.
And all around him it is warm too. 
And all around him it is safe,
And all around him it’s just nice, 
and I deserve nice.

So with this wish, we close our Ode, my friends,
I guess what’s left to say is just: the end.

A.M. Asali

Lament of the Alphabet

And across an atrium
Beating blue, black blood
Come crashing conclusions. Could
Deliver desperate daydream delusions:
Every ending ever ensured
Farewells from far frames.
Go give God goodbyes,
Hellos. How has hell
Ignited in insatiable instinct,
Jealous jerking, just judging,
Kissing, killing, keeping keen
Lamentations lingering like living
Memories. Many might merit
No notice, no nuance.
Others, oddly open onto
Personal pictures, pondering past
Questions, qualifications. Quiet queues 
Register rocky relationships. Recognise
Stressful situations she seems
Tied to. Tried to
Undo until unknown, unspeakable 
Voodoo visibly violated vows.
“Women won’t want words”
Xenomorphic, xerotic, xanthic xenocracy.
Your young years yearning;
Zealously, zestfully, zodiacly zeroing.

A.M. Asali

My body doesn’t look the way I want it to

It never has
It never will

But when “what I want” has been carefully moulded, marketed and shoved down my throat by a system whose only goal is my submission, I have to ask

Me.
What do I truly want?
I want a body that is healthy
A body resilient enough to run long distances in the pouring rain
A body strong enough to pick up my ever-growing little siblings
Those little shits
A body humble enough to remember the pains of those before me
A body brave enough to stand in the way of injustice

What I crave is a body that fights for what is right
A body that serves my communities
A body that empowers those who look up to me

I want a body so passionate it makes love to the man I adore
A body so powerful it creates life itself
A body so warm that gardens flourish inside
So tender its fruit ripens in their own time

This is what I want
I will not succumb to the deluge of falsities about where my body should be
What my body should look like
How my body should move
When my body should be hidden
How my body should be fucked

My body is mine 
And this is what I want
I have come to believe that my body already a miracle
And to that, I surrender.

Beige

She operated in shades of beige.
Emaciated or emancipated?
Tell her.
Too nothing to eat, sleep or read.
But there is always time for tea –
Even the nothingness of phones, telly, apps and instance is not quite nothing enough.

Downstairs? Wash face? Clean? Choose?
No thank you, too much.
Tell her.

Please.

I know she wants you to.
Give her no choice and an easy one.
Fear or hedonism?
Tell her.
She craves control but no choice please.
Sick of competition, ambition and colour.
Sick.

How can you think under the fluorescence?
Violent, aggressive and invasive fluorescence.
Privacy is a remnant of the past,
To be observed and pondered in the
– great  –   British museum.
Or maybe in bed when
The deepest desire is to be alone to cast
Off responsibility and just exist without
Consequence only for a moment
Overstimulated and in danger
6:35 beeps and chirps the morning into
Existence

Maybe another list?

Isabelle Hodgson

Cans

Cans can hold all kind of things
Peaches, aubergines, peas and pearls
They are simply
Dissected, pickled, packed
Ready for consumption
In stackable, conveniently trackable
Cans.
That sit in shelves of shops
In shelve-like streets
On shelves of land.

When the event rolls around, across a
Kitchen counter
And reveals itself
In a crackling ripple of aluminium
It exposes a cavernous body of peach-
shaped organs
Lathered in sugary syrup
Like the limbs of glamorous women
On influential beaches

Cans can even can feelings
And I was surprised how easily they went.
One ‘don’t’ from a trusted friend and I
conceded
My feelings for you must be canned.
I’ll admit they went like treacle
Thick, sticky, icky, a little unhealthy
But no matter how viscous
They went –
Until they were neatly contained
And stored in a cool dry cupboard

I packed up my cupboard with aubergines, peaches, peas and pearls
Until I could not see or think
Of treacle. I hadn’t realised it was sitting
Dormant

Until you went looking for sweetness or
Mischief
And with a gap-toothed smile
You opened the can –
It overturned and all too suddenly they
came rushing out you see years had
turned treacle to milk a more
Volatile liquid.
And when I looked up again we were not
children
Your gap-toothed smile meant something
More sinister
Something I wasn’t prepared for,
You still wanted mischief and I didn’t
Know what I wanted.

Before my cupboard was packed
With other things to eat.
But now I was left wanting
The cans are empty,
The milk is spilled,
And still I am left wanting
So you see,
I must consume you.

Isabelle Hodgson

Sense it

He smelt like a posh cinema.
Like gourmet sweets,
Expensive upholstery and ethical caramel

He sounded like an old dial telephone
Whirring through words
Bringing sentences to a ringing end.

He looked like a Kandinsky;
High-brow and rare, and
An uncomfortable mix of curves and harshness

He felt like a childhood cartoon
Whimsically drawn,
Beautifully familiar with a violent subtext –

He didn’t taste like gourmet sweets or ethical caramel.
He tasted like bitter pork.
But he tasted better after I’d cooked him.

Isabelle Hodgson 

How do you sleep?

Is there room for me there?
Between you and the new girl,
Lying with you,
Does she weep?

You know, even after,
I never told a lie,
I never asked you why.
“He’s honestly a good guy”.
I should have been the one to cry.

To cry rape.
To cry assault.
To cry out.
To cry tears,
to rinse away your unwelcome touch.

I don’t need much more room.
Maybe more today than I did that day, sure.
But who doesn’t grow?
Upwards. Outwards.
I stretch my body.
Pulling it apart like putty.

Moulding it with warm hands,
against its natural will.

Doesn’t that sound familiar?
I pushed it in on the days it felt too big.
Too broad.
Too unending.

I’ll ask you again.
How do you sleep?

Maybe, if you both lie on your sides,
Facing in,
Forcing me to stay in between,
We will still all fit.
We could do. We did,
But, after, you slept.

“I should have watched where I stepped.”

I still haven’t slept.
I still haven’t wept.

Sophie Nankivell

Growing

When I was four years old
My hair was in pigtails
The pin straight parting line, an indicator
Of the righteous path
I was meant to follow

All the way down
To my eyes stained with kohl
To ward off darkness
Underlining my eyes
Underplaying my achievements

To the crook of my nose
That was religiously massaged
By well-meaning keepers of my sexuality
Who sniffed out solitude
From the arch of my nose

My earlobes pierced
Before I could say the word gender
Branding not just my femininity
But my place in society
Weighed down by its expectations
But still enduring

The fuzz above my lips
Smeared with concoctions
To rid itself of sins
That would mar the image
Of a perfect woman
My lips aching
For lipstick to stain them
The foray into womanhood
Only completed by this rite of passage
But not too dark
Dark means evil
But doesn’t dark ward off evil too?

Saira Banu

Of battles and wars

Of battles we fought inside
Like spiralling whirlpools
Never allowed to spill
Always dripping
Not parched, but never full
Unlike the wars they indulge in
Gushing forth like a tsunami
Washing over battles
For the victory of the war

Of battles that are fought
Over tears shed
For fathers, and brothers, and lovers
Of the wars that they fought
Over the honour
Of what lies between our legs

Of battles fought quietly, demurely
As is expected of our fights
The carnage, our dreams
The spoils, their might
Unlike their wars
Unlike the havoc they wreak
Claiming the laws of the universe

Of the battles we endure
Of all that we ration
As the wars they fight
Steer out of their bastions
The wars they wage
While we salvage

Of all the battles provoked
The ones we did not want to fight
Of the wars we were dragged to
A display of their spite

Of the battles they fought
But claimed were wars
Of our war
The one waged everyday
Against the world
Against us
Against war in itself

Saira Banu

I’m too dyslexic for uni

I’m too dyslexic for uni
a source on marriage and sacrament in Spain in the 1500s looks smudged
But it’s on a computer screen
I want to scream

I’m too dyslexic for uni
The walls of my room are shrinking
I just want to finish this fucking reading
Before tomorrow
So i can sleep

Before my eyes get so heavy that they fall to my toes

Its 13 pages
I have read one and a half
The rest is miles away
Stretched out like the desert
Or a really flat field that you look out at and feel like you could just walk off the end of the earth

I’m too dyslexic for uni
I started writing this because i was fuming, panicking, needed to be calmed
Now i just feel embarrassed
because i just considered writing that i’d thought to call up my grandma to read it to me
Then i stopped

This is so embarrassing

I’m too dyslexic for uni
My chat with the disability service is on Monday
But even once i get extra time what are they gonna do
Get someone to fucking read these journal articles to me?

I feel like i don’t belong here unless i can do the readings
I’m studying history so should be able to do them no problem
History is all about books
Layered with dust and old white men’s semen

So i guess i don’t
I don’t belong here.
But i find it so interesting
The one and half pages i read on a trans man called Eleno in the 1580s was fascinating
So maybe i do

I wish they did audiobooks of historical sources…

Lilah Hyman

Victims

You made me shatter / and I was in pieces / mirror shards / your shitty protestations staring / back at you from the floor / where you couldn’t help but throw me / like I was nothing / but a plaything to twist / into a victim

So sometimes I take myself back / and pretend like I’m who I was / before I opened my arms to you / but the truth is I’ll never have the / bright eyes you pierced between your fingernails / without care / because you said they were so pretty

But explosions don’t come without aftermath / and the proof will always be where / you left it / because you have never been more wrong / than when you thought you would escape / in your nonchalance

I like to think / I know your guilt

I know the darkest parts of you / and I know my memory still lives / somewhere you don’t want to address / so you’ll act like it’s fine / that I disappeared because you / couldn’t stop blaming me

You will cover your wounds / with plasters too small / and you will tell yourself / you were right all along

Pretence does not prove anything / and that is a promise because / I am not a saint / and I have screwed things up too / but I have changed and I / would let myself collapse / before papering over the cracks / with lies that will only fracture

Let me tell you / you will not stay sane / as long as you cannot grow

I do not search for a sorry / and I do not plead for you / on your knees / but I ask you / learn / do not look to be a hero / before you have been a victim / to your own mistakes

Katie Proctor

Modes of communication

Would you be surprised if I told you that I want you?

Has the stammering not been clear enough?

What about about the awkwardly timed jokes?

Have my side-glances not been direct enough?

Surely, the spiteful sarcasm, loaded with longing, was a dead giveaway?

In fact, I think I’ve done everything I could to tell you that I want you

Except tell you.

To steady the pendulum

swinging in the dark,
left to right,
I cannot see my own direction.

disillusioned-
unsure of what’s reality,
unsure of me.

dysphoric,
but of what?
who knows,
who needs to know.

maybe, of me, you see,
of me and who I’ll be.

and one day
I’ll know
that I was just for show
and I can be,
truthfully,
the one my heart does know.

Lauren Curr

inked

I trace the draft of
the story you planned to write-
in pencil-
but you wanted it in pen.
maybe I did too.
but I knew life could be brighter
if only you wait.

so waiting is what I did,
afraid you might let go-
if I were too fast or slow-
but no- together,
we took the ink
and brushed the page
with a feathered quill,

and together,
we wrote our story
in permanent ink,
the cursive letters
joining words, alike
to the way our hands
connect. eternally.

with the quill, we
write our story into
motion, and the ink
flows free, creating something
beautiful, even in
the stains left

as the ink blots,
as the heart’s passions explode.
art. the smudged
blends into the paper,
the other threads of the tale
to create our own
kind of beautiful.

Lauren Curr

Jane’s return. ‘Do not struggle so,’ I have been told, and then felt Angered and afraid Of chains and of nets.Now I have returned to youof my own free will…

Womanhood

My long hair is the hood of womanhood
A waterfall of compliments and male validation, a crown
You see me in the street and know i am a girl
If i shaved my head would i be a strong woman
Or an unwoman
Red riding hood becomes the wolf

Lilah Hyman

Little Delhi Girl

A little girl skipped into the road during a red light
No older than four
Bare feet pattering against dusty tarmac

What if it turns green?
What if the cars don’t see her?

Smiling, as vibrant as Delhi itself
Child of the city

The traffic her playground
One note her prize

Lilah Hyman

Unstring my wings.

Pretty little thing – doe eyes, gentle smile –
These things you call me and it’s sweet for a while,

Until they wrap up my wings in tangled twine,
Restrain me from nature and you think that it’s fine.

I have brittle bones and one word could break them into pieces for you to collect:
When this started, I could not expect

To be taken for a thing for you to call yours,
Take me from the moors and keep me indoors –

Babe, I just want to be free
And maybe that means that this isn’t meant to be.

Though tonight I won’t sleep a wink
For all this thinking, and overthinking,

I know it’s for the best.
You – you have put my heart to the test

And I am sick of making revisions
To fit into your future visions

Of a white picket fence life,
For I was not meant to be a wife,

Not really. I was meant to be a wild thing,
Running through forests, free to unstring

My wings and let them fly.

Rhi Henry

Washing.

Heart beat pumping aching shoulders into motion
Coarse fabric beneath tired hands
The wail of an infant ringing in her ears

She places a detergent capsule in the machine, shuts it and moves the knob to 40 degrees mixed load.

Lilah Hyman