Work Text:
Seven years old.
Sitting on my father’s lap
Hair in thin ringlets round my face
Frames my jaw like flowers on the vine.
Eyes soft and damp with forest dew
Which wizened into grey as years passed
Like old bark.
Face a mess,
Licking on a red lollipop
Drips over fingers and split lips
Like blood to stain my pink summer dress.
Blood, it is,
Blood like eleven years old.
Blood like secondary school,
Like curling up in bed in pain
Like womanhood,
Never feeling quite right.
Blood like hot summer,
Lacking summer clothes.
Like long sleeves.
Like the stickiness of plasters.
Blood like light–headed
Fast–keeling slow–falling
Whisper.
Summer heat
On August first
Wake up in the wake of a night
Spent giggling with camp friends.
Stand to shake the rocks from your body
From A[**********] beach
Climb onto windowsill
Hide behind curtains
Chatter through the next night.
Summer like the best day of my life
Doe-eyes wide-smile
Long eyelash meets sturdy chin
Curls black and face soft
Voice rough and eyes cold
Turning blue from salt and sea
Me huddled up in my winter-clothes, like
‘Summer can’t touch me’.
You told me you were neither girl nor boy
And I didn't tell you anything
(although I wanted to)
in return.
Summer like that was the last time I saw you.
Summer like you, oh you,
Those little ice–pop tubes
Fighting over scissors to crack them open
Cold summer nights that came late
Sitting with hot chocolate, pushing
Needle through thread.
The sounds of chatter and hot mushroom-soup
The whirr of the wind turbine over our heads.
You told me that you were a lesbian, quiet
And that was the moment I first felt with you.
Thirteen years old,
Camera rolling
‘Get in the cupboard, oh my god!’
‘You got rocks everywhere!’
‘They were folded up in my trousers
from the beach’
Laughter. Indistinct mumbling.
‘Just get in the cupboard, I’m recording.’
Muffled: ‘hello, I am speaking from the cupboard…’
Camera shakes. ‘Oh my gods!’
Cut out.
Seven years old,
Summer party.
Pink dress,
Skin unscarred.
Eyes wide.
Drink a smoothie,
Spill a smoothie.
Sniffing papa’s beer as I climb on his lap.
Falling asleep with the thud of the drums rocking me away.
Summer heat,
Seven years young.
I’ll return.
I’ll come home.
One day.