2 poems by Nicki Heinen

Fucked off

The dispiritive - N-drive

I tell you, London

I have been under lock and key

sweated through shirts, a factory smell

London, I have run scared through your tarmac streets

spooked by traffic lights

hunted by uniformed staff

London, you rise over every street’s lamp-post

in my dreams, in my waking dreams

in my hospital bed, in my naked shower

London, your medication and your doors

your smells of trash after rain

I have set my hair on fire on the red plastic of your bus stops

I have eaten your fried roofs

tasted your roadside weeds

am belly full of the pedestrians passing by your cafes

intoxicated by your car fumes

smoke-filled, cloud throned

hail and snow

I have woken sectioned in NHS trust, next to parks

explosions of violets against impossible green

I have smoked cigarettes on balconies overlooking waste

trudged through mud puddles, slashed streets singing

I am tired of the rubber tyres klaxoning

sirens and the horse box ambulance

crisp packets fluttering like butterflies

I am jaded, dog shit and LTNs and red buses and Kings Cross tube

but London, I am never sick of you

___________

Nicki Heinen is a writer and artist born in Saarlouis, Germany. There May Not Be a Reason Why, her debut collection, is published by Verve Poetry Press.