but I’m white cold like that too-late
sensation of leaning over the draining board and realising all the
knives are facing blade-up. I’m sweet and my mouth is filled
with quicksand muscovado, tongue thumbing the graves of my
empty gums. In the pit of my stomach lives an eclipsing sun. I
step around the blind corner into oncoming traffic. I am the
concrete smack of a papier-mache skull against the corner of a
table-top. I am that moment at the cinema where you turn to your
date and say ooooh. I felt that. I am a curling toe. The phantom
hammer hitting your kneecap. As the blunt metal makes contact -
I am a thousand standing court room ovations. I am the crunch of
a snail’s shell in the morning when you’re outside bare foot. The
avocado stone hitting the floor - green flesh splatter. I’m the
moment at the threshold, knowing. I am the final warning,
eviction-notice red font. I am the nail varnish chipping as the
door scrapes over your foot. I am indulgent,
lick of salt on a throbbing wound.
____________
Jasmine Gray is a Northern writer and Writing Squad graduate with words in The Book of Bad Betties (Bad Betty Press, 2021), Tilt (Open Eye Gallery, 2021) and The Double Negative (2021). Her debut poetry pamphlet, Let’s Photograph Girls Enjoying Life, is published with Broken Sleep Books (2019).