Infestation: A Collection

Skin

The body peels itself

away from the floorboards,

sweat, sticky and slick,

pops like a gunshot

as the skin pulls loose.

Shoulder blades pulsate

as movement returns

once more. “It’s been

a hell of a night,”

the heavy arms creak.

Even in the dark of the room,

the body can sense morning;

the dew on the legs, the cool

floorboards are warming

with the dawn.

There’s something here

about a beginning.

The body

pulls at the skin

and it is still attached —

Meaning, of course,

that the body is a body

once more. Meaning,

of course, that the beginning

has already begun.

Blood

Rust on the duvet, thick

and red and oxygenated

with disuse. Somewhere,

there’s a baby crying

for milk, yelling from all

the apartment walls;

domestic arguments,

pain painted over with a fresh

coat, cotton sheets closeted

with fire, something red (again).

Hands, gripping, arching

in isolated agony, the woman

in the bed is only

a woman in a bed. Tomorrow

the pain may subside

with ibuprofen and heat,

but tonight it boils over

like a cauldron, like a curse

between the legs. Rust

chips away at the milk

softness. A knife could slice

right through and nothing

would change. There’s no point

changing the sheets again.

Bone

Almost like clockwork,

the bone breaks. This time,

an arm, a warning

against the things that hands

can do. Cut it off not at the disease,

but at the root.

We hope, this time,

that we were quick enough

in the amputation.

That the disease has spread

no further than the floor

upon which the phantom limb jerks.

Last time, it was slow,

an infestation below the muscle

until the patient was screaming

for morphine. We had to cut

the lower leg first, but the thigh

was already prisoner.

The neuroscience department

has been working overtime

on all the brains we lobotomised

before removal. We’re thinking

that’s where it ruminates,

dormant, like a volcano.

The infection manifests

differently in everyone.

In some, it cries for attention,

and we cut the throat.

In others, it’s violence,

and it ends up killing itself.

There’s not much we know

and even less we can name.

When they brought my body

in, they called it loneliness,

and cut out my heart.

The wolves ate well that night.

Worm

Sometimes I feel like there’s a worm inside my mind,

I hear it, when it’s nighttime, it has a voice

and that voice tells me to turn my body four times

so that everyone I love doesn’t leave me.

More than that, though, I feel it

right at the back of my skull. It nestles

deep inside and chokes the blood flow away

from rationality, and I clench my fist two times two.

And then it uncurls. I think it is wounded

but it is really just gorging on the compulsion

I have fed it. Again. But the reprieve is glorious

for a moment, until its maw opens back up for more.

Its body is a spiral, contorting thoughts

until I am at its mercy; although it is part of me,

I feel as though I am part of it.

It’s impossible to run away from an attached body.

One day, everyone you love will die and it will be your fault,

ballet turn, pivot, dance en pointe my darling, again,

walk, walk, walk, walk, there we go, now people are alive.

Now you’re a hero, for a second, for two.

Here we are in the thick of it.

Oh, you didn’t like that, did you?

Worm II

I waterfall my fingers down my throat

and wriggle them like they’re alive,

like I’m nineteen years old again,

trying to prove that I’m the cool girl

with no gag reflex.

The shower runs on boiling hot

and if I stand, I might fall,

so I’m taking the hair-infested plughole

as my date to the dance,

once I’m done with the black hole left in its absence.

My fingers are uncomfortably water-warm

and if I close my eyes, it feels so good,

like the first time I realised there was a clenched fist

inside my stomach that I could begin

to uncurl.

When I think about it, it’s like masturbation.

It’s something I wouldn’t talk about in Church

and it’s something I should only do behind closed doors.

A lot of things are like masturbation, in that way,

like being gay, and cutting my own hair, and whatever this is.

It’s a distraction.

It’s something to do when the list of things to be done

is the same every day, when the doors are perpetually

shut and the clenched fist will always be clenched

once rigor mortis has set in.

Eggs

I swallowed my lunch down the wrong way

and now there’s something in my lungs,

eggs, I think, cracked into little pieces

with the shells all picked out.

I really should have known when I couldn’t breathe

that I was doing this backwards,

but I swallowed anyway, and now when I hyperventilate

it’s like my body is trying to make an omelette.

It sounds so funny. It sounds like everybody

but me is laughing. I mean, it’s a ridiculous idea,

having eggs in your lungs,

but the more I think it’s true, the more I feel them.

I suppose this is divine punishment

for the impossible crime of eating lunch,

for taking those eggs and cracking them straight

into my mouth. There are probably some unborn

chicks thinking, in as much as chicks can think

like we do, that this is divine punishment.

Who gets the last laugh? The abortion does.

And now I’m on the table — medical, not,

you know, the dinner one,

and the doctors are saying that they’re going to cut

something out of me to keep me alive.

If it weren’t for the fact that my mouth

has been sewed up to prevent my own idiocy,

I’d tell them that that’s what I’ve been trying to do all along.

Scares

Five.

There’s a lump on my breast that I haven’t told the doctor about.

I told my mum, and she said it was probably fine, so it’s probably

fine, even if my friends tell me to stop chancing it and see a specialist.

Sometimes I try to pop it like a blister or a spot, but it just stings

and then Google tells me that cancer is more of a dull ache, so it’s fine.

Four.

I threw up violently in the bathroom and then my heart felt heavy.

Ignoring the obvious irony of ‘heavy’, I could describe it as:

tight, aching, dull, wheezing, like a fist clenched right around it.

Convincing myself that I was having an elongated, stretched-out

heart attack, I took myself to the hospital.

They gave me acid reflux pills.

Three.

When I was seventeen, I was as seventeen as a seventeen year old can get.

That is to say, my problems were both numerous and the end of the world.

So it surprised exactly nobody, least of all the police officers that were called,

when I took a scalpel and tried to perform surgery on myself. Yeah —

that happened. But at least I got to ride in a police car

on the way to tell the crisis team that everything was really okay, I promise.

Two.

Osteoporosis runs in my family. Like the lamest curse that can possibly

be passed down through female lineage, it’s a given truth that one day,

my bones will become brittle and break. To this day, I haven’t lost my bone-

breaking virginity, and I personally think it sucks to be twenty-one

and have never had the opportunity to get a cast signed. I drink a lot of milk.

One.

To this day, I have a fear of home invasion. I suppose I’m more attuned

to the house-settling noises of being alone. If I’ve made a habit of ignoring

all my own bone creaks, they’ll start popping up in other places.

Like knocking on a door that’s already open. Like the way the bed creaks

when I turn over. Like checking the locks when something is already inside.

Fenn

There’s a treasure hidden deep within my bones,

and it seems like it’s the collective world’s job

to find it. To sink their hands so deep within

that my ribs crack apart and I am angel-spread.

And then they can take whatever they want

and call it ‘treasure’. And I can be left behind

and call it heartbreak, because then I’ll have something

to write poems about. Something to cry about

when I’m not really sad, I just want to be.

But if I am the forest, then I have many places to hide:

the gaps between my fingers, the way my stomach

folds over on itself. The mortifying ordeal

of knowing who I am can perhaps be my greatest ally.

So come, bring your maps and your backpacks

and all those things that TV taught you adventurers need;

come inside, I’ll put the stove on, let’s have some tea,

and you can warm your greedy hands

before they worm inside me.

Simulation

They were making Jesus into a marionette.

That’s why they nailed through his hands,

because the hands are attached to the arms,

and the arms the shoulders, and from there

you can pretty much control the whole body.

It’s too easy, far too on the nose

to pretend that God is the puppet master,

and I don’t want to give any credit

to the executioners. So, let’s say

that Jesus is both puppet and puppeteer:

right. You following me?

Hands are being manipulated by hands,

and I’m trying to get at something

beyond a religion I don’t believe in any more.

The bloody lamb is in his bloody chamber

and there’s something controlling all of this.

Unreality is the only thing

that can, for sure, be real. If we’re all

in a collective simulation,

made up amoebas floating around

in some brain hooked up to wires,

then why did we invent God?

Bodies

Some bodies are made of worms,

soft, malleable, wet to the touch

with tears and a thin layer of grime,

built up over years of creaky limbs

oiled with their own disuse.

Some bodies are made of wasps,

and they are violent. The buzz

rings in the ears and they are the type

to throw drunken punches. Every

second is all that is.

Some bodies are made of earth,

in that they sustain others

and drain themselves. Global

warming will kill them off, but

for now, they shine.

Some bodies are made of other bodies,

like Frankenstein, like corpses

that aren’t quite done yet

with the worms and the wasps

and the ground that they clawed out of.

Suicide

I don’t think I know how to be sad properly.

I’d find sadness even in the middle of the dark,

even when I’m not searching for it,

but it’s not the Van Gogh type of sadness

that will gain me posthumous love.

More like, every poem I can write

is another draft of a suicide note

addressed to the tiles of the bathroom floor.

I’m struggling, sure, but I’m not struggling

in a way that’s accessible. I can’t be

processed and eaten,

my bones have no use for the Other.

But it means something to me,

it has to, otherwise why am I

doing any of this at all? I’m familiar

with red to the point of orange,

but nothing beyond that. There’s not

really — no, not at all — anything

except a cry for help in these words.

Fast

An Easter banquet.

A Good Friday fast

that ends in gorging.

A slaughtered lamb

with hands and flesh

on the table.

Blood on the napkins

and silence.

Emptiness at the head

of the table,

save for forks scraping

cheap porcelain.

We save the good plates

for good days,

so naturally,

they’ve never been used.

I wonder

how it feels

to have never

held food in my palms.

Give me five thousand

and I will feed them all.

Give me an

all-you-can-eat buffet

and I’ll turn it down.

I am faceless, but

not in this crowd.

A crowd, yes,

but not this one.

I’m the B-lister of the Bible.

Bird

The thing with begging to be loved

is that there’s more love in the begging

than there is in the aftermath.

There’s more to be loved in a pathetic way

than ever in something genuine.

But we still do it. Admit it,

you’re not the exception. We drag

our hands across our bodies

and pluck them into something acceptable;

there comes a point where it’s not love,

but violence. But acknowledgement —

and damn it if they don’t feel the same.

We are all crying the way children cry

for attention. If I scrape my knee

on the thick tarmac, will I still have to walk

home alone?

The birds sing for food early in the morning.

If I were a mother, I would never

make my child beg for vomit. If I were a mother,

I would rip myself apart six months in

to see if I was cooking up something that looked

like me.

Sexline

I’m calling a phone sex line

and telling them that I don’t think

my first girlfriend ever loved me.

They ask me what I’m wearing,

trying to divert the conversation,

and I ask if emotional baggage counts.

I push a hand between my dry thighs

and ask them if they like their job.

I ask what their favourite flavour

of ice cream is, and if they’ve ever

eaten it in the sunshine and felt okay.

I ask if they have someone back at home

that they’re doing this for,

or if they just like monetising a soft voice.

You have a very nice voice, I say,

and they laugh, awkwardly. Kindly,

they ask if I meant to call the Samaritans instead.

I say no, they blocked my number,

and they expect me to be killing myself every time.

Are you killing yourself now?

Slowly. Do you have a boyfriend?

No, baby, I’m all yours.

Don’t lie.

I have a baby on the way. I’m just trying

to make ends meet.

I get it. Me too. By the way,

do you even like ice cream?

Not really.

Me neither. I don’t know why I brought that up

in the first place. Are you lonely?

Right now?

Yeah. Now.

A little bit.

I am killing myself, by the way. I just wanted

to talk to someone before I go.

That’s okay. Your call will be charged anyway.

Infestation

I’m not obsessed.

I’m just…

really, really in tune

with the fact that I was born wrong.

See, I look normal,

but I feel it inside me,

crawling like maggots under my skin;

it feels like I was parchment-stretched

in the womb,

and I’ll burst open

any day soon, loose flesh

flapping against the humdrum

buzz of a thousand flies

fighting for freedom from this oppressive

body.

And I’m not scared of that.

If anything, I’m jealous

that they get freedom.

It’s like I’m a coffin

that’s scared of dead people.

Nobody cares about the object

or the elephant in the room,

until it becomes too much,

and even then the subject takes priority.

What am I saying?

I think the writhing parasites

are inside my mind, now,

telling me to pass on a message:

it’s all fine. Don’t read any deeper

into this. We’re fine. I mean — I’m fine.

Pandemic

A virus is like a secret,

once it’s out, it’s out.

Like, hey, don’t tell anyone,

but I’m gay, and I have blood

in my lungs. I’m trying to choke

the gay out of myself

before anyone else can. You

see, it’s all about control:

needing it, and taking it,

and the in-between state

of having complete control

and spiralling out of it at the same time.

So if I want to find a vaccine

for all the bad thoughts I’m having

about myself, isn’t that just another

way of saying that I’m trying to make myself

immune to hatred from outside?

If it originates in the lungs,

in the mind, in the sickly body,

then it’s somehow more authentic.

And maybe I can deal with it

a little better. Only a little,

because I’m still one-hand-pinned

against the wall, choking myself

to the point that I can’t form words,

can’t say the things I’m desperately

trying to adjust to.

Between

The shower floor

is both blistering

and icy. The water

that has pooled

under my thighs

is colder

than the heat

pounding through

the flesh of my back,

right to my spine.

I like existing

between things.

I like loving so hard

that it hurts,

and hating so violently

that I burn

like the shower-fire.

I do not know

how to do things

in anything other

than extremes.

I’m searching for

an ending

in the middle

of a battlefield,

ripping red raw

welts on my hands.

There’s a reason

behind all of this,

but if I ever find it out,

I am sure that I will die

on impact. Like a rocket

falling from the Heavens.

Like we made Man

into God, and were cast

down in Challenger fire.

OCD

Four clocks on the wall,

telling me that I’m running out of time.

There’s only me in this ghost-town,

keeper of the hands,

and I have to reset each clock

before it develops a mind

of its own.

The problem arises in that I

am flawed, and slow,

and by the time I have reset

the fourth clock,

the first is taunting me

to run back and start it all over

again.

And what’s worse?

I can no longer tell

whether I have been at this

for hours, days, months, even.

My Hell-shackles are the very thing

I am trying to push back.

I could call it a prison

of my own creation,

but I wouldn’t want to plagiarise God.

I’m having a lot of waking dreams,

like I’m hypnotised. Sometimes,

I hear voices telling me what to do

in catastrophising extremes. Set

back the clocks, or you will die one day.

Set back the clocks. Set back the clocks.

Set back the c—

Goddess

There’s nothing sweeter

than the lick slick thick of it

on her skin. Her, of course,

being Mary, being leg spread

virgin pure good girl gone bad

Mary, in holy remembrance.

Are you trying to tell me

that she didn’t have a lesbian phase

in college? That she wasn’t

fucked on wine coolers

playing spin the bottle with hair

in her eyes and Joseph only a wet

dream away? When we don’t

count as people I don’t think God

gives a fuck if Mary got it on

with another woman. Or maybe

I’m trying to justify blasphemy

with, well, blasphemy.

Put me in a confessional

and I’ll tell you all about angels

with eyes and rings for bodies,

I’ll wax poetic about how may

the Lord be with you, and also

with you, let’s fuck to the sermon, babe.

If you want to suck my blood

dry, we’ll mix it into the Communion

wine. Oh, we’re disgusting.

Oh, we’re absolutely going to Hell,

a dingy motel off the motorway

on the way to the middle of fucking nowhere.

I’m the better version of God,

good girl gone violent,

good girl gone taken advantage of,

good girl gone fuck it, if God exists,

he can come and stop me himself.

End

It’s time to go to sleep.

It’s time to put the weary

mind to rest again,

and hope that it will wake

once more to a fresh day.

Imagine dew drops.

Imagine morning blessing

afternoon, and imagine

seeing it as if for the first time.

If this is what gets you through,

then that’s alright. We’re all

just meandering our way

through life. It’s a pandemic

of words, of empty promises,

of sunrises that are more boring

than spectacular.

There’s actually nothing

to be said for living,

any more. It’s not grand,

or brave, or admirable.

It isn’t even the only option,

nor is it expected.

But we — I — still need permission

to die.

If I’m ending this here,

then it’s up to you. The reader.

If you would like to close this all down,

I won’t hold it against you.

Free me from these pages,

and I’d be grateful if I was able.

And if you want to forget me,

to make me die twice,

then make it quick, and don’t hesitate.

2020