Open Your Heart
Step 1: Do not read the instructions
Someone will have read them for you—
a do-gooder who Googled it at 2am
and carries the diagrams now
behind their …
The Spice of Life
Mayo, mild and meek.
Dull the taste of Europa!
Then came Portugal.
Breaking through the bland:
Piri piri! Fiery feast!
Latin hearts on fire.
Bread so …
Learning to Pout
A little boy sat on the train:
He counted sheep inside his brain,
He kicked his feet he tapped his pen,
His mother shooshed him once again.
He pled: …
Enigma
For me the sovereign bends the knee.
But honour me, and you I’ll serve.
In ways in which you cannot see,
In ways I deem you to deserve.
I am the …
What the Tide Brought In
It wasn’t driftwood or jellyfish,
not rope or cracked plastic,
not the usual ghosts of summer—
but a door.
Painted green once,
now …
Because I Would Not Stop for Death
Because I would not stop for Death
He made a bed for me,
Inside my cell there was a bell
If nurses were of need.
We held a wake my friends brought …
Tumble
Rumble rumble round we go:
To ride the highs, negate the lows.
Mundane inane, intrigue, awe ⸺
Routine’s comfort, glossed or raw.
Tumble tumble …
Brother
We entered the world with a bang—
a hot knot of plasma and awe,
siblings packed tighter than quarks
in the nursery of our mother’s arms. …
Neutron Star Mechanics
Neutron‑Star Mechanics
Binding Energy
There is a pressure in you that no vacuum can relieve.
No corridor in space is safe from the weight you carry; …
Day of the Matthews
Whispers chase me down the school halls:
“What kind of girl is called Matthew at all?”
“Her parents so woke, just a name to …
Unit 012: Awkward friendless weird gay child.
I put my gay inside a box. The tidy boy with the corduroy pants that trend forgot ...
Unit 017: Make it stop.
The car bomb that destroyed lives, two blocks from the street where I was born ...