She Must Be Mad: the bestselling poetry debut of 2018

Let me wrap the gentle curve of my body

Into someone else’s bed

I’ll let you wipe the cherry plum stain off

With the memory of when you said

‘Cheer up sweetheart, the thing with

People like you, is they’ll only love you

When you’re dead.’

lovebites (#ulink_3688ea53-451b-5e65-ad8a-39bf94576d65)

I hadn’t noticed it at first

It was done with such kindness

It hadn’t thought to hurt

But as I stumble off the train

With my knickers hitching my skirt

It would’ve been nice to know of the night

That instead of just leaving my phone charger behind

I’d be taking away a lovebite

A ‘hickey’

A purple blue yellow not nearly skin-coloured enough to cover

With make-up

Tricky

Situation

Learning to flatten my tones from their guilty high fluctuations

When I say

It’s eczema?!

At school a girl had one on her head

And said

She’d headbutted a cupboard

And cut in a fringe before the teachers had discovered it

Is so silly that they must be hidden

That something which once brought pleasure

Is suddenly forbidden

Like, grossly forbidden

Like, I walked into a party and everyone was shocked

That I was either bursting with pride

Or should be embarrassed that I’d forgot

To slap on some concealer

Or that I was akin to a slapper who’d hooked up with a drug dealer

Which for the record would be fine

It’s my neck to be decorated by whomever I desire

Minutes of passion holstered to a circle

That gets flashed every now and again

Like being autographed with a biological purple pen

It’s a bruise from a kiss

Not a place keeper for a fist

Just a splodge of romance stamped profoundly pissed

It’s as fleeting as the youth we’re scared to miss

As it’s administered

I struggle to cast it off as something sinister

And for whatever attention they seem to seek

I’m happy to laugh in their existence