found this old dress
that madness of velvet overdraft
and silk sheen of sweat (90% polyester).
well soon you’ll see I’m no Hester
Prynn, I’m prying - not prim, nor proper -
keep my mouth shut like a gaping doorway.
my bonny step lays
it on thickly in the morning,
gold optimism and naivety butter sticks
to the pan - you could lather it on like
jam, baby you could spread it like soap
(all wrong, but I do it on purpose).
When midi sonne I’m a discount Cinderella, done
for the day on the clock’s sweet spot right where noon
slaps it. His southern sun’s too bright for my
east-lovin eyes, bring on my
hangover headache of post-lunch
blues, you pressed
the word snooze on yourself
one too many times. Your
life awaits in a small box
somewhere, Pandora’s finest,
offering cheap clink of gold when
silver’s always been your only best.
They should know that, but forgetting
to remind them is on you, you stagnating
in cesspool of fleshy tomorrows
with promises of stable-as-mortgage to-do lists
chair boursouflée du jour attendant d’être cueilli
vanilla baby, awaits caffeine hands,
sweaty adrenaline and rare moments
in between to become lean-mean art-making machine.
She surfaces twice a month - rears her scaly head
And is gone, splashing water back in your face
With a sick truth: in bed by 10:30 pm on a weeknight
keeps the brain wrapped up tight, swaddles her up against
the dreaded bark of stark club light.
above you pedestalize
(sounds odd please don’t fantasize)
the Carefree, the Cocky and the Competent
three riders of the End who are not actors
in their own play - grabbing the curtains they’ll
swing into the audience, Truman Show unviolated,
they just are.
Now I am fabricated performance piece
buckling down for another week of bawdy
functional behaviour (and we’re really
scraping the bottom of the barrel, the box)
but I guess that means it’s open - she’s unhinged.
Artwork by Ishika Dutta