29/punkoffprompt

I can't hear anything
Anymore, at least not
Well enough to describe
It's all too loud and clichéd
A wall of dicks, disguised
As white noise
Primed to ejaculate
Drowning out the tuneful

28/compoundwords

Underground bookstore friendship 
Sweetmeat bootstrap honeymoon
Weekday earthquake afterglow

27/finalthoughts/fallingdownawell

In the end
It's a well, actually 
That is the death of me 
And all I see
Flashing in front of my eyes
Is sweet relief
And the joy of silence

26/freewrite

Graduation day
The next parchment
To wallpaper my
Safe space
This place that
Holds me fast
Helps me past
The harms done to me
The crimes performed
Upon me as if I
Were only a doll
Instead of a living
Never forgiving
Whole being
But a waste of
Flesh and bones
Could never go home
Their privilege writ
So large on faces
I thought places
Of reprieve
Now I leave them
To their cathedrals of
Entitlement and
Breathe ink from
Endless purging
Now emerging
To be me

25/alienencounter

They say they want to land

I warn them off

With a glance to my brow

They ask why

I try to describe patriarchy

With my mind’s eye

With my hands tied

But all I can manage

Is a tapped out

Rhythm, spelled like this:

dot dot dot dot

dot

dot dash dot dot

dot dash dash dot

24/favouritelyric

'I could stand to hear my baby call me by my name'

I could stand a little touch
A little tease
The merest affirmation
The slightest invitation
If you called
I'd come running
Right through the fire

23/tanka

we are feeding on
bruises we write by moonlight
flesh remembered songs
spilling from between our teeth
onto trusting jugulars

22/weneedtotalk

You know better
Than to say those words
To me when you
Know their connotations
And yet you go right ahead
Nailing shut the coffin
I can't hear you
When you shout so loud
You know better
But you never
Do
Better

21/deadpoets

Elise Cowen
Awoke after her tumble
Expecting oblivion
She is instead met
By the Bard
Who declares she must
Be a green girl
But a friendly Woolf
Shooed him away
And led her fellow
Woman wordsmith
To a room of her own
At last, free from the
Howling wanting
She writes
Content

20/freewrite

I bleed for weeks
Months on end
Relentless sacrifice
Leaks out of my
Carcass womb

19/lastgoodbye

You stare back at me
Eyes a faded green
Haunted like mine
If only I'd never
Promised not to
Hurt you again
I could slice this blade
Along an artery and
Be done with you
Instead, I put down the
Knife, pick up a cloth
Clean the mirror
And pray for a
Swift suffering

18/greatestfear

I've already faced
The fear and
Survived by the
Skin of my rage
Nothing touches me
Now
I wait only for oblivion

17/biopoem

Her name is Heather
AKA Moxie
Also known as Mama
AKA Aitch
She comes from red dust
She was late
She knows she is unbearable
She wants to be warm
She wishes she could be free
She needs peace
She has ears that are too small
She loves that she can disappear
She hates that she cannot rest
Her name is a scarlet letter
And that's all that matters

16/letter to my future self

You’re just getting used to answering

‘Doctor’

When they ask if it’s

Miss or Missus

But we both know it’ll never be Missus

And that’s okay

You’re doing just fine

Silver lady solo

Still surprising yourself

With your resilience

15/letter to my body

the forgiving skin stitches over scars

this ugliness pulls down on me

until all I want is to peel away

my skin and spill like so much meat

upon the earth and be left out

for the ravenous sunlight to rot

the forgiving skin stitches over scars

walking around with my unfuckableness

singing along with my bigfatugliness

bathe me in blood and dreams

put me to bed on shards of glass

and hope I don’t split open at the seams

splintering into text like fingernails

the forgiving skin stitches over scars

rewiring my circuitry ever so slowly

automaton woman coding myself

a path through all the pain until

i am just vaporising molecules

spinning mute stories of terror

bleached bones dripping with ink

the forgiving skin stitches over scars

14/witness protection

Take me somewhere distant

With a library

A fireplace

And a window over

The kitchen sink

Looking over hills

Frigid and emerald

Chisel me a new face

Smaller nose

Fuller cheeks

Flatter browbone

Recolour my tattoos

And let me run a

Bookstore with a

Labrador for safety

13/dream job

Spinner came in

And I'm off and racing

Naming lipstick colours

Dreaming of which

One will be worn

For the first day

Of someone else's

Dream job

Empowered by shades

From crimson to copper

Kicking goals

12/freewrite

Kinbaku dreaming
Colour me in reflection
Make a cage of hope

11/rework

Nobody has hurt me
Quite like you
Nobody takes the pain
Quite like me
And it could have been
Quite something
If you'd been brave enough
But instead
You cut and run
So now I scrape you
Off of my skin
Like so much dirt
That curls and eddies
Its way down the drain
Alongside the last
Of the tears
I've allotted to you

Ten/doppelganger

I've never been told I look like

Anyone famous, and there’s

Danger imminent

In a comparison

Too skinny to be Magda

Too fat to be Zooey

‘You know, in the right light…

If your face was thinner…

If your thighs were heavier…’

All of these things that

Highlight my inadequacy

The closest I’ve ever come

To sparking a resemblance

Lies in my voicebox

A Winehouse/Adele/Janis

Lovechild of a thing

That leads to comments

And suggestions

‘You should go on The Voice…

X Factor…

Australian Idol…’

But I dreamt of being Amy

And woke in a cold sweat

I’ll stick to quiet

Word wrangling and

The occasional

Karaoke

Nine/meditation

Five minutes
Four limbs 
Three hanks of rope
Two friends
One blindfold
Surrender to the sound
Of rope ends upon tatami
Map the movement
Of wraps over flesh
The rhythm
The tension
The blissful
Breathing together
Connection

Eight/thatword

People seem to think I've been given a brain

As some kind of compensation prize
For being fat and ugly and ill
They sweep my hard work
Under a belittling
Rug called
'Talented'

Seven/haiku

Sandpaper heartbeat
Echoing into Monday
Morning's solitude

Six/disruptive

We sit in our scratchy

School skirts and socks
Rolled down as far 
As we dare
We are being lectured to
About how to be good
Christian wives
Glazed eyes meet the
Teacher's gaze, until
He asks me to interpret
The lesson, and I balk
I hesitate, almost hold
My forked tongue
Before screwing my
Courage to the sticking
Point, replying...
'This lesson doesn't apply
To me, Sir, as I intend
To remain
Unmarried'
I am met with
A moment's silence
Before the lunch bell
Rings us to safety

Five/freewrite

how

am i supposed to shout my abortion

like some feminist icon when it takes me through

that pinprick of courage into the expansive endless

unpredictable greyness of grief, sucks me under

even as i resist until i'm submerged

and i am the motions of the whole damned broken world

and i am every lost child and every tortured heart and

i am equal to the task but puzzled

pandora cassandra persephone all woman

all the love work all the tears all the pain and

i want to come up for air gasping sea siren

made beautiful by blood loss and the cold in my bones

and the demons held closer than the dear ones

and time escapes me squirreling kernels of joy

hoarding memories of almost happiness

amongst the ruins of this body so reviled

how

Four/sorry

I'm sorry
For not allowing you
The brief sting of a
Bandaid farewell 
For not turning out
To be your pliable
Manic Pixie Dream Girl TM
I'm sorry
For not believing you
When you were sweet
To this always ugly face
For not letting you
Go without a fight
I'm sorry
But I'll never regret
I'll never forget
And I'll never forgive you

Five/Haiku

return to queendom
return to a heavy crown
return to red rain

april (haiku)

happiness eludes
even now there's every reason
to enjoy the sun

fitting in

nobody's going to make room for me so 
any space i wanna take up i have to
walk into and claim for myself
and fill it with my substantial
presence, my too-bigness
too-loudness, too-greyness
too-womanness, too-queerness
any place i wanna reclaim
from the omnipresent majority
i just have to sit in, until my
stubbornness makes me fit

Three/SelfLove

From silver mane

(half shaved, half curls)

To broken ballerina’s toes

(Rubens muse in between)

I am worthy

From the eyes

(the colour of gum leaves at dawn)

To the mouth

(cathedral of sensuality)

I am moxie

From the morning

(constant courage, Kintsukuroi heart)

To the evening

(voice of a siren, singing prayers)

I am poetess

From A, B, C

(adipose, bluestocking, cavalier)

To X, Y, Z

(xanthippe, yearning, zingara)

I am extraordinary

shy almost pretty

last time i was loved 
i looked like some forgotten
shy almost pretty wallflower
all lush curls and a pout
i'm harder now
greyer and wiser
but still forgotten
never pretty wallflower

Panty Rant

once you've learned that every interaction is about how much value you add to his socio-economic status, you look for other ways to be viewed

you are not currency

reclaim your agency

you can do more than suck dick and cradle his brittle ego between your breasts

your breasts that are more than toys

your breasts that are more than udders

your breasts that are yours alone

once you realise that every compliment he's given you is a thinly veiled probe directed at your cunt, you look for another audience

you are not currency

reclaim your agency

you can do more than lay back and think of england as he barely touches your skin

your skin that is more than a vessel

your skin that is deserving of sensuality

your skin that is worthy of devotion

Rich Bit

I'm a luxury
Few can afford
So I'm savoured
In the small hours
When they feel
Like splurging

Two/Best Movie

A desk bound beauty
Titillated and safely
Touched, tortured, and loved

(Secretary)

One/Misdirect

Fingers trace an outline
Over still warm flesh
Easing knots from the wetness
Where muscle meets bones
Oil soon becomes viscous
And the meat seared, delicious