Baby cousin points at my old toy robot
Declares, 'This robot used to be big.'
I say, 'No, you used to be small.'

'What?'

She then crouches down to old toy robot's
height and smiles and laughs,
'I used to be small like this!'

Maybe, just maybe I'll have
one of those little things
and teach them about stars
and boys and girls and words,
but I already told you
I can't live like that,
I think.

there is
a           mess
about her,

fluttering
towards  open

    space.


writhing

below pale
skin,

refusing to sit

so structurally,
so secured

in flesh.


wildly
           bending
and      swelling,


becoming

the
           savage


she so calmly
swears

isn’t there.











*-MJS

it's her birthday
i give her my gift and he does the same

but he steps forward with a certain
hesitance
a slight colour to his cheeks
he lets go a second too late
and she flashes a grin
he smiles too

but whilst red spread to the back of his neck
and the tips of his ears
and whilst he heard his heart

stop

she felt nothing but warmth blooming in her chest
for
a
friend