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Daisy King Jul 2013
So-called well-read yet
I can't read between each line
or  it work out until much later
what hides in their breaks-
so frustrated and in a fit of shame
seeing how long I had been mistaken
I took my old notebook
and cracked its spine
but still, I keep on writing
uselessly about a fear without a name.
that I can't explain, and I wish
this writing were not really mine.
Daisy King Jul 2013
Summer

Wind chimes and the clock ticks me away.
                     I am waiting for something,
                               losing other things,
                                   like my fingers
(when I pointed at stars to try and read them)
                            and my ribs, one by one,
             (trying to hold myself upright)
I don’t know what it is I am waiting for
but it has its foreshadow in the air
felt on the outskirts of my lungs.
                and now it’s inside my lungs  
                  and all the same:
I don’t belong to myself anymore.

I want to take the batteries out of every clock
because suddenly I can feel everything dying.
Running but running out of time-
but how do you even go about a tantrum
when you'll never get what you wanted in the first place.
        I must be a child or an idiot or losing marbles
        but can't help the crying, making a fool of my face.

Autumn

Hands pull me back into my sleeves
and blood runs back into my heart.
It was not something I waited for. It was someone.
                so I placed my bet on the smallest, sanest sun,
                      but still, I gathered frost
                       and shed my light
                     until refusal words were all swallowed.
They become enslaved stars
while I am realising that those I once read
had always belonged to someone else.

Winter

Gravity rolls its eyes and asks,
‘Why do I even bother?’
The universe came in and hungry
               when it expanded
                 and everything got eaten up
              until I was left with only these parts
        that belong to him
             and belong to the night-time
                and the lock.
My mind is in ashes.#
They have already been scattered.

But there was the bet I didn’t lose.
As it turned out, somehow,
in that lost state, I didn’t wage a war
that I couldn't win. .

Spring*

Love is portioned out and put in containers
and in the freezer on the bottom shelf,
next to something I made to eat later
before I can remember.
I won’t let anything melt.
I’m saving it for summer.
Daisy King Jul 2013
Masters of Science.
For doing this, am I wise
or merely foolish?

Fridge magnet poems.
Two hours he watched my mind work,
he says, "I knew then."

The faces came back.
This time, though, a rare few smile.
What are they plotting?
Daisy King Jul 2013
Train, train, bus is late.
Boiled and delicate in sun,
someone sings. I wait.

Beside greenhouses,
a gold field twinkles, endless.
I think of Steinbeck.

Crowding, reaching out,
nettles have claws here, and eyes.
Is my mind slipping?

I cry, all messy,
happy tears. His words show me
I am not useless.
Daisy King Jul 2013
Didn't I give the warning? The Danger-Lies-Ahead
and the Do Not Cross and the Turn Back Now
(if you know what's good for you)
but as I warn, I watch, and I prove myself right,
ignoring every warning, running
straight into coming traffic- and there was a  red light,
I remember there was, in retrospect
and looking at the wake of catastrophe,
I can at least say that I was correct.
Daisy King Jul 2013
The future. Although
I can't imagine mine, still-
day breaks, night falls. Time.
Daisy King Jul 2013
I was born today
but twenty three years ago.
Am I wiser yet?
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