You're leaving —
Surfactant. Summer
months reduce attraction.
No one remembers fast food,
the things they eat for convenience.

No one would miss it in its absence.
I'll want you even when
Summer dissolves you. Dilutes
my memory into flat beer shandy.
I won't call you.

The summer is short,
the road is short.
But too much sun can
make a man insane. Time
is a solvent. An effective surfactant.
Say you'll miss me
and think of me in muggy summer rain.

I dig my nails in and it feels good.
I wish you would hit me harder sometimes
when we’re joking around, naked,
I deserve it.

You bruise me but you don’t mean it.
It’s not your fault you’re taller than me.
The boys before you, they meant it.
They tried their best.

Has anyone broken your heart?
A boy once got a girl pregnant, she wasn’t me.
And another one.
Still not me.

I don’t want babies.
I don’t want to draw dole, smoke draw,
earn three hundred a week and blow it all
in the bookies.

I haven’t seen my Mam in a month now.
My brother might be taller again. I miss
the sea and my golden retriever.
I wish you would pretend to choke me for longer.

Sometimes I don’t want to breathe.
I think you’re just proof that home does not own me.
You don’t know me.
I can be arrogant as a priest.

Precious child, your face
is all the boy I loved,
all I wanted, all I
left behind, mixed

up in a girl.
She thinks I'm ******,
I'll never hold you.
You'll be raised to hate me.

I am not your enemy.
Just know
promises are rarely kept,
please
see the human that I am,
my soul, my mind, I'm
not a hateful girl—
a mixed up kid,
not yet the person that I
want to be.

You're beautiful,
I'm sorry I am not
your mother I
would spoil your teeth rotten
with chocolate candy.

I lie beside him and I'm tiny,
weak and helpless, but he
holds me sleeping, strokes
my hair. I
forget with one quick
movement he could **** me.

Two hundred pounds, he lifts me.
Eats twice as much as I do,
plays guitar I
play ukulele. Giant,
how do I know that you
won't break me? I am wary.

Shatter me if you will, take my body
it's no use to me anymore
it's too unholy. Just leave my heart
alone it's
been overused and battered,
bruised and I can't
cry on my own again.

I raise my hand, she
mimics me. Her
hair is yellowing, fraying
rope ******* to a boat,
knotted to the dock
she thinks she's seen
the whole sea yet
never moved from that
one
spot. Pathetic.

She is useless and broken—
not fragile, not
romantically so.
She's not a girl
people would want
to try saving. She's
pudgy. Vile. Boys
on the street spit at her.

She takes it graciously. She
once would have been angry,
once held herself in high esteem,
once thought herself pretty,
a clever wee girleen.
That imposter now she
hides from me
I could almost
break this glass and touch her.

Water, Diet Coke,
eggs,
lean chicken breast. Sit
in front of the mirror and eat
naked. Eat so much you get sick,
eat tomatoes, avocados,
eat eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs,
watch them spin down the bowl
when you flush.

"You're not fat" no, not fat,
but too fat still, not
huge
but too large, just slightly,
just time to stop
hiding and eating while crying
stop dressing
like a stuffed
sausage. Time to start
smoking again, sniff ******* I
hear it helps with that kind of thing.

First, don’t go to any of your lectures.
Drink
yourself half-to-death,
hope
to fall into a coma. Have fun
while you do this.

Make it so bad that the friend
who was once
your drug dealer
expresses concern
for your health. Step two:

Don’t study either,
procrastinate, find sick notes,
push back the date
for the inevitable
until there’s one day left
and the workload might **** you.

Finally, step three;
stand on the steps
outside the exam hall, smoking,
have your dad call you
explaining
the death of a good friend’s father.

Use your last ten minutes
to ring old friends who need to know.
Pass on the message,
blank,
leave the exam after twenty minutes,
cry in the bathroom
and go.