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we imagine huge plastic hands

sleeves pulled down

funny



what if leaves were cornflakes

all crisp like frosties



he used two shovels



the wind will take the rest

away
hc Jun 2019
i.
and love and you. i loved your old car, and your name for it. it was so clever. you're so clever and unique and i'm holding your hand and we're unique. what do you mean? i mean, we're different from the rest. we just are. we have to be. because it's you and me. and rainy cities at night aren't sloppy and slushy and blurry and grey. they're beautiful blue. deep blue, mazarine blue, and the street lights are backdrops for our shadows. our shadows and the puddles in the street. we walk through the puddles and you don't mind, because you like my rain boots. and i like you. your eyes are big and brown and sweet and round, and i'm looking at you, and you're looking at me. because here's looking at you when we fall onto the sand at the beach it's okay because when we fall, we fall together and that is our streetlight manifesto.

ii.
when i walk through a new city at night, it's full of noise and movement. but i am alone. i pass quickly by. i pass old streetlights and memories. i close my eyes and blink away it all. i don't go to the beach anymore. the sand fills my shoes and it rubs at all those old memories. and old cars seem like they really only belong in movies. and now i collapse onto just a bed in a building.

iii.
knowing more and thinking different. because you are different. shyer and sweeter but with the shaky hands i seem to be drawn to. and i draw you. and i on a park bench singing songs from bands we pass from ear to ear. candy wrappers at the library and frosties past my twelve. this is different and i am older. you are not him. and i know you and i know differently now. but you are familiar like the rainy roads i’ve always sped down and you are sweet like the candy you keep in your pockets. i'm going to try to inhale you all at once.

iv.
it hurt so much. so differently than ever before.

v.
you were unlike the rest. and by the rest, i only mean two.
you weren't very quiet. and you were suspicious of everyone
the first time i saw you look at me. and i mean
right
at
me
you thought you took me all in, in that moment. but i was the one who took you in, all of you, completely, for good.

vi.
for you, i was a shadow. i am your shadow; i am always here for you, and also always here behind you. i can no longer say i’m older and know better with pride. when i say i'm older, it escapes as a sigh when i look out of my new window into the same rainy streets. i have less to say but more to remember. like where i have to draw the line. when i am drawn to you but now when i draw a line i don’t draw you.
R Grimshaw Jan 2019
Gary bought an exercise bike,
It sat and gathered dust,
The more he brushed the dust away,
The quicker it would settle,
Soon his house was caked in dust,
In every crevice and every corner,
His wife begged him to sell the *******,
Complaining of her asthma,
“I’ll use it one day!”
He snapped,
Coughing into his Frosties.
Yenson Jan 2022
Messrs Thimbles et Karens
are we too simple to know the difference
between the home-grown hommies
who you mark
from day one and scoop out their brains
leaving them as the dog beside the gramophone
listening to their Traders voices
stabbing and killing each-others as Traders plant and sow seeds
to divide, destabilize, disorganize and rule
this here ain't no home-grown
not bred to sit by your distorted archaic disreputable gramophones to jive to the ranting nonsenses of nonsensically wet Frosties
my ancestors rule towns
my siblings are men and women of letters with laurels
I was born in a free Nation
and wrapped in loving velvet
I was raised proper and I do proper things properly
I am not one of the tools variety
thimbles and Karens are tools who handle other tools
what's there about them not already known
what's there to overthink






As guest editor on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Sterling sat down to talk with Three Lions boss Southgate.

Asked by his manager what advice he would have said to himself when he was 19, the 27-year-old said: "Come off social media, don't read anything about yourself.

"When I first came into the team, I was getting man of the matches.

"It was all nice - I was playing for England and really excited about that stuff.


"And then one thing happens and it's constant bad, bad, negative, negative.

"When you're putting this information into your brain, there's only way you're going to react.
"You're going to feel down about yourself, you're going to start overthinking. The one thing you don't want your brain to do as a human being - not just a footballer - is to overthink.

"I'd say stay away from looking at anything in regards to myself."

Sterling, Danny Rose and Callum Hudson-Odoi were racially abused by Montenegro fans in March 2019.

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