Abel

This is a collection of poems I wrote over the course with 2017, the climax of the relationship and the collection occurring in late October to early November, when I finally got myself out of the situation. I still have nightmares about him, and every time I go outside in Canberra I think I see him and panic.

I've still got one final poem to write about him, but it's not going to be finished anytime soon. It doesn't fit in here anyway - it's too calm, mathematical, composed.

(I cringe at these poems and their bad writing, but I feel the need to show these to someone other than myself.)



Histidine

I hate you like this.

Drunk on your own

effervescent blood;

because you’re in front

always-girls

Too dull to measure

your pH. They

can’t see that the bubbles come 

from hyperventilation and self-hatred;

acidosis - 

your blood’s bitter as vinegar.

And maybe that’s why you like pre-ing with

them more, them

naïvely gassed on your bubbles:

they don’t notice your 

slurred words, your

increasingly flighty octaves,

your flailing limbs -

you look pathetic,

drunk on the phenomenon of yourself.

You don’t like me because I am sober now.

Just wait till their tolerance increases

and they can see you clearer.

Just wait till you realise

you got complacent.

I like you bitter but flat.

~

I Don't Owe You Idiosyncrasy

Is it assuming to assume that I know you?

Complacent, to believe I've earned

The honour

Of permanent recognition

And a place in your future?

I can't help the past.

I can't help

That when you were crying in Newcastle

I was crying in Singapore.

Quality tells me you care nothing for me

Frivolous petty prideful girl,

Scrunching her eyes to read

Her illegible condemnations

Kidding herself that she's worthy

Of your respect.

Quality tells me otherwise:

Pages and pages you've written

In your dark messy book

about the groupie you fuck out of pity,

Telling yourself that

In this gap of a city

I'm the closest thing to what you're owed.

~

Melbourne

chapel street and brunswick and flinders street and hosier lane

etc. etc. etc. were nice

I suppose but,

The whole time,

My head was in Bed

Not in the usual deathly way but

As a prologue of reassurance:

Body on body

Or at least

Leg on leg

Ankle on ankle

Foot on foot

Straying sparked gaping apparence

[in my mind, I see

The lightning-bolt of trams on

Lonsdale street momentarily parted from

Overhead wire; but in inverse]

[they always reconnected -

Else Melbourne would stop.]

In Melbourne

We wandered with the others but

We wandered the low city smelling like each other

~

die

i don’t know why you want me to 

die but if that’s the case 

i’ll happily oblige

i’ve been training my whole

life and now i’m finally

ripe

petrifying before

instagram scrolls 

urls

as you say

from 2012

drowning under plastic beige 

and black bottlecaps 

left behind from

sickly bottled faux highs

i’m already always lying in bed

just pull the white sheet over my

head

~

New Clothes

Adjective noun dynamic verb preposition adjective noun

Bla bla bla bla bla

I get it - I got it fourteen fucking poems ago -

You hate me

You love yourself

You hate yourself

You're king

Just remember

Your uglypretty neuschwanstein of a poemthrone

Is written with empty rhetoric; stolen ink:

Someday you're gonna fall on your arse

And people will see through your

New Clothes to your nakedness:

You're boring

Just another entitled white boy with a superiority complex

(Hugo and Tommy don’t make a fashion sense)

I can't wait to say: K---, baby,

You bastard, you're through

~

rose on black

I went grocery shopping

I bought bread

they day after you left

to show you I’d be eating well without you

I ordered a new dress online

the cut and colour of

my persona without you

(Arctic Monkeys girl, watch me rise

to the sound of new Taylor Swift and 505)

Then I realised you

wouldn’t be there to see me flourish without you:

acetylene-virgin; poet-scientist

(i hope i die before the dress arrives)

~

Hard C

Sorry, Billie, this is the last poem I’ll write about him:

When the RA at ANU from VJC, like me,

handed us the mediatory tim tams I couldn’t eat -

I fucking laughed at the symbolism

(self-indulgently) I could hear your lip curl from behind me.

He was the only one who took one

and ended up not eating it;

it was 5am. Six

By the time he took off

With the almost sarcastic hot air

Balloons distracting through our

Balcony window. The next day

I took the one-lacking pack

into my room, closed the door with the key out of the reader

and slammed all 30

chewing, ruminating

then spitting,

all thirty, into the coles bag everhanging on my door handle

(I never knew if you knew about that)

Took it to the chute and

Removed the evidence.

I should have taken the warning of your father

and his baptismal blessing:

Poor Abel

to ever have been loved by you.