Web

Her web binds him in tight,
winds him close with sticky
need. He wonders how it
doesn’t stick to The Other One.

He rolls in closer, closer,
pulling himself in tighter still,
comforted by the ties to her,
drinking her tears for The Other One.

He tries to curl round the
quivering shell of her ache.
Always she is weaving, spinning,
always towards The Other One.

Nearer and nearer she edges,
dragging him, used, in her wake,
‘cause he knows she can trust him
much more than The Other One,

who doesn’t want her twisting
and twining, doesn’t see the art
she sacrifices. It chokes him,
her wasting it on The Other One.

He clings unwanted in the tangling
ropes – cruelly she keeps him
hanging. She could always have him.
She couldn’t have The Other One.

Soon she will be weakened, tired,
while he lies rested in her silken bed.
Soon she will be worn out, needy again.
He will lay her down with him, loving
her best vulnerable and wrecked like this,
wrapping her up, binding her tight,
sickly and close. Tied in the soft sleek strands.
Tied in her life’s work.


The Peripheral Girl

I am the peripheral girl. I am wedged
in at the edge of the photo where you
can’t see much of me. That’s my elbow,
there’s my ear. So quiet you’d never know

I was there. Do you even know if I was?
Do you think I care if you notice me?
(Notice me, somebody… Yeah, right.)
I am the girl with no face to remember

me by. No clever words snagging you.
I skulk and smirk, lurk behind curtains
of hair. I know the truths no one hears.
My voice is silent, my smile lies unused.

I bruise you, just gently, choosing sly
and sparingly. No obvious places, no
graceless soul-baring. I don’t do caring,
sharing. Never so you’d know. My power

is stealth. I am still the peripheral girl, the
fuzzy shape caught in the corner of your
eye. The name you always forget, the one
you can’t get your head round. The whisper
of gone.

Effigy

He made an effigy.
He made it for her,
picking all the things he
thought she would like.
It would be his gift.

He made an effigy,
using his own body
as carrier. Using his own
mind as template – selecting
the good thoughts he knew
would snare her. Cutting
out the ones gone bad.
She would never know.
He would draw her

a new love, an artist’s
impression. A pastiche
of her ideal man.
Holding it together

with blue-tack, tobacco
and home-grown denial.

He made an effigy,
built it with his own
hands, sticky with insecurity.
He studied her, watched her,
tweaked and perfected,
‘til he was sure this was
exactly what she would want.

It was ready. Finished.
A complete thing.

He gave her the effigy.
He said she could have it,
this body, this mind, this
beautiful boy, built for her
pleasure alone. And lots of
pleasure alone, he hoped.

He gave her the effigy.
She was amazed.
She put her arms around it.
She opened her heart, her legs.
She didn’t understand
that it wasn’t real.

Prick

Smothered in the sticky
splatter of the words
he spat all over her.

Trapped balloon deflating, she is
sealed within a wet papier-mâché
casing of his gobbed out dirt.
Inside, her every tender bit nicked
and pricked by the knife tips

of what he said.
The razored edges sliding,
slicing out from his lips,
sneers to steal and slash her
every suck of sorry breath,
each keening lung to puncture,
each hope and fall of chest.
Chafing inner elbows, knees,
thighs, breasts’ undersides.
Undecided

in his intention,
his words are still gummed
bitter with salivary glue.
His viscous fluids
acidic and thickening,
slickening her skin to
easy cuts, bleeds and infection.
Picking and prickling, rashes,
flicked splashes, allergy and
rejection. Weeping, weighted

down, sedated heavy with his trodden
in sodden gunk, deep down, under
layers of his mouth’s accusatory
verbal vomit, he could slyly
shoot home, this syringed-up
concentrated bile he’s stored up
for her and her alone. Finally
decisive. Always derisive.
He could…

One. More. Little. Prick…


Coming Death?

Big Tarantino fan.
And all the Saw films.
And anything with…
well, you know,

all that stuff. Torture.
The guts and gore.
He complains these days
movies have gone soft.
That there’s not enough
violence against women.
He must understand irony,

‘cause he’s clever and
educated and
he holds doors and
pulls out chairs and
helps her into her coat.
No reason why
she shouldn’t
go back with him. He
helps her out of it too.

But… it’s hard…

Hard to feel turned on
fucking under a poster of
Reservoir Dogs.
American Psycho
smirking to the side.

There are others,
ones she doesn’t know.
Blood-dipped knife-blades
dripping over open-mouthed
girlies, eyes wide and
thighs gaping.

Death or coming.
Coming death.

She thinks perhaps she’s
not bright enough to
get it – the art he admires.
Is it satire? Social comment?
She doesn’t want to
seem a prude,
so mostly
she just shuts her eyes.

Hollyanne