MUM: Okay. Have fun. I’ll have it ready for when you’re back
At school, I sit in the toilets.
In my bag are the condoms
that Mum bought me,
along with a new, thick, black
notebook and special pen.
The notebook is Moleskine
and the pen is Cross.
I’m nervous bringing them to school
in case I lose them.
I’m nervous taking the condoms
in case someone sees them.
I download an app
that allows me to talk
to gay guys in the area.
I arrange to meet a guy
called Alex after school.
He sends me a photo.
He looks friendly:
a big smile, white teeth,
blue eyes, a bit pink in the face.
He says I can’t come
to his place but he knows
somewhere we can go.
We’re kneeling on a patch of
grass between two graves, kissing
with tongues, our mouths dry
from the spliff we just smoked.
My first spliff, my first proper kiss.
Alex said he’s nineteen but he looks older.
Maybe it’s his gray suit, the jacket
hanging on one gravestone,
my black school blazer on the other.
Maybe it’s his stubble—he was clean-
shaven in his photo.
Alex has his hand on the small of my back.
It feels like the only thing holding me upright.
He stops. “Do you do poppers?”
I close my eyes and imagine
tiny plastic cannons about to be pulled,
balloons about to drop from the ceiling
and my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
birthday cake from when I turned six.
I’m high on weed, about to lose
my virginity in a graveyard. He hands me
a small glass bottle full of liquid.
I unscrew the top. “Do I drink it?”
“No, you hold it under your nose, like this,
and inhale; it helps you to relax.”
I follow his instructions.
A chemical explosion in my brain,
streamers burst forth into a tangled
rainbow, then all fades to black.
When I wake his eyes reflect me
as a zombie rising from a grave.
I feel like an empty plastic cannon,
party debris, balloon shrapnel.
When I get back home, cold shepherd’s pie
is waiting for me. Mum doesn’t ask
about the mud on my trousers.
My red eyes. My missing school blazer.
Lying in bed that night,
I imagine all the ways
Alex might have hurt me
when I was passed out.
He didn’t hurt me, but
he so easily could have
killed me and we were
already in a graveyard.
I was stupid to meet him
without telling anyone.
It was exciting at the time
but now my imagination
won’t stop showing me
all the horrible things
someone could do to me.
Whether I’m passed out
or not, they could force me.
I’m not big. I’m not strong.
Meeting a man is not
a good idea. Just because
I can, it doesn’t mean I’m ready
to lose my virginity
to a stranger.
I decide to delete the app
to protect myself.
MICHAEL: Hey
DAISY: Hey! 2 mins left of your birthday
How was your evening?
MICHAEL: So awful. I did something stupid
MICHAEL: It was okay. Uncle B said to say hey
DAISY:
I went to see that movie Lobster
It was so weird
People got turned into animals
If they couldn’t find a relationship
MICHAEL: That sounds messed up!
DAISY: Yh. But they get to pick the animal
MICHAEL: What animal would you be?
DAISY: I think maybe a flamingo. You?
MICHAEL: I don’t know. Maybe a turtle
Broken / Home
Because the turtle carries
its home on its back,
it does not have to search for one.
It is born with a soft shell
that hardens as it grows.
The turtle’s backbone is part
of its shell, meaning an accident
or attack could break the turtle’s back,
leaving the turtle with a broken
home it cannot escape from.
Leventis
Mum is going through a phase
of making us any meal on request:
jerk chicken or curried goat with rice and peas,
ackee and saltfish, stuffed grape leaves,
shepherd’s pie, Sunday roast.
Mum buys me and Anna games consoles,
phones, clothes, anything she can afford,
and, when she can’t afford it, she borrows
money to send me to hip-hop dance class
and Anna to ballet and, now, to take us
on our first vacation.
Mum bursts into the kitchen.
“I’ve got a surprise for you all!”
We’re slumped at the table.
Daisy and I are taking a break
from studying for exams.
Daisy is helping Anna
with her much easier homework,
and I’m writing a poem.
“I’ve just spoken to your dad, Daisy.
He says he’ll pay for your ticket
to come with us to Cyprus for Easter.”
“We’re going on vacation?” shouts Anna,
bolting upright excitedly, slamming
both hands on the kitchen table. Daisy
catches Anna’s pencil as it rolls off the edge.
I sit back in my chair and
close my notebook. “Who’s paying
for our tickets, Mummy?”
“Trevor gave some money for Anna
and Uncle B for you.”
The Men Who Are Not My Dad
My sister’s dad
is not my dad.
Uncle B
is not my dad.
Our Father, in Heaven
is not my dad.
My PE teacher
is not my dad.
My RE teacher
is not my dad.
My English teacher
is not my dad.
My drama teacher
is not my dad.
Bob Marley
is not my dad.
Idris Elba
is not my dad.
Will Smith
is not my dad.
Jay Z
is not my dad.
My own father
is not my dad.
Anna jumps out of her seat and
dances around the table. “We’re going
on vacation! We’re going on vacation!”
“Thank you!” says Daisy to my mum,
hugging her.
“Thanks, Mummy,” I say from my seat.
Sometimes
I think Mum loves Daisy as much as us.
Sometimes maybe more than me.
I’m angry Mum didn’t ask me
if I wanted Daisy to come on vacation.
I would have said yes
but I didn’t get a chance to decide.
Mum, Anna, and Daisy
go shopping
for swimsuits.
I decide to stay home.
“Just get me black trunks,
no Speedos,” I say.
While they’re gone
I Google “Speedos”
and the first page
of results brings up
pictures of Tom Daley.
I’m still looking at them
when Mum, Anna, and
Daisy return.
Mum hands me a shopping bag.
“Thanks, Mummy,” I say.
“You’re welcome.” Mum giggles.
“I’m gonna start packing,
one week to go! Anna,
come and help me pack.”
Mum and Anna run out of the room,
holding hands and laughing.
I look in the bag to find
the tiniest
pair
of bright pink Speedos I’ve ever seen.
Daisy bursts out laughing.
“It’s not even funny!” I shout,
throwing the tiny pink piece
of material right at Daisy’s face.
“Who wasted our money
on a stupid joke like that?”
Daisy takes the Speedos
off her face, still laughing,
and takes some black trunks
out of her own shopping bag
and hands them to me.
“You should’ve seen your face!”
says Daisy, still cracking up.
“You should have seen yours,”
I reply, preparing my killer blow:
“Much improved when covered up.
What am I supposed to do with these?”
I hold up the pink Speedos.
When Daisy heads home, I go
to my room and push my bed
across to barricade the door.
I fling off my clothes. Squeeze
into the Speedos. I’m no Tom Daley
but I like what I see in my full-length mirror.
I turn to check out my butt,
twerk a little, giggle.
Uncle B drives us to the airport.
He and Mum chat the whole journey.
Anna and Daisy are in the back
seat next to me, Daisy in the middle.
I stare out of the window at nothing
in particular for the whole journey.
Anna and Daisy listen to Little Mix
from Daisy’s phone, one earpiece
each. They sing along to “Black Magic.”
I like the song but I don’t join in.
I always thought Uncle B would
take me on my first vacation.
I thought it would be Jamaica.
As I’m helping him unload our bags
from the trunk and onto the trolley,
I say, “Thank you for giving my mum
the money.” I don’t say, I wish
you were my dad instead of him.
On the plane we have three seats
next to each other and one across
the aisle. Anna wants the window
seat and Mum to sit beside her.
I tell Daisy to sit next to Mum and
I take the seat across the aisle with
two strangers, who are not strangers
to each other.
The couple kiss for the whole flight.
They only break from kissing to speak
in Greek, and I only know a few words
Mum taught me. It becomes background
noise to me—I hear the word agape,
which means “love,” and agape mou,
which means “my love.”
We arrive at my grandparents’
house in Larnaca in a taxi late at night.
Things are familiar but different.
Even my name is different here.
My grandparents call me “Michalis,”
which is a more Greek way to say “Michael.”
Grandma says, “Éla, agape mou.”
Gesturing me to come to the table.
She has made stuffed grape leaves,
like the ones Mum makes, except
these have real meat and not tasteless
soy beef. Mum moans,
repeating, “I told her I don’t eat meat.”
Shaking her head as she
transfers stuffed grape leaves
from her plate onto mine.
There are enough bedrooms
at my grandparents’ house for Daisy
and me to have our own rooms,
if Mum and Anna share.
Grandma comes up and
helps us get settled.
Mum continues to be short-tempered
and dismissive with Grandma,
the way I am sometimes short-tempered
and dismissive with Mum.
I can’t work out what Mum
and Grandma are saying for the most part,
because they speak in Greek.
Hearing Mum speak another language
and be so stroppy like this,
she is like a different person.
Like she has become her teenage
self again. The girl she was before me.
The girl from the last millennium.
On the beach the next day,
Daisy has taken Anna
to get ice cream.
Strangers
shout, “Bob Marley!”
The first few times I laugh and wave
but after a while I just roll my eyes.
A girl in a pink bikini
comes up to me and touches my hair:
“Xereis na milas ellinika?”
“Excuse me?” I say, in shock
as I back away from her.
She repeats, in English,
“Do you speak Greek?”
“No, I can’t speak Greek.”
She says, “You’re from Jamaica.”
Is she asking me or telling me?
who I hadn’t noticed.
Before I have a chance to respond,
the friend looks me up and down
and nods. They giggle,
link arms, and walk into the sea.
“Leventis,” I repeat, so I don’t forget.
“Mummy, what does ‘leventis’ mean?”
She laughs,
looking up from her book and squinting.
“Who said that to you?”
I shuffle to the right
to block the sun from her eyes. “Some girl,
just now.” I point toward the sea but I can’t tell
one pink bikini from another.
“It means ‘handsome man’ or it could mean
‘beautiful boy.’ And it can also mean ‘brave.’”
I’m shocked that it’s not something bad.
“Leventis,” I repeat,
once again. Handsome man, beautiful boy
or brave. But am I any of these things?
Maybe to a Greek Cypriot girl on a beach.
But where are the boys who see me this way?
Leventis. Does it really translate into English?
I don’t feel handsome,
I don’t feel beautiful,
and I don’t feel brave.
Apart from the cigarette
butts this beach is perfect.
I’ve got sunblock on but I
don’t think I really need it.
It’s like one of our better
summer days in England:
warm, not too hot to handle.
But we’re a long way from
the pebbles of Brighton.
Anna and I build our first
proper sandcastle together.
We dig a moat around it,
pour in the Mediterranean.
Daisy is studying
on her sunbed, surrounded
by books and index cards.
I was planning to study, too.
But now that we’re here it seems silly.
Daisy and I are both applying
to do English at university,
but not to any of the same places.
I shout over to Daisy: “Don’t you think
it could be fun if you came to Brighton?”
Daisy looks up and says bluntly,
“You know Brighton is of no interest to me.”
Anna giggles, and repeats,
“You know Brighton is of no interest to me.”
Daisy says, “Oi, are you making fun of me?”
She reaches down and grabs a handful
of sand and throws it in our direction.
Anna laughs and throws sand back at Daisy.
“Stop it!” says Mum, caught in the crossfire.
Mum is sunbathing, reading
It by Stephen King.
I watched the TV movie from the nineties
years ago
with Trevor.
He told me I was brave
because I wasn’t afraid
of any of the movies he showed me.
In It there’s an evil clown
called Pennywise, who makes
children see their worst fear.
I lie back on the sand
and look up to the sky
and can no longer see the outlines
of Mum, Anna, or Daisy,
and I realize with all the knowing in the world
that my worst fear is
to be without my family
—that includes Daisy.
I crawl unnoticed behind
Mum’s sunbed and whisper
a line from the movie in her ear:
“We all float down here.”
Mum screams, then laughs
and hits me with her book.
Anna laughs, too, adding
another keep to our castle.
Mum brings me a magazine
from the beach shop:
a gay lifestyle magazine called Attitude,
with Tom Daley on the cover.
“The Body Issue.”
I’ve already looked
at Attitude’s website on my phone,
but when Mum hands me
the physical copy,
I feel like she’s
giving me her blessing.
Inside the magazine,
the advice is to accept
and love your body,
no matter how you look.
I don’t think about
my skinny physique often
but here I can’t help