She won’t meet your eye.
She holds her coat tight around herself, shoulders
hunched,
Her face downcast.
“What’s wrong with her?”
Joe asks, home at last.
Face full of expectation,
Arms wide in unreturned affection
As she charges past him, up the stairs.
As if I ought to know.
Teenagers,
I say.
They’re cruel.
Don’t worry it’s just a phase,
She’s just a bit moody these days.
And there is nothing I can do.
SCREW SCHOOL (2)
i don’t want to go to school.
no one likes monday.
it’s drizzling
and it’s grey
and
i
feel
broken.
i stand beside the road
it’s
early and dark,
and
easy to cry here
in the cold
with no one else around.
traffic pounds.
i stand and wonder
if i dare step out
when the next truck thunders hugely by.
i see the tarmac open up
to swallow me,
and hate myself
for being too scared
to jump.
no one speaks to me all day,
but they’re not afraid
to look and laugh.
i sit in class and try not to feel
the eyes on my back
the judgements made.
try not to hear the talk
What a laugh!
Did you see . . .
State!
i sit forward on my chair
try to shrink to fit
the space
not to spill over the edges
like too much custard
jelly
gravy
something thick,
disgusting.
i get out of my seat
stumble over
a chair leg,
tangle myself up in my bag,
whistles
hoots
jeers
aidan winks,
rolls his tongue
around his mouth
grabs his crotch
thrusts,
stacey grabs his arm
and laughs.
SPEAK UP
miss stands at the front, to explain
the latest torture:
a speaking task,
she says,
“it’s part of your GCSE –
think about your grades
your exams,
i need you to take it seriously.”
i worry all week,
knees shaking
feet tapping
nail biting
heart racing.
talk about something that matters.
talk with passion, make a mark,
she said.
i want to tell her i can’t do it,
to point out
how bad this will make me feel,
but i imagine her questions,
her disapproval,
her knowing exactly why.
so i spend hours in my room,
thinking, preparing, writing, practising.
if i say it well, perhaps the words
will do the work.
and they will not see
the rest of me.
i am going to talk about war.
about how one day i intend to leave
all this behind and find
the people who are really hurt.
how i intend to help
or heal.
i tell my mum over tea
she nods and smiles
and says,
“yes!
that’s amazing, lil,
what a great idea!”
later i practise in the living room.
peering out from behind swathes of silk,
mum gives me a round of applause,
but it echoes hollow, bounces off walls,
and slaps me into wondering,
if anyone will hear my words.
STICKS AND STONES
miss calls me up,
summoning groans.
i hear those words again, on aidan’s lips
pig girl!
fat slag!
yee ha!
i feel my face burn
and pluck at my clothes.
eyes swivel onto me,
faces that don’t bother
to look as if they care.
can i even begin
to
speak
about
the bombed and the broken,
the decimated and the dying?
my
voice
s
h
a
k
e
s
hands too,
wordscomingoutfastandquiet
tripping
and
stuttering,
holdingcardsthatblurandsmudgeintoseasofnothing.
i know i believe
these words matter.
the classroom buzzes:
phones beep,
voices leap,
somebody snores, feigns sleep,
i can’t compete.
but i talk and try
not to care. i try
not to notice the way they stare
at bits of me that are too large and
fill my clothes.
bulges, fat, no way
to pretend it is not there.
pretend not to hear the words coughed into fists,
or see the boys
on the back row.
aidan smirking.
mollie sneers.
i might as well
be naked, the way their eyes strip and weigh
measure, assess, take stock.
miss says shhhh
but no one is listening,
not to me and not to her.
i am no more than my size, and that size makes
me nothing and too much.
a
paradox.
MAY BREAK MY BONES
miss, please, can i sit down?
the teacher swallows.
nods.
BUT WORDS WILL NEVER HURT ME
stacey stands up.
the classroom stills.
they know
she will have something on her mind.
“right, stacey,” says miss,
“do begin.”
relieved – she knows this will be good:
the class will listen,
she will not have to try to make them shut up
and be still.
(miss is young, voice small,
mouthing nothings into the void.)
but
when stacey smiles and looks at me
i know
that this is something
that it may be hard to hear.
“disgust,”
she says,
then pauses.
(drama queen she loves this moment
flicks her hair, works the room.)
she shows the first image on the screen,
talking as if she is a pro.
a picture of an ostrich neck,
bloody,
plucked,
full of holes.
“trypophobia,” she explains.
the class crane forward, fascinated by the sight,
twisting to see, to get a better view.
“it’s just disgust,” she says, and shrugs,
“at something gross.
it’s normal, a natural, human response.”
she shows us other things:
vomit.
shit.
she holds her nose,
the class rec
oil.
people pretend they’re being sick.
i know what’s coming, can feel it in my bones
by the way stacey pauses,
then looks at me,
as she clicks to her next slide.
she clears her throat,
begins,
“gro
sso
pho
bia,” she says,
she spells it out,
le
tt
er
by
le
tt
er,
sou
nd
by
sou
nd
lingering over the long moan of an “o”
hissing out the “s”
rolling the word around her mouth
and then spitting it out.
she nods,
gestures, makes her point
at me, ever so subtly,
and says,
“it’s an evolutionary thing, you know,
perfectly natural
to think,
god, i’d rather die,
than look like that.”
she points again, this time
at the woman on the slide whose body
spills over a bed, whose eyes seem lost in
“not only is this woman fat,”
says stacey,
(as if she is qualified in the subject,
has studied long and hard,
gained a PhD,
and now is gravely sure)
“but she’s morbidly obese.
can’t move, can’t walk
just eats and eats and eats.”
she raises her eyebrows, shakes her head.
another slide
piles of junk food
crisps and chips and sweets and cakes and bottles of
coke and takeaways
she flicks back to the woman
the classroom laughs
she stills them with a glance –
“it’s serious, guys,
you know
this is what we pay our taxes to support.
she’ll die an early death –
self-inflicted –
waste millions on the NHS.”
she shakes her head –
“i call it greed.”
she looks at me and smirks.
blood is throbbing in my ears
a pounding gun,
the room is spinning round and round
i sit there,
dumb with disbelief
horror firing up my face,
shooting helpless glances
at the floor.
(she’s been to my house
just that once
in
year seven.
mum was kind
but i could tell
it didn’t work
and stacey didn’t eat her tea
and called her mum
to pick her up
early.)
miss says stacey can take questions.
hands punch the air.
stacey plays the room, smiling
laughing,
nodding along.
who’s the fattest person you know?
can fat people have sex?
would you be friends with someone fat?
why are all these losers getting things free on the NHS?
later, mollie says
(her sympathetic smile,
a pose,
an act
– pretending
that she hasn’t said
things
about me,
behind my back)
that stacey didn’t mean to be cruel.
“when you think about it, lil,” she says,
standing next to me as we queue for maths,
where i can’t get away,
the corridors a maze
that catch and hold and
trap me here,
“it’s for your own good, you know,
we’re just concerned about your health.”
i want to tell her to go fuck herself.
IDLE TEARS
our house is small,
a box, lidded and sealed,
cramped and squashed too close
to too many other people,
not far from the busy main road
in a part of town no one wants to live in and
everyone wants to leave.
i wander outside,
look for a place
to wait the evening out
a place where i can breathe.
there is dog shit on the streets,
windows shuttered, boarded up,
cars that don’t start,
broken things
lonely things.
people leave their trash
on street corners,
spilling out for
everyone to see.
“oi, lily,” mrs burns yells from number 53 –
standing on the step in her nightie,
her dog in a pram beside her,
thin and old and finished,
“oi, girl, what you up to?”
i walk in the other direction,
head down, pretend i don’t hear.
in the
precinct
by the
shops
you see
people
sitting
frozen
on
wet
pavements –
statues
numb
with the
drugs
they’ve
taken to
anaesthetize
their
pain –
half-
slumped
on
benches,
not even
half
alive,
soaked
through
to the
bone,
the
rain
doesn’t
clean
anything
up,
it
just
drops
and
falls
so
many
pointless
tears.
FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBOURS
our garden is a square,
a patch,
fences high enough to hold us in
and keep intruders out.
i end up back there,
sitting on the step,
watching the night close in,
as clouds bank up,
and a bitter moon swallows the streets
gulping down their pain,
greedy for the darkness.
dad put those fences up one summer,
labouring hours
in a vicious sun
and mum watched from indoors
waiting to feel safe again.
i run inside,
upstairs,
and lock my door.
i cover the mirror in my room,
hide from my shadow,
just in case
she sees me
and recoils.
i write their names
somewhere nobody will see –
the people who
make me fall, who push me down,
who laugh and sneer and mock
and store their faces
like a secret
to take out later
and destroy.
SPEECHLESS
later mum calls me down.
i stare at my plate. don’t touch the food.
my mother wants
to know what’s up
– swipes at my tears,
i leap back from her touch.
there are no words to say the things
i’ve heard and felt and seen.
i push back my chair, stand up, lurch away –
fight through
half-sewn dresses,
fancy gowns,
and party clothes,
pins and needles,
everywhere.
standing behind the bathroom door
i punch myself
stomach, thighs, face, arms
add new bruises,
make new marks.
this body that i cannot change
(although i’ve prayed,
so many times
to wake up
new)
right now, will pay.
i think about my mother,
hear her calling from downstairs,
“lily, please, come eat your tea
it’s getting cold.”
i think about the way she walks up and down this
house
each day, slowly, cleaning,
wearing out her slippers, breathing hard
but still moving, trying,
even if it hurts.
not gross
or a loser
not a failure
not someone to laugh at
or to despise.
just another person
doing the best she can.
(but why did she have to be my mother,
why can’t she die?)
staring at the bathroom’s sheen, the rows of neatly
folded towels
the polish on the shower tiles
i think about the smell of my clothes, washed and
clean
the perfect ironed creases in my father’s jeans.
i think about how mum hides away and know
she isn’t strong enough for them.
but strong enough to keep us whole,
she thinks, just by doing this.
how weak am i?
i walk downstairs.
stand before my mum and dad.
and tell them everything.
my mother’s face dissolves,
my father roars.
i sit before them, trying not to feel
their pain on top of mine
staring at my hands,
hating that i’ve made them sad,
until dad says,
“i’ll ring the school,
i’ll go down there
let’s hear the little bastards
say this stuff to me –
give me their names, lil,
we’ll go round their house,
sort this lot out.”
and then i have to beg.
no. forget it,
who cares? they’re nothing,
dad, please, you can’t.
“that’s right,” he tells me, “less than that.
you are better,” he tells me, “in every way.”