Young Female Poets

This is a junkyard of voices
a scrap heap raised like a stage for
poetry’s five-minute meltdowns
and those who hope to melt us down
before we press record.

The first girl reads a poem on love, a celebration I think
but it’s boring, I’m bored. My mind skips across unconsciousness like
stones over water. My boyfriend hates poetry and I know hers
does too as she pulls a metaphor out of patches of mould that
bloom in her room. And I remember another version of this:
a man who fell for my profile pic, my online presence but
not the thing – the me – made of blood, snot and vomit after we
ate chop suey in the real world. Stay with her, stay awake.

Beneath black lace I spot an arm full of scars. White lines zigzag to
her neck like a tree carved by ex lovers. Why are poets such
tragic clichés? Did she write in that awful way on purpose or –

Her voice rises. She knows there is a risk
that her words will drop to the ground and we’ll
tread on them on our way out like smacking
skulls on London’s concrete.

Next is a girl who will have her own TV show.
She wears a bandana in her hair and she’s so
excited about what she has to say. Pissed up,
pissed off and proud to be a woman as long as we
don’t back down - never back down - beads of sweat trickle
through hairs above her lip
she spits her words
they stream out her nose
and through gaps between her teeth.

I start to feel something
but it’s too much like she’s
hammering herself out
on me.

I never gave her permission.

The last girl speaks softly, she’s difficult to hear.
She doesn’t take off her coat or her backpack. We
clap but we don’t know what for: maybe for
the fact that she came up here and survived or
maybe when she speaks in that careful quiet
way my organs rotate, stirring up ghosts that live
inside my rib cage.

How does your art work?

Why do I feel all lullabied
dreaming with the window
open wide?

I look at her and almost plead:
take me in the pleat of your paper,
and fold me again, flat out, packed in tight
so I am unable to ask you any questions.