crowd crush (poem for archy)

i met a locust the
other day complaining
and
suicidal
archy he said
archy i have always
wanted to die in a
crowd crush whenever
i am in a tight
space i get excited
and start to
smile it s an obsession
he said an obsession
archy exclamation mark
i can t help the
euphoria i feel like
it was made for
me archy
asphyxiation

i had nothing else to say
archy


-locustaugust (~september 2024)

mirror

The mirror has never been a friend to me:
its greedy eye showing everything behind me
My past
Distorted into shapes that mock me
So when i looked into it this morning
(having slept since the week before)
i startled myself:

i had never seen such a face!
Gaunt, skinny, pale, sick.
How my fingers, skin stretched over bone, fumbled,
Shaking towards my face, feeling my sunken cheekbones
and how my eyes started from their sockets
Almost as if i wasn’t myself

-locustaugust (~march 2024)

at the park (an excuse for philosophising)

a babe stares at me
with a pout and
His wide eyes
"we're raising our babe to question reality
et la verité"

but at least now He
just questions why i am

a babe staring at Him
with a pout and
my wide eyes
and i am Him
and He is me
this is what his mother wanted
all along.
i know what He will grow up to be

a babe
as i am a babe
and a poet
as i am a poet
a nursery rhyme
upon a bike
on strawberry calpol

generational
degradation
8% fat
i think that babe was God

-locustaugust (~august 2024)

phone boy

the point of
transitioning
is to be
unrecognisable
to those from
your childhood,
id est, everyone who
fucked you over

-locustaugust (~june 2024)

pure-o

Disgusting maternal vomit in me
Disgusting heat between my legs
Disgusting gaze, disgusting smile
Disgust. Disgust. Disgust
i disgust myself.
And that is very much a lowercase ‘i’
For now i feel
More inferior than ever.

-locustaugust (2024)

destitution

Everyone saw it:
big, powerful, freeing,
flying across the air.

i was too scared to
look the pilot in the eye.
It remains unidentified.

Fat, flashy letters,
streaming through the sky:
DESTITUTION

-locustaugust (~july 2024)

teeth poem

i rip the guilt out
of my cheeks
leaving my gnashing
teeth that curse
serpents’ tongues

i want to go
home
to Kali, my heroine
at least she resides in paper, still

-locustaugust (2024)

benedick: a married man!

behold, the self-equivocator!
they shall put me in a horse-hire box and mock my lies!
spoiled butter, fraudster, trading faulty goods with myself
dearest equivocator,
where doth thou rest?

-locustaugust (~april 2024)

wire mother, cloth mother

i want to go home
and i don't mean rocky waters
or overgrown gardens
that is not home.

i want to wade half
way through the Atlantic
and drown my
self.

i want to go into a
crowded hallway
or alley
or room until i
suffocate and choke
and die.

i want to go inside
the red open gashes on
my wrists and
curl up inside until i
have to crawl and fight and
claw my way out
like a miscarried baby.

i want to go into my mother's arms
(wire)
she offers food ...?
(wire)

that!---
that is home.

-locustaugust (~december 2024)