lyra

Gun to your head

name a bird.

Just one bird.

Any bird will do.

Yellow-billed nuthatch,

blue-footed booby,

red-tailed red-breasted

red-shouldered hawk.

There are so many birds

you haven’t seen yet,

so many birds

you haven’t even heard of.

Name a sound

any sound at all,

dad-joke laugh

or sleepover whisper.

Name a song

your favourite song,

a song you’d swear was a poem

before it was a song,

so good you could

write a book about it,

a book where the hero

doesn’t martyr himself, after all,

so good they should

make a movie out of it,

a movie in black-and-white

and another in full colour,

your favourite colour

and what wall you’ll paint

if you let yourself grow up

a little longer,

kiss another boy goodnight

in your own living room,

where the walls are whatever

colour you want them to be,

peel the tape off your chest

and run a gentle finger

over your scars in the mirror,

your mirror, which is also

whatever colour

you want it to be.

Gun to your head

name a reason.

Mother,

I am sorry

for what I said

earlier

before

in the living room

and the diary.

And I am sorry

for now, too,

and what will come

after.

Mother,

I know

that you have loved me

in your way

just as I have loved you

in mine:

feverishly,

and with hands

the wrong amount

of gentle.

Mother,

I am sorry

to ask something of you

even in death,

but it is only

the one thing,

this time,

and never again:

the carpet is like freshly set concrete

and the sunlight blaring in catches

dust motes floating static drifting onto

the red chair where my blood would soak

right into the fabric without leaving a mark

anyone could see

my notebook with the page ripped out

on the broken desk one leg propped up

and the unsharpened pencil glinting

useless as resisting

the stifling heft of every summer day

blue skies melting into blue walls

now and forever

and on the little tv in the corner of the room

two dogs are eating spaghetti

moving closer closer i close my eyes

when their noses touch

fists at my sides