(who only wanted you to see her)

you stare at fluorescent lights and ugly white walls as a stranger rips the hair off your legs with hot wax

this is girlhood.

it makes you think of icarus

you wonder if he felt the hot wax dripping down his skin

if he felt pain

if he even realised what was happening

you wonder if this is how you’ll go

in a flurry of

burning legs

weak and hairless

you flew too close to the sun and now you are falling

hot liquid gold

she asks you how old you are

you tell her you turn fifteen in one day

she wishes you happy birthday

and plucks the last hair from your leg like she’s skinning a chicken

happy birthday to you.

you don’t get used to the pain

each sting is

fresh

raw

at least icarus only fell once

i don't know if i can adequately explain what polaroids are to me, but i will try (the most anyone can do, i think). it is how i keep a stack of them in a golden, gauzy pouch, tucked away in the backpack i take everyday to school with me. it is how each one is a capture of love and it is the darkness and the light in them, the subtle vignette and blue-ish, slightly blurry finish. it is how they seem to show emotion so well (better than i can) and how they are physical, tangible, raw scraps of joy i am allowed to touch. it is how my friends and i took one in 2022, all braces and shy smiles and odd clothes, and how we took one in 2024, 'grown up' (hardly, but let us pretend please) with sure eyes and shiny tops and real smiles. it is how i plan (if i do not forget) (i forget a lot) (another reason i love polaroids, i suppose) to show this stack to my friends (a little piece of my heart i will share) and laugh with them at our young faces and let them see the friends i had (, the person i was) in 2019, before i met any of them, before i met myself, before i could meet. i will try and hide the three selfies, but will probably fail. the red eyes of my dog and the blur of my room. the shine of her cheekbone and the laugh in their eyes. the hand on my shoulder that i can't remember being there (but comforts me to see) and the zebra-patterned frame sticker my friend gave me to put on the photo of us. its the everything and the nothing, the ordinary and the mundane, the fantastical and the remarkable. (i think the reason i love polaroids

is because

they make the invisible visible

the love seen and the joy touched and the warmth tasted

the everything

the nothing

ordinary mundane

fantastical remarkable

the

reason

i

love

that maybe

just maybe

the world is written in poetry

of the best kind

and everywhere you look

there’s a delicate stanza

a cleverly placed metaphor

imagery that is so deliciously soaked in sensory language

some repetition for flavour

i look around me

and i see poetry

it’s in the way this crystal store never really changes

in the way that i instantly recognise the first notes of phoebe bridgers’ smoke signals

and it’s in the joy that familiarity gives me

it’s in the strangely white sky

and the way my chapped lips remind me of little jokes

and the old man with the red hat that stands out against the common streets

it’s the sparkle of a crystal in a palm

and the way i don’t really know if it really does do anything

but more so in the way i believe anyway.

there’s poetry everywhere;

and sitting on the train

doc martens against the seat in front of me (always ready to move in case someone might like to sit there) (i’m many things but i’m not impolite)

on my way to look at guitars and records and thrift shops

my mum watching those tiktok’s that i don’t find find funny but she does in the seat beside me

and there were little kids in the next few seats down

giggling and squealing

one went over to chat with a woman who he didn’t know and it was so sweet

they were laughing and smiling and i was dreaming of the songs i might learn on the guitar and listening to last hope by paramore and i felt hopeful and it was goddamn beautiful

then the woman gave the litte boys tiny yellow flowers

they appeared like magic out of thin air

i watched as the dad put the flower in the littlest boys hair

he looked so lovely

the flowers were so..

i think they could’ve been a metaphor for love if i tried hard enough

but in tired

so i’ll leave it at

i am not always sure what i am going to write

it comes to me, usually

messy

and imperfect

but something

(this was a bit of a preface i think)

for something

messy

and imperfect

and something

i need to say

who knows, i might say it

i might not

(theres plenty of room on this blank little post)

i think messy and imperfect is the best kind of something

i think it might be everywhere (i think it might be magic)

it's in little kids who bother to talk to you and are actually the coolest because when youre that young you can be

it's in messy kisses everywhere

and hugs when your grandmother cries when she says goodbye

(and you have a lump in your throat because she is acting as if this is the last time)

it is in fear

and it is in courage

it's in sunlight that spills and patches up the tapestry of my fragmented being (lying there rotting on my bed)

(it's in the temptation of a bracket)

it's even in this silly little poem that is nothing and everything and most of all something

without the messy and the imperfect and the something (which is magic)

we are lost souls

at least this way our glossy little globe of a planet has some purpose in it's stationary movement (like a goddamn treadmill)

because if we cannot have everything,

we can have the something

with yearning (the best kind)

when i think about the life i could have in the future

i’d have an apartment of my own near the city

it would be too cramped and dirty so i could afford it by myself

and i have a roommate and i’d love them with my whole heart

and eventually two dogs and i’d love them too

i would put sunflowers in vases on windowsills

and my life would be punctuated with music and laughter and joy

i’d go to pretentious art shows in the city with pretentious hipster friends and probably drink pretentious coffee too

and every other night i’d go out dancing with friends

i would go to concerts for small artists i can not remember, even if i bothered trying

i would have a job and school and be so so busy

and i got to thinking (i feel a lot) (how most things start and end)

about how things that can get carved into your soul (you) (it starts and ends with you darling)

the chords press indents like canyons onto my still-too-young fingertips (i was so young) (some may say it's naivety) (i'd tell them to go to hell)

and spike up my arm to my heart and my soul; electric (electric soul) (i've always liked that phrase) (i think i heard it in a lana song and it's been in my mind ever since)

the music feels like freedom (i've never been musical, always rubbish at remembering notes) (this feels different though) (better)