A Love Letter to Clippers

you are a reset

to something new

with the blade shaking there comes

      a hint

of danger

a liberating edt

a point of no return

for the next three weeks at least this is happening

on your head

like writing your boldest ideas in pencil – the ones you are too scared to say out loud

this is happening unfiltered

but definite

you are self care in the magic of decision making

with a swipe, you have a new face

one that you can make more yours

there is joy in deciding

that you get to lower the stakes

that your body is your own and does not have to trace out any script

you continue buzzing a soft haze

of queer persistence

you care for the back of my friends' heads

and we exist

           together

Previously published in T'ART Magazine

About Rage

the artist keeps trying to make work about rage.

work about screaming.

work full of rage and screaming and chaos and mess.

and they throw clay at the walls and they rip up a thousand tiny pieces of paper with injustices written on them

and they punch canvases and bash the keyboard,

fill a poem with swearwords in five languages

and nothing feels quite right.

they pull apart scarf after scarf

but they always have to tidy up again after.

even in the throes of performance, they can't quite leave a mess onstage -

maybe because so many nights they are an usher and harbour loud resentment

for those who don't clean up after themselves.

and they reset their props and remould the clay and stick the tiny pieces of paper back together and there is something to it and oh it's their water bill.

meditative perhaps, processing,

but always polite

and this politeness fills them with even more rage.

they burn a hole in the studio floor which was their bedroom carpet

and they run as fast as they can on the treadmill and glare into the distance

and hold a tone with their antisemitic neighbour

and dance to death metal

and every time they go to a protest they cry.

somehow they can only scream silently

making the shapes.