The sort of place I’ve learned to fear, along an ill-lit inauspicious street, where OPEN LATE beams garish red from one dank shop, which mainly sells cheap whisky, rizlas, crisps that aren’t quite Pringles. A house, mid-terrace. Curling paper sign, home-printed, leaching fading ink says ROOMS. I glance over my shoulder, wondering who might see…
For Christmas I wish you time to be alone when you wish to be alone, time when you can pause to breathe and think and say they do not define you, this does not define you. I wish you silence, because you wish to be silent, not because you are silenced, human touch because you…
The sun was setting, casting pink tendrils across the darkening sky. In the blissful balm of a late summer’s evening, guests had draped themselves across the palace grounds. Some were sprawled upon couches, the bright colours of the embroidered surfaces now paling into murky greys and browns. Others reclined on the grass itself, with the…
In memory of Sue Coombe (1926-2021) It takes a long time until you can turn into a bird. A lifetime. A long life. It helps if you’re beautiful to start with, of course. She was. Long neck, fine bones, mischievous eyes. And glamorous in those old photos. Primed for plumage. She lived a life spent…
A reflection on how a recurrent eating disorder may affect a writer, when the price of addiction to controlling the body can be counted out in lost words. Content Warning: eating disorders; anorexia; mental illness There is a gentle fleshy line where the top of my tights meets my belly. Tights are elastic, reason tells…
Persephone looked so beautiful that day. My eyes on her, hers on the flowers. All she wanted was to pluck them, wreathe them, adorn herself in their shredded multicolour. And, gods help me, but I wanted her to wear them. I wanted to see soft petal against soft skin. I wanted to see that look…
*Ailurophobia is the medical term for fear of cats. The bunkbeds were a metaphor. Millie’s angry teenage brain had decided this as soon as she saw the room. It was bad enough to be expected to spend a week of her holidays stuck in this stupid cottage in the most boring part of Somerset. Worse…