An anxious girl goes to an open mic night. An anxious girl goes to an open mic night and she is scared. She pushes open the rusted, rotted door and escapes the harsh cold of the London streets for the comfort of a warmly lit pub on a Thursday night, green and red metal plates that nobody particularly pays attention to lining the walls, a man with a long grey beard nursing a beer in the corner. She...

i thought i was over this

that i’d healed my heart

but i suppose i’ll never be

that’s the tragedy of this art

i watch how she charms you

just like all the others before

runs her hands through her curls

why i watch, i’m still not sure

she says something funny

you lower your head

hiding your smile

oh, it fills me with dread

she drinks from your cup

i think i’ve seen it all

her spit mingling with ...

a great man was born

in dublin, 1939

oh, a country torn

by many a wretched swine

with more siblings than

fingers on two hands

born to a clan

deep in the lands

brought to a small home

on the wrong side of the Liffey

oh, but his heart did roam

told his Mam he’d be back in a jiffy

for how could he predict

he’d meet an english girl

Islington they had picked

they were married in a whirl

a kind sou...

“i have to go to greece tomorrow”

i assumed you were having another

breakdown or midlife crisis

“why?” i asked

your best friend’s mother was dead

“oh.” is all i said

because what am i supposed to say?

i knew her, of course i did

ever since i was a baby

brightly coloured lipstick and a

lust for life- the ultimate rejection of

her old age

am i supposed to feel something?

because i don’t feel mu...

darling, do you remember?

the night i found you there

six feet under woodland moss

you were too bloodied to care

i pulled you from the roots

the trees held you as their own

you folded into my calloused hands

i said “my love, we’re going home”

carrying you from the forest

a trail of blood swam on our tail

the pellets beat down on your skin

first signs of a reckoning hail

the years came and went

...

“look at us” she said

i’ve heard it countless times

unbelievable truths can’t spill

out of the confines of rhymes

“our reputation precedes us”

and that at least is true

because who would think the good girls

could have ever done this to you?

but i am sick of relying upon

my carefully crafted good name

doesn’t the world have the right to know

i share in the sinners’ shame?

with a sickening smil...

am i an awful person?

the answer they tell me

is no

but see, i think i am

after all, aren’t i actively

blackmailing someone?

“not blackmail” you say

but i’m holding on to evidence

that we both know is dangerous

isn’t that the same thing?

it’s for my own safety

that’s what i say

in case you try to destroy me

i can prove that i was never

the villain

sadistically i want that

want to have our fig...

if i look at old photos for too long

i start to feel sick

a nauseating, earth shattering

sickness

in those moments

before the flash

time seems to stretch out

forever

everybody holding poses

sucking in stomachs

knees creaking from the weight of

crouching

then suddenly it’s over

and they’ll forget all about it.

until one day

many, many years later

a sad girl who sits

alone

rotting away in her ...

a chill had started to spread

over the inches of my body

a fire had already been lit

you cursed everybody

of your own femininity

oh, how you’re scared

i would have laughed sooner

but oh, how i cared

because we were friends

or so we used to say

but friends don’t kill your soul

each and every day

and i tolerated it for so long

probably could for some more

but some things i can’t forgive

you’re ro...

“i wish i had never let go”

is that what you want us to say?

“come back, i need you”

but that isn’t our way

at coups, oh, how we excel

stage one whenever we get bored

and the consequences they reap?

a luxury we will never afford

it’s always for a reason, though

or at least so we tell ourselves

because what’s another lie

to stack up on the shelves?

of course, we’re never the villains

good girls ...