NEXUS CREATIVE SPACE

I want my poems to hurt you 

cut your cheeks like a Sheffield razor 

make you cry like the day you punched  

her bedroom wall –  

she should have framed it 

shown it to your mother 

taken a photo with your Leica M3  

and fed you the negatives while you slept 

I want my poems to say no 

girls will be girls  

you were the one lining your stomach with Stella 

she’s got a bright future –  

you carry it to full-term  

birth it through closed legs 

in the dole queue  

I want my poems to cry 

dig their bones into the earth  

and scream until God notices  

and says sorry 

sorry for witch-hunts 

locker rooms 

stones 

And for the time she had  

the shit kicked out of her  

for being ‘one of those female gays’