izzy

this is the meat, tender and raw
this is the bone cracking

this is the skin lifting
this is the hair on the skin rising up

this is the tendon slackening
this is the fat dripping to the floor

*

sarah

we laughed, and in the laughter was the niggling panic
of knowing that our laughing would soon come to an end
we laughed the way that children cry –
all at once, in case they get distracted
and have to stop before they’re through
we laughed like socialites
pouring the champagne down the drain
before it goes flat and listless
laughing madly, before we forgot it all
and with it, all the heat of the room
and the breath of strangers
and the leaping hearts of a hundred chests
banging hard against their windows
we laughed for our old days, sitting on carpets
in tattered pyjamas, clutching at toys
mouthing the jokes we didn’t understand
and shining with bubblegum joy
we laughed for the cinemas and VHS tapes
worn down from rewinding in battered machines
we laughed so our brains would send clunky telegrams
with conflated descriptions of the times that we loved

*