izzy

I scraped you off the pavement
or I collected you from underneath a pile of shards
or I held the grit and glass of you

you told me you were unbreakable
or you told me the sky wasn’t a limit, but a challenge
or you knew that if you didn’t break, the world would have to

brittle bones, chalk cheeks, weak knees
the dust and the dirt of you
the salt of the earth of you

if collapsing is a kind of blending into
then you are the most at one with the world you have ever been

I am standing here still, holding my two fingers
up at the sky like a gun
or a peace sign
or a futile flipping ‘fuck you’

you buried the earth in you first
so it wouldn’t have the chance to swallow you

*

sarah

you stepped on the Christmas bauble in your stilettos and it exploded
supernovaed, sprayed pink glossy dust across the polished floorboards
and you swore, as is your wont, harsh and guttural, obscene in the fairy light glow
which set the dog off, warbling his violin-duet howl and hunching his back
some snot-nosed cousin let out a saliva-strewn wail
and the fire alarm, confused into action, added its cat-scream beeping to the din
and as aunties and grandmothers flapped about hissing like geese
it took me a second to notice, in all the motion and noise,
that my heart had bottomed flat out, and was peeking out past the hem of my skirt
staining the silk white of my socks

*