izzy

20 non-essential things I wanted to tell you today:

1. my fingers are little ice sticks –
would you suck on them to keep me warm?

2. the intensity with which some people live their lives makes me want to scream
in a happy, running, jumping kind of way

3. sometimes I want to change my name
but then I think that is just a feeble attempt to let go of all the baggage and privilege and disadvantage
and personhood that goes with it

4. I don’t know if it is ok to want that.

5. ‘sex’ is the most googled word after the phrase
‘the opposite of’
now I really wonder what the opposite of sex is

6. oh. the opposite of sex is a movie
starring Christina Ricci and Phoebe from Friends
and also that guy from the Big Bang is in it

7. I feel

8. there probably isn’t a way to describe the feeling I got when I asked you what you’d do if next time you saw me I never wore bras anymore just Hawaiian shirts and feather earrings and no pants
and you said ‘probably just roll with it’

9. me and Ben talk in brackets on gchat all the time
we get really inventive until we have like 10 different conversations going

10. my least favourite brackets are 2’s as brackets2 but I think the +brackets+ are pretty cool

11. Ben and I discovered that {these brackets} are the ‘sex brackets’
this is how you discreetly interject the conversation with news of nearby love-making noises
without disturbing the original flow

12. I got jealous of your breakfast
I couldn’t wait til morning
I made myself avocado on Ryvita with lemon, salt and tabasco

13. it made me feel like I was home

14. there are a lot of beautiful things I can think of right now
and one of them is the little curve your muscles and tendons make
just above the backs of your elbows

15. I think lemon, salt and some form of chili are my essential flavourings
and fresh herbs – like coriander, how can you not like coriander?

16. I keep wondering about whether I should take down the photo of my friend who died that is on my wall
it’s a weird bunch of photos.

17. there are quite a few photos of me kissing boys I used to date up as well

18. I used to love the time-span and reach of these photo booth photos and that they celebrate things I felt about people that I maybe no longer feel but it’s still comforting and nice to know I did feel once

19. I don’t feel entirely associated with the person in those photos any more

20. I still haven’t put up that photo of my Dad yet.

*

sarah

when I love, I love like a child, dragging
a stuffed toy by the arm, blind to
every stain, mark and suspicious burn,
sleeping with its battered face pressed stickily
against my own, and every time the stuffing
pops, blurts out into the world, I
poke it back in and messily stitch the hole
over and over until you can’t see the fur
for the mending. til one quiet afternoon,
the whole thing collapses into cotton blubber,
strewn across the carpet, and even these
bits of sad detritus, even these, I
gather and press to my nose
and breathe

*

izzy

I made an OK Cupid profile looking for
a double
so I could follow myself around
critique my actions
and better interrogate my life

lying supine and divine and squash-faced
I put my Macbook on its side to face me
so I am curved around the screen, holding it gently.
I think about kissing it
but there is no passion in the white glow

I am moored here until my double takes over
the carpet around my bed is a sea
you cannot put your feet in it
it stings

the refresh button is a genius invention
except when nothing changes

where are all the Amazons?
the glowing 6-foot women
with whip-crack laughs and powerful thighs

where are the women of action,
the real deal and raw sex appeal
who know what they want and always get it?

who will be my double?
answer me
who will act for me?

webs of self-doubt are more like spit than gossamer
yesterday, this body was amazing
today it is a pointless thing

*

sarah

We are so very fragile.
Swinging on skeins of spider-thread
Arcing through our blustery days
Cocooned in the knowledge
That gossamer is stronger than steel.
But death has no regard
For the measures of man –
To the forces of night
Those tight-woven strands
Are nothing more than a web in the wind

*

izzy

the cereal box screaming STRENGTH
the cereal box screaming ALERTNESS
the cereal box screaming ENERGY

the cereal box screaming
WELL, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR

the cereal box screaming
for hours

this is me wearing disco pants
this is me trying to explain the reasons why I love you
without using my hands

this is me wearing ridiculous sunglasses that I got from Primark
they feature a sparkly macaw and palm tree
they are literally the greatest sunglasses I have ever seen
but maybe I wasn’t really looking before now

I shaved off a lot of my body hair
and felt kind of sexy and special and weird
and worried for my feminism

no one is looking anyway, so I guess I am
doing it for myself
but I still don’t know if it’s actually just internalised misogyny
or something that isn’t really me

fuck that, no –
fuck that
I am my body’s only judge
and I think this body, this human body
is fucking incredible

this is the sound of a tree falling in a wood
and shouting GERONIMO

this is me with my hands tied and my mouth open

*

sarah

Possum all deady-bones, deady onna roadside
Spillin out splatty-face, sick-a-dog dead
Possum all scatter-spray, rock-a-bye fly come
Sitty onna eyeball, snack-a-bite red
Big fatty car come, sing a fatty rock song
Rumble-down highway, breathy-burp lead
Rolla-ball wheel come, picky uppa poss-bum
Dunna gotta worry now, dunna got a head.

*

izzy

watching the way your hands move
when you talk
is like falling through clouds

they let all the killer whales
back out into the wild
after the public turned their backs on them
too afraid to watch them kill another person

now
all the killer whale trainers walk around the water parks,
listless and heavy-eyed
tapping on the glass
hearing ghost whale noises.

they still need us
we are indispensable
now the seals are the main attraction, cos
the seals don’t love anyone
the way they love us

I hold your hand as we clean out the tanks,
rub the glass with chux and enviro-safe detergent,
it’s awkward but nice and
I mop the concrete floors with my free hand

*

sarah

For years, planes terrified me.
I was so profoundly aware of the height
Of the sheer unlikelihood of being there,
Nesting in the clouds
Held up by ingenuity and hope.
I could feel every airy inch from the ground
With every bump, kaleidoscopes of gory outcomes
Danced behind my eyes.
Now, I’ve replaced my fear
With a sort of fluffy, pink lack of comprehension.
The way a parent cocks an ear to a son’s door
And placidly chuckles at the music seeping through.
I’ve finally decided that I can’t actually be airborne.
It‘s just not feasible. It’s all pretend.
And so I sit for an hour or so in a metal capsule
While swarthy men turn handles below the plane
Which move the delicately painted backdrop
Beneath the windows.
A smoke machine, a few hydraulics
It’s all for show.
Everyone here is in on it.
The glassy flight attendants, the sweaty businessmen.
All of them.
Except, perhaps, the Chinese woman in the row behind
Clutching a doll of a child who can’t be alive
Can’t be that perfect, that still.
That poor woman. Shunted onto an impossible flight
To grieve an impossible life
Face as serene as a painted lake
Not daring to look at her grim little bundle
Which won’t stir, not even at the thump of landing
Not even when we all file off onto the same tarmac we left
Where, through some trick of the light
The streets look a little different
But I know better.
I know.

*

izzy

mornings, or afternoons
when I wake up and
interrogate myself in the mirror

I think ‘you would say I look cute’
and ‘I am letting myself go’

I don’t know why I keep putting it in my mouth
soy cheese is terrible
like literally disgusting
this is one of the worst things I’ve ever eaten

the problem is, once you taste the good shit
you can never go back
even if you’re severely allergic
sometimes I wish I’d never tasted real cheese.

*

sarah

Whoever said that nature was peaceful had never seen it.
Nature is all about fucking and fighting and dying
And being torn apart by tiny insects
And running so hard your lungs might pop
From everything bigger or faster or meaner than you.
It’s being the swamp gum that jumped toward the sky
And screamed back at the ravenous bushfires
And kicked out at the rustling things at its feet
For two hundred years
And then, after two centuries of fighting,
Swayed and fell and was eaten by everything.
What a fucking joke.
And I’m not sure whether love exists
But if it does, all it means
Is forgiving forty-five times a day
Because it’s easier than snapping back.

*

izzy

this is me
not talking
this is me biting my hands
this is me pretending nothing exists
below my second storey apartment

some days I think I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS
and some days I FEEL NOTHING AT ALL

slap some sense into these walls
they need it
call the carpet on its shit –
you both know what it really is

trying to understand someone is really hard
when you only have the internet
but then you think SHIT, LIKE
technology has moved so much further
than even my arms do when I spin really fast
like IMAGINE
TELEGRAMS DUDE
or letters WHAT ABOUT LETTERS?

this is one of those days I get so excited
I can’t sleep
I can only vibrate
and look wide-eyed through the window
wondering why

our bodies float
why on earth
do our bodies float?

is this some feeble evolutionary response
to the fact I got from a Wikipedia page –
that water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface?

is this a joke?

*

sarah

Come stand right here.
You’ll need a jacket or two
Or three. Or four.
It’s minus ninety degrees in the wind
Which is lower than your brain can think
And even further down than that
You’ll find a lake.
You are standing at the Pole of Cold
(it’s really called that)
And four thousand metres beneath your feet
In the darkest place you can imagine
You could scoop your bone-cold hand
And draw out a sip of water
Kept under this fattening ice
For twenty million years.
The news would be staggering.
Scientists would flood the scene
Ant-like and hurried, fumbling with beakers
Suppressing their hoots
Of ecstatic awe
Making their faces impassive as glaciers
With only their eyes to betray them.
And surrounded by dials and microscopes
You would know what to do.
You would take up your glass
Slip out to the rooftop
And give a toast to the stars
Who were dripping with child-fire
When this water was new.

*

izzy

I.

I want to be surprised all the time
I want to see ladies with beards walking down the street
because they are fabulous
they can really rock it

there are tiny people having a beach party
under my bed
they’re being really loud
I don’t want them to wake my housemates
but at least they seem to be having a good time

lying on gross carpet
and smelling my burnt jumper
nothing really even matters
there are so many things not worth worrying about

there is a way of dancing
where you don’t even have to move your feet
or arms or legs or head or
you just use your eyes
and the light

II.

I wear the people I love around my neck like talismans
like prayers

I think about walking into the river
and standing still and silent
so I can feel it moving quickly past me

sadness will be your friend if you let it
it will move in
sleep on your feet
eat all your cereal
and never buy milk

but look at the moss
it makes mud beautiful
it’s every shade of green you can imagine
it holds the rocks and tells them it will be ok
it keeps the cracks in the footpath warm

everything used to be something else
and that is a comforting thought

*

sarah

Marching band baby
A stampede of one
Rocketing through the streets
With cocktails in your collarbones
Diving headfirst into any hands that’ll have you
Rolling in the crib of your bedsheets
Childlike in the dawn
And yes, you fell
And yes, you’re falling
And yes, you’ll fall
But though there’s bruises on your knees
And hips
And cheeks
Every time you think you’re done for
Swallowed by the bad old monster night
There comes, thumping out of the bigness
Drumbeats in the dark
And you touch your chest to find your heart
Has wound itself again
And so Icarus
You gather up your wax and feathers
Hold your breath again
And turn towards the sun

*

izzy

I want to build cities with you
cut holes in the fabric of utopia
to wriggle our arms through

I want to destroy cities with you
burn them down and watch from afar
with the lights like a swarm of fireflies

I want to look over cities with you
and say ‘we own you’

I want to look through cities with you
and say ‘we belong here’

I want to hold your hand

I always want to hold your hand
and kiss your neck

I want to be a teenager with you
I want us to meet in Primary School
but not really be friends until after High School is over
I want you to live on my block

I want to meet you when we don’t know how to speak yet
I want to meet you when we’ve forgotten how to speak
I want to see you when we refuse to speak because sometimes the world looks more beautiful when nobody is speaking

I want to run next to you
I want to run next to you at the end of the world
I want to take the word apocalypse and break it in half to make a cloak to keep you warm at the end of the world

I want to never stop thinking of extreme hypotheticals and metaphors for how we are kickass together

I want to give you a dolphin army
for your birthday

I want to climb trees with you and yell at people walking past
and hang off tall buildings with no ropes
I want to ice skate in only our socks and know that even though our toes feel like rocks and we might even be worried about getting hypothermia or getting so cold our limbs fall off
we won’t
because we have each other to hold onto
even when I fall on my butt and get bruises everywhere

I want to always be hugging you
I want you never to care what I think
or do what I say
or try to be something else
unless you want to

I want to do things with you specifically because I’d never do them with anyone else

I want to tell you everything
and never know why I do

I want to always think you are weird
and never know what you are going to do next
I want to never forget that I can’t know all of you
that you are a whole fucking universe
of your own

my chest is bursting with tiny birds that migrate to the other side of the world
just to see you smile
and fly home to roost in my ribcage

wanting is not the same thing as needing
and it is the best kind of love

*

sarah

Night falls like a rollercoaster run off its rails
The sewer rats pull on their Sunday best
And promenade through the murmuring streets
Poking curiosities with drinking straw canes
Tipping their soda-pop bottle-top top-hats
To quivering cats astride fencing-post steeds
The taxicabs rumble electric audacious
And the traffic lights disco-dance over the town
(etc)

*

izzy

I wish I was a tiger
I would be so majestic
and shit

I look at myself in the mirror across the room
there are fingerprints smudged across my face

and if it was foggier here,
me dissipating would make more sense

and someone is selling a bong on ebay
with corks in the holes, as a
‘large, unusual glass bottle’
for display in the home –

I don’t know how to tell these people
that I am uncomfortable
with the pejorative use of the word
‘gay’

my knees were shivering
in a halo of cigarette smoke
and we sat on the floor and ate Chinese.

*

sarah

I am cataloguing every reason I have ever raised my arms:
To apply deodorant
Sunscreen
Talcum powder
To be lifted
Hugged
Held
To reach a monkey bar
A shelf
A light
To tie my hair
To dance the tango
Or the zorba
To yell ‘pick me!’
To clap more emphatically
To show that I am a winner
To telegraph joy
And then I look again at this photo
Of a family of Jews in Warsaw
Flanked by clean-faced men with guns
And their arms are all up
Like they’re dancing
Like they won all the prizes
Like they’re saying ‘pick me!’
Like they found one more reason than I did
To lift up their hands

*

izzy

there are rocks
climbing up the drainpipe
into our bathroom sink

and I think I AM SO COLD
I think LIKE ACTUALLY FREEZING
I look at my feet TOES LIKE PEBBLES

I picture telling my children
and their children and their dogs
they don’t really know what cold is

*

sarah

Old American cars spew like scattered M & Ms across the forecourt
While old Australian men with their hands folded behind their backs
Follow each other around every shining tonne of metal
Blazing in the sun
High priests of this pagan idolatry of chrome and steel
The watchful guardians of a hundred dormant monsters
Who have prised those roaring mouths open
Lest they learn to speak on their own

*