for the attention of the editor

i cut myself open
unstitch my skin with shaking fingers
hold the thread between my teeth

it hurts to wash this blood away
to lay bare my skeleton and my soul
but it needs to be seen
like any growing thing
it needs oxygen and sunlight

so with careful, loving cuts
i open my veins to you
what once ran black is running red, now
dripping onto the space between us

you press your grime-covered hands
against the tendons and the bone
you whisper your fingers across
my deepest, darkest self

you look at my red, red blood
and you ask me
what does it mean?

i don’t know, i sob
both of us bent double over my open wound
your fingers buried deep
i don’t know

a modern-day dorian gray

if I were a modern-day dorian gray
I’d hide all my sins in a private instagram account
a sinsta, if you will
to put the photo evidence of all the lies I’ve told
all the birthdays that I’ve missed
boys I should never have kissed
friends I let down and everything I gave up

it wouldn’t have photos of me post-gym
but post-binge, post-cry, post-wank
post-eating-ham-out-the-packet
in fact, there would be a whole damn section dedicated
to all the pork sausages I’ve claimed were
“linda mccartney’s best work yet”

I could hide all the horrible things
I’ve thought and said and done
photos of the acne I try and fail to cover up
with cruelty-full make-up
paint even more shadows under my eyes
decorated with a nashville filter
a self-portrait with bitten fingernails and a permanent scowl

the problem with dorian gray is that oscar wilde
presumed that you could hide all your badness
in one painting

everything bad is hidden from sight
every scream
every blood-shot eye
every fist through a wall
(metaphoric, of course –
I rent for fuck’s sake)

‘for sale,’ my instagram profile would read
‘an ex-anorexic turned fat fuck
a 22-year-old blow-out, drop-out
with bad skin and dress sense and personality and life.
open to any and all offers just please dear god get this depressed, narcissistic cow away from me.
no returns’

please
dear god
let me be dorian gray
let me hide all the grey where it can’t be seen

I know that this isn’t the point of the novel
but ol’ oscar’s dead so he can’t exactly complain
and if, for any reason,
some bright fucking spark with an english degree
wants to correct me about ‘badness’ or ‘madness’
then I’ll meet you in the nearest asda car park

I don’t give a shit
how could I?
I’m not dorian gray
I’m living life as the portrait

I just know I’d give a hell of a lot to be perfect

astronaut

do we look at the stars because we’re human
some great philosopher asked
or are we human because we look to the stars

I think it is human to want to touch them
to know, intellectually, that they are made of dust
or gas, or fire
and want to hold their gasping lives in your hands
anyway

it is human to want to occupy the space between
to leave this world behind and exist
as a star
hovering above it all with a cold detachment
with a flickering half-life

this is why we are so obsessed with falling stars
and shooting stars
and all the other ways stars die
like cold in their beds or
with a bottle of cheap vodka and prescription pills or
cancer stars or bleeding stars or grieving stars

we are human because it is not enough
we want to sail amongst the stars
and that is why we have astronauts
we want to drown in them
we want to feel their salty sting against our cheeks

we look at the stars
which have died long before we see them
their light fading as it touches us

and we wish we were them
small and shining
all-encompassing
falling

stars

Image courtesy of Johannes Plenio.

sign language

in British sign language
we spell blue by rubbing
the fingers of our dominant hand
against the inner wrist of the other
over and over
in comforting circles

we draw patterns over the lightning bolts
of blue-green veins that sit
beneath the skin

we could point to the sky
ever-blue on this vision of existence
or run water off our backs
and down our fingertips
the blue that envelops us from all sides

but instead
we rub circles over
the fine blue lines in the corners of our being
those fragile red-purple threads turned
oxygenated blue
forget-me-nots straining towards the light

these veins, it says
coursing rivers that never change
course, these will be blue
when we think of your eyes or of
Mediterranean skies we will think
of blood
pressed close against the skin
we think of our heartbeat
running true and
pressing against yours

blue, we think
is a steady, vulnerable pulse
is throbbing, is human
is you, alive

Ali Smith’s ‘Girl Meets Boy’

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

I will start this review with a slight disclaimer: I ADORE Ali Smith and she is one of my all time favourite authors. This isn’t indicative of my own enjoyment (which was ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!!) but how I felt it read as a text and how much I would recommend it to others. On to the review!

I greatly enjoyed Smith’s modern take on Ovid’s myth of Iphis as a discursive discussion on gender. She tackles homophobia and corporate politics amidst her typical humour interwoven with a lovely narrative of love in a small Scottish town. Her use of parentheses and flashbacks result in an immersive experience that we expect from Smith; her portrayal of Robin, or Iphisol, is gripping and likeable. While the protagonist, Anthea, could have been written as unlikeable and stringent, she is the opposite, and acts as a gateway into Smith’s discussion of fluidity in love and gender, echoed in the ‘Pure’ water company she works for.

However: her beautiful prose can be seen as somewhat inaccessible to a casual reader, which is one of the only reasons why this novel loses one and a half stars. The other, as I tend to find with Smith’s works, is that I am left wanting more than its 161 pages. The eccentric grandparents who open and close the novel, who sail off to sea and never return, act as a framework rather than beloved characters they could grow to be.

Nevertheless, Smith’s characters are fallible and loveable, and combined with her poetic voice, Girl meets boy is a beautiful retelling that perhaps could benefit from more context. But then, arguably, it wouldn’t be an Ali Smith novel – short but sweet, with an important message and immersive prose.

A book review of Girl meets boy by Ali Smith.

A week in the life of a PhD student

I’m currently a student at Lancaster University in the first year of my PhD in Creative Writing. Due to the current apocalypse, I’m doing this through distance learning while living at home with my parents and working part-time in a shop. I thought it might be helpful to document a week in my life!

Sunday

Due to my work-week, I’ve decided that my week officially starts on Sunday. As this is my day off, I like to spend today organising my week (while relaxing with a Harry Potter film in the background, of course). Today, I’m editing the poems I’m due to send my supervisors on Tuesday. I’ve written four at the moment, but would like to throw an extra one in if I have time.

It’s been a long week, though, so I have a slow morning and make some headway in the afternoon. I dutifully tick some items off of my to-do list (such as paying my tuition fees and doing a bit of a tidy of my room).

I go to bed early because I am, in fact, in my mid-eighties and not my mid-twenties. I light a candle and do some reading, call my long-distance partner, and am out before my head hits the pillow.

Monday

According to my sleep app, it only took me four minutes to get to sleep, which feels accurate. I have work at 9 this morning, so, as per usual, I spend most of my time trying to wake up. I have a very easy shift finishing off some online learning, and the time flies before I’m home.

Seeing as I – more or less – finished editing my poems yesterday, I draft another one once I’m home. Last week, my supervisor sent me a statue of Medusa he found that fits perfectly into my project (a feminist and queer retelling of Greek mythology).

I leave the title until tomorrow, as it’s my least favourite part of any poem, and have a relaxing evening with my parents.

https://www.mwthproject.com/

Tuesday

Work again this morning. I didn’t sleep as well last night, so it’s a case of forcing myself to throw off my bedcovers a little later than usual. I have a good shift, however; I’ve been trusted with the iPad for the first time and I spend my day walking around and getting my steps in while doing online orders for customers.

I feel super productive once I get home and I finish editing my poems before sending them off to my supervisors. As I have my supervisions on Fridays, they have asked that I send my work by the Tuesday.

I give myself the rest of the evening off (mainly because Bake Off is on).

Wednesday

It’s my day off today!! I try to give myself a lie-in but I don’t really succeed, so I spend the morning cleaning the house. My mum has the day off as well, so (as per our family tradition) we spend the afternoon watching a truly awful Christmas movie. Yes, we know it’s October, but it’s not our fault that they’re already on the telly.

I say it’s my day off – I have a university meeting between 4 and 6 today. Although it’s never quite the same, Lancaster has done an amazing job of transitioning to online learning. It’s the first English Work in Progress session, and we spend it mapping out the timeline of our PhDs and talking to some second and third year students. Although I’m not technically doing English (for the first time since I started school), I do have a critical component and the session is really helpful. Plus, it gives me a chance to socialise with other PhD students which, as I’m living at home and Lancaster has moved into Tier 3, hasn’t been the easiest!

We also read some articles on procrastination and discuss our techniques for working. I obviously didn’t learn much as I’m writing this blog in order to procrastinate. Oh well!

Thursday

Back at work again this morning; it’s a slow day in the shop, so I have a chance to catch up with my co-worker whose shifts don’t usually overlap with mine.

Once I’m home, I see that my supervisor has already sent his feedback for my poems! I spend the evening reading and making notes on his comments and any questions I might have, as well as organising my comments from the other reading he’s sent me over the last two weeks. A particular poem by Lindsey Bird catches my attention and I can’t wait to get his thoughts on it.

Friday

I have my supervision this morning, so I have a relaxed start and make sure I have a cup of tea ready for the start of our meeting. I have two supervisors, and although they are technically weighted at 90% and 10%, my second tutor, Liz, is really involved and extremely passionate about my project as she doesn’t often get to supervise Creative Writing students. She can’t make it today, though, so it’s just me and Eoghan.

It is, as these meetings always are, intense. Eoghan has said that he wants to hit my poems with a hammer and see where they shatter, and so we dissect almost every line. It’s extremely useful, though I’m still not quite used to this 1-on-1, and sometimes 2-on-1, teaching! We discuss gender and how I might approach it in my poetry, and my aims for my overall collection. At the end, as always, I’m vibrating with ideas!

As I don’t start work until 1, I get to work on writing up my summary of the supervision, which has to be submitted to my learning log. I make sure to write down the exact poems that Eoghan wants me to read before our next meeting, as well as some ideas for transgender and non-binary poets to look at.

Before I know it, I have to leave for work. It’s a long shift, and I have some particularly rude customers, which always deflates me a little bit. When I get home, though, I make sure to read through my summary and send it off once I’m happy with it.

Saturday

The main reason for making sure my summary is polished and sent off is because Saturday is my long shift at work, and it is always our busiest day. I don’t stop as soon as I’m in, and unfortunately, the Area Manager has made an unscheduled visit, so the shop managers are tense.

I don’t realise the time and forget that I was supposed to be on the door at 3; however, I’ve been walking a customer through an expensive order and I don’t want to leave them. The schedule for the rest of the staff gets thrown off, and by the time I make it downstairs, my manager has words with me.

Now: I will be the first to admit that I am a teacher’s pet, and have therefore never reacted well to criticism. It’s also the end of a particularly long week, so I take it harder than I should’ve done. I swallow the lump in my throat and get to greeting customers, taking click and collect orders, and trying to smile through my mask. My colleagues assure me afterwards that it was all fine and will be forgotten by tomorrow.

At home, I make sure to have a particularly large alcoholic beverage and settle in to watch Strictly, which, as I’m sure you know, is a cure for all ills.

Sunday

The end of the week! I felt much better waking up this morning, and the extra hour in bed doesn’t hurt matters. I start my weekly to-do list (again), and it doesn’t feel like two seconds since I did the last one. I put on Taylor Swift and make a note of some poetry publication deadlines and the library induction I have next week. I draft some ideas for poems, but otherwise, I make sure I have a relaxing day before it all starts again tomorrow.

And there you have it: a week in the life of a PhD student! This one was particularly hectic and I didn’t find as much time as I perhaps would’ve liked for reading and relaxing. I’m still getting into the swing of work, but I’m used to retail and my colleagues are all lovely, so I’m sure I’ll find my feet soon. I am absolutely loving my PhD work, though, and feel so inspired any time I interact with my supervisors. It really reminds me of why I want to go into academia and writing, and why I’m doing all of this in the first place.

I hope someone somewhere has found this helpful, and I hope you all have a lovely Sunday!