By CONOR MAXWELL
23 years old
University of Waikato
Kick bucket drum to charcoaled studio curb
You extend your hand
Tight skin, pink nails
Bat thick lashes
Tipped with Revlon
And snow
I’m Angel
A single neon tree
Frames your grinning
Naked scalp
By nature and name
Let Skittle cluster fairy lights
Be your wings
Santa came early
Christmas Eve
Vodka, soup and onyx heels
Chip wood with drumsticks
And your feet
You twirl your scarlet tunic
In zebra-stripe tights
Today for us
Tomorrow…
Jump cut to well wishes
Drip fed through
Woollen veins
Crash cut to cardboard confessionals
And your three-walled open casket
Pre-death
For one song
Blood flakes on whites
Hold off on dying-
She lost her boyfriend
And her tears are wetter
Than yours
They let you slip away
To cold shower detox
The cat with two lives
I should have known
From the first note
Of his unfinished ballad
That this heatless, gutter swill
Bohemian fantasy
Was keyed to the tune of
Drugs not hugs
Drugs not life
Drugs not the positive representation
Of homosexuality
In a time of AIDS
Depression
And ‘God Hates Fags’
His six-string elixir comes
Single use
And who could bear
To let HER go?
He called you up
Wig first
You made it sound like heaven
With the colour palette
Set to hell
Cold sweat
Seizure lust
Red-washed sterile floor
Grief seeps through the seams
Of a crocheted crown
I watched you die tonight
At least you got to
Play yourself out
This poem is part of the TEARAWAY Young Poets feature for National Poetry Day.
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