BAD SEX IN BIG SUBURBS
what will you give up for closeness honey bun
you can get anyone onside with enough booze
and ruthless gentleness people are gagging
for a little kindness people will kill for sympathy
these are the seasons of mists baby
and I’m in business I’m a life coach
now let’s get drunk among your family compose
six texts to your gap-filler crush
and send them off in a volley of triumph from under
the dinner table
pay for me!!!! pay for my soul
I’m long-lasting god I’m so durable
I’m honestly stronger than you know
I’m like the condom with chemicals in
so you can fuck for ages but never come
I’m in a nurse uniform a sexy nurse uniform
with a chart on a clipboard
let’s work out how much hate you can take
and make sure you take the hate on a daily basis
in big wet dollops on your ragged heart
ooh are you sad
why don’t you go write a poem about it
I can tell you’re very proud to know that no girl
has ever owned you
you are your own man such a fine young man
I have therefore prepared for you a certificate
I know how you like certificates baby yeah
you like that marbled cardstock don’t you say it
look I…..photocopied my signature especially
ah come on just tell me you love me the most
out of every single person my age oh my god I just
wanna be all tell me a secret
so you’ll tell me something fake
for the sake of having something to say haha mystery
doesn’t even come into it
hey write me a poem but make it
the kind you’ll get embarrassed about in exactly four years
four years is how long it takes the empathy you have
for yourself to deteriorate yeah and I want
exactly that much um discomfort
twenty-somethings are just deformed teenagers
with rent to pay
old people aren’t wise they’re just
sad they’re gonna die soon
I’m a guru and I want free money
if I were a boy I would cry at a different bus stop every day
Freya Daly Sadgrove is a writer & performer in Aotearoa. She has an MA in poetry from the IIML, & her work has appeared in various publications including Sweet Mammalian, Scum, Shabby Doll House, & The Spinoff.
