Submissions by Northern_Soul
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
There is a trick to get out of your skin 🖤
SELF POEM
Published
16th Jun 2024 9:52pm
16th Jun 2024 9:52pm
(#2) Bright Blue Walls: Post-Confession Shivers
Oat milk hot chocolate
no cream, no faff
just extra hot
so it warms cold bones
it seems to be the norm now
Friday morning, I spill my guts
in a beige office in front of a woman
who’s boobs are too big for her bra
you can’t help but notice them
but they bring a strange comfort.
It feels motherly some how
as if her presence holds merit
and I talked about anxiety
how it’s fucked me up
how it’s still fucking me up
as if I’ve catastrophised living
before it’s even been called life.
...
no cream, no faff
just extra hot
so it warms cold bones
it seems to be the norm now
Friday morning, I spill my guts
in a beige office in front of a woman
who’s boobs are too big for her bra
you can’t help but notice them
but they bring a strange comfort.
It feels motherly some how
as if her presence holds merit
and I talked about anxiety
how it’s fucked me up
how it’s still fucking me up
as if I’ve catastrophised living
before it’s even been called life.
...
#DomesticViolence
#healing
#SelfReflection
#StreamOfConsciousness
#vulnerability
200 reads
0 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
13th Jun 2024 7:22am
13th Jun 2024 7:22am
Someday, soon
I suppose if we broke it down
there’s simply a part of you
that reminds me of me
I’d apologise for this
in a visceral display
of awkward Englishness
if I thought it would matter
a single solitary shit
but sometimes there’s weight
to your emptiness, and I know—
I’ve felt it, written it out
tattooed it on my forearms
where I keep all my best scars
so we talk for a while,
shoot the shit about everything
and nothing at all ...
there’s simply a part of you
that reminds me of me
I’d apologise for this
in a visceral display
of awkward Englishness
if I thought it would matter
a single solitary shit
but sometimes there’s weight
to your emptiness, and I know—
I’ve felt it, written it out
tattooed it on my forearms
where I keep all my best scars
so we talk for a while,
shoot the shit about everything
and nothing at all ...
#hope
279 reads
7 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
12th Jun 2024 9:49am
12th Jun 2024 9:49am
Afterwards, we’ll all remember having seen it coming
I’m an atomic bomb of a woman
living in a hand grenade dress
a chest charged with bullets
trip wires for eyelashes
dressing my catastrophic dead
I want my remains
to be wheeled through London
stopping traffic without care
angry drivers shouting obscenities
forgetting in the end
we all ride out with no address
and I feel as if
I’m marching through Leningrad
tattooing Chernobyl on my thigh
howling through the rubble
of my...
living in a hand grenade dress
a chest charged with bullets
trip wires for eyelashes
dressing my catastrophic dead
I want my remains
to be wheeled through London
stopping traffic without care
angry drivers shouting obscenities
forgetting in the end
we all ride out with no address
and I feel as if
I’m marching through Leningrad
tattooing Chernobyl on my thigh
howling through the rubble
of my...
#anxiety
#confessional
#myself
#war
#women
261 reads
1 Comment
SELF POEM
Published
10th Jun 2024 11:42am
10th Jun 2024 11:42am
Tea on a coffee table
and what I mean
by it’s not you, it’s me
is every minute
tangles cold bedsheets
forming an impossible
white noose
what I mean
by I crave more time
is I quietly stare
into breakfast’s blue jug
seeing only a spectre
of your face
what I mean
by I wanna be yours
is I imagine what
the living must be like—
that peace of falling asleep
waking exactly where you are
by it’s not you, it’s me
is every minute
tangles cold bedsheets
forming an impossible
white noose
what I mean
by I crave more time
is I quietly stare
into breakfast’s blue jug
seeing only a spectre
of your face
what I mean
by I wanna be yours
is I imagine what
the living must be like—
that peace of falling asleep
waking exactly where you are
#SelfReflection
#dialogue
#disability #LifeStruggles
#disability #LifeStruggles
309 reads
13 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
9th Jun 2024 6:25pm
9th Jun 2024 6:25pm
Bomb Damage
Don’t get us wrong
it’s not the pity we’re interested in,
never the eyes that gaze downwards
wondering how the legs work below
the out of whack plumbing
don’t pick us up
as the notch in your belt buckle
for your yearly dose of weird,
the memorable fetish fuck
to satisfy a ballpoint tick
on a scoresheet only you
are keeping
for the record
it’s not so much the throwing about
that shakes our proverbial shit—
we’ve spent all year
being lifted from chair to bed
but it’s when we’re there...
it’s not the pity we’re interested in,
never the eyes that gaze downwards
wondering how the legs work below
the out of whack plumbing
don’t pick us up
as the notch in your belt buckle
for your yearly dose of weird,
the memorable fetish fuck
to satisfy a ballpoint tick
on a scoresheet only you
are keeping
for the record
it’s not so much the throwing about
that shakes our proverbial shit—
we’ve spent all year
being lifted from chair to bed
but it’s when we’re there...
#disability
#sex
#uplifting #women
#uplifting #women
300 reads
13 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
7th Jun 2024 10:45am
7th Jun 2024 10:45am
(#1) Bright Blue Walls
Hey.. what are you after?’ She says
and I tell her who I’m here to see
as she buzzes me into the building
she’s a carbon copy of me
septum ring, awkwardly dressed
stick in her right hand
as we catch the lift together
stand cramped in an oblong box
as a door slides open
releasing us out into the world.
The place is like Fort Knox
as we talk through more intercoms
and it makes sense when I think
about the clientele
all the battered souls of the...
and I tell her who I’m here to see
as she buzzes me into the building
she’s a carbon copy of me
septum ring, awkwardly dressed
stick in her right hand
as we catch the lift together
stand cramped in an oblong box
as a door slides open
releasing us out into the world.
The place is like Fort Knox
as we talk through more intercoms
and it makes sense when I think
about the clientele
all the battered souls of the...
#confessional
#DomesticViolence
#MovingOn
#myself
#StreamOfConsciousness
271 reads
4 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
3rd Jun 2024 8:28am
3rd Jun 2024 8:28am
The skin I’m in
Ed Gein
collected
trophies
I collected
memories
did you
love this
haunted
display
collected
trophies
I collected
memories
did you
love this
haunted
display
#confessional
#minimalist
#myself
#SelfReflection
#memories
302 reads
4 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
31st May 2024 8:26am
31st May 2024 8:26am
Fire Down Below
and we’re crashed here
legs tangled in half-light
I don’t know since when
but I do know the slickness
of spent fingers as I kiss them
I do know
the weight of your arms
circling my sunlit waist
and I’m not sure
of the measure
of everything
I wished tangible
as I worship
your beautiful broken parts
rebuilding your dreams
wondering
if the burn of me
still lingers on your tongue
if you’ll hold me long enough
to ever truly forget
legs tangled in half-light
I don’t know since when
but I do know the slickness
of spent fingers as I kiss them
I do know
the weight of your arms
circling my sunlit waist
and I’m not sure
of the measure
of everything
I wished tangible
as I worship
your beautiful broken parts
rebuilding your dreams
wondering
if the burn of me
still lingers on your tongue
if you’ll hold me long enough
to ever truly forget
#dreams
#sleep
#love
301 reads
11 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
28th May 2024 11:01am
28th May 2024 11:01am
Hole
I’m not sure what I was thinking
as she stung my nose with alcohol
placed on that blue clamp
found my perfect sweet spot
though I was just relieved to know
part of me had one amongst
my external prickle
my girl laid her palm on my hand
as a needle went through
I sat amazed that five years
of questioning this piercing
was reduced to no tears
no flinching
just a quick pinch and it was done
while I glanced in a mirror
to the gnarly sight of a canula...
as she stung my nose with alcohol
placed on that blue clamp
found my perfect sweet spot
though I was just relieved to know
part of me had one amongst
my external prickle
my girl laid her palm on my hand
as a needle went through
I sat amazed that five years
of questioning this piercing
was reduced to no tears
no flinching
just a quick pinch and it was done
while I glanced in a mirror
to the gnarly sight of a canula...
#illness
#PersonalGrowth
#SelfWorth
#strength
#women
246 reads
8 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
22nd May 2024 9:17am
22nd May 2024 9:17am
On jackpots, and staying lucky
Years ago
they used to hide fivers
wrapped up in cellophane
in bags of Walker’s crisps
I remember
winning the game one time
opening that foil bag
and finding money in there
nestled awkwardly amongst
the salt and vinegar
how it felt like scoring the lottery
despite barely being enough
to buy anything at all.
I didn’t even take the cash out
of its plastic overcoat for a month. ...
they used to hide fivers
wrapped up in cellophane
in bags of Walker’s crisps
I remember
winning the game one time
opening that foil bag
and finding money in there
nestled awkwardly amongst
the salt and vinegar
how it felt like scoring the lottery
despite barely being enough
to buy anything at all.
I didn’t even take the cash out
of its plastic overcoat for a month. ...
#disability
#StreamOfConsciousness
#vulnerability
240 reads
4 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
18th May 2024 10:33am
18th May 2024 10:33am
How to fix burnout
some bitch with a clipboard
sits in front of me
rattling a pencil between her teeth
saying words like posture
and eye contact
of which I don’t like fucking either
and she’s making notes
on my history, the way my life
has gone down the proverbial shitter
how my spine bent up like a pretzel
months ago as wild birds
pecked at the remains
her face slapping me with a wound:
“you’re here, but you don’t look happy”
… of course I don’t look fucking happy, Susan
...
sits in front of me
rattling a pencil between her teeth
saying words like posture
and eye contact
of which I don’t like fucking either
and she’s making notes
on my history, the way my life
has gone down the proverbial shitter
how my spine bent up like a pretzel
months ago as wild birds
pecked at the remains
her face slapping me with a wound:
“you’re here, but you don’t look happy”
… of course I don’t look fucking happy, Susan
...
#happiness
#myself
#SelfReflection #SelfWorth
#SelfReflection #SelfWorth
269 reads
9 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
16th May 2024 8:34am
16th May 2024 8:34am
At night the birds still sing
Mae was fragile
I saw it in her eyes most nights
while we capped fresh bottles of wine
pointed them at each other like guns
talked
smoked
listened to the cunts we had
rent books with play video games
on a dented sofa
but never us
always her kitchen's cold table
collecting every tear
I was never sure if it was the wine
or the arseholes we were shackled to
but something soothed
in the way her red hair swept softly ...
I saw it in her eyes most nights
while we capped fresh bottles of wine
pointed them at each other like guns
talked
smoked
listened to the cunts we had
rent books with play video games
on a dented sofa
but never us
always her kitchen's cold table
collecting every tear
I was never sure if it was the wine
or the arseholes we were shackled to
but something soothed
in the way her red hair swept softly ...
#StreamOfConsciousness
#weakness
186 reads
3 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Northern_Soul
