if I was to contain myself
to an existential form
you would spot me
between early morning
purple clouds
above the town
I grew up in and
polaroid red flash reflections
in the eyes of my laughing friends
because the best parties
are those that
are not planned
sometimes you would find me
neatly tucked away
in the back of my
grandmas' wooden cabinet or
buried under frozen pizzas
in the Sainsburys freezer section
shyly offering smiles to whoever
walks by and I will call it
fate if our gaze meets for
just a second before we
go back to
our busy minds
but don’t be afraid
for we will meet again
one day in the forest
behind the school
like we used to
tuesday gave birth to me
and I chose to get up again on a
wednesday kicking and screaming
I defy gravity of relentless
tiredness on sober
thursday afternoons
and the lingering dread of
time grinding my bones
every time I realize
it's Friday again
what if I told you
a buzzcut can save a life
and so can some poorly
applied bleach
the hairs under my arms
have become life lines
I cultivate like flower seeds
the pink razor of my
girlhood long forgotten
but the scars still show
most days
if you would ask me
what I want to be
I would tell you
that you cannot
contain me
at all
if I was to choose
my existential form
I’d rather be a paint stain
or a freckle on my
mother's nose
the way smoke evaporates
but always leaves behind
a smell that lingers
on your clothes for days
a bubble just popped
but still reflecting
light in every
shade of rainbow
what if I told you
that most things
don’t mean anything
yet we make them
what they are
and because of
that you may
find me in between
these lines or in
the silence before
we wave goodbye
both on different
sides of the
window
and yet right
next to
each other
©Jules the Poet, 2022
This poem was longlisted as part of the Spectrum: Poetry Celebrating Identity project. Click here to find out more about the project, and other poems on the longlist here.
Spectrum
The concept of identity – be it class, gender, sexuality, national, institutional, or anything else we define ourselves by – has gone through radical change over the past half-century, and the idea of definition by binary oppositions is no longer as relevant as it once was.
Spectrum is a poetry anthology that seeks to amplify marginalised voices, and to celebrate the great diversity and rich variation in the identities of people from around the world and from a huge cross-section of walks of life.
Click here for the anthology of shortlisted poems.