Voracious vagina,
Voluptuous vulva,
Vocalise your visceral vibration,
Verbalise your hesitation
At this villainous violation
The verdict of your vulgarity
Venturing to vanquish your vested virtue
A veteran of veiled vesture
A victim with a vendetta
Vindicated and validated

You have been viscously vilified for too long
But talk is cheap
And I wouldn’t want
This ubiquitous alienating alliteration
To detract
From the enactment
Of my message
To distract
Those whom it is designed
To enrapture
To capture
The mood
Of this time we live in
Where a woman’s body
Is considered a sin
If I define not
To your unrealistic standards
Of beauty and grace
If my words and my face
Leave a trace
Of bitterness in your mouth
Don’t ask me
To kiss it out
I want to shout
“Don’t ask me to smile!”
For you know not what you do
My message to you
Is simple
This pimple
This fat roll
This hairy armpit
This shorter-than-you-think-is-appropriate hemline
Are not for you
To comment on
Jog on!
This is my body,
In its perfectly imperfect form,
Since the day I was born
And I own

Every
Last
Beautiful
Inch
Of it

For the “too much” women

This poem
Is for the “too much”
Women
The sexually free
And want to be me
Women
The I love myself
And I’m
Not
Afraid
To say it
Women

This poem
Is for
The women
Who
Laugh loudly
And cry even louder
The women
Who show up
And grow up,
The women
Who tell their
Friends
“I love you”

This poem
Is for
The freedom fighters
And the librarians
The anarchists
And the introverts
The women
Who don’t take shit
From no-one
The women
Who drive fast
And eat slowly
The women
Who savour life
Every
Last
Delicious
Fucking
Drop of it

This poem
Is for
The young women
Finding their place
In the world
For the
Old women
Who dye their hair
And ride motorcycles
Right over
Your expectations
Of how
They should behave

This poem
Is for the women
Who know
That you don’t need
A uterus
To be a woman
The women
Who don’t give time
To negative energy
And cut that shit
Out of their lives
The women
With anxiety
And the women
Who had to see a doctor
Twenty times
Before they were diagnosed

This poem
Is for the women
Who love to travel
The women
Who open doors
And climb
Over barriers
The women
Who are quiet
As a mouse
But when they speak
You know it was
Worth the wait

This poem
Is for the women
Who pole dance
The women who do ballet
And the women who do both
The women
Who love music
Or reading
So much
That they
Get lost in it
For hours

This poem
Is for
The women
Who were called demure
But
Can’t
Take
It
No more
The women
Who want to smash shit up
The women
Who want to stand up
The women
Who want to live it up

This poem
Is for the women
Who speak up
The women
Who call out
Hypocrisy
And mediocrity
The women
Who say
“Can you repeat that?”
When verbally abused
Under the breath
Of someone
Who doesn’t know their privilege
The women
Who show their braveness
And wear their hearts
On their sleeves

This poem
Is for the women
Who cry at adverts
The women
With
So much
Compassion
That they save ants
On the sidewalk
The women
Who protest
And take placards
To the streets
The women
Who don’t miss a beat
And challenge
Sexism

This poem
Is for the women
Who practice
Self-care
By organising
Their calendar
And cooking healthy meals
And getting enough sleep
The women
Who drink to forget
And the women
Who stay sober
To remember
The women
Who take long baths
And longer walks
And the women
Who just want
A
Second
To
Themselves

This poem
Is for the women
With a high IQ
And a high EQ
The women
Whose empathy
Means they feel
Every
Crack
On
This
Precious
Earth
The women
Who remember birthdays
And book appointments
That aren’t for them
Who take on
The emotional labour
Of an army

This poem
Is for the women
Who stay out dancing
Until three o’clock
The up all night women
Living their
Best life women
And giving
Zero fucks
The women
Who are shy
And the women
Who don’t need
A drink
To get on that stage
And sing their
Bloody hearts out

This poem
Is for the women
Who don’t think
That tampons
Are taboo
The women
Who celebrate
Their cycles
And worship
The changing of the moon
The women
Who generate stares
When they walk
Into a room
The women
You suggest to
‘Smile’
But they’d rather frown
The women
Whose generosity
Knows no bounds

This poem
Is for the women
Who teach their children
Their genitals’ proper names
The women
Who aren’t afraid
When their toddler
Shouts “vulva!”
When they’re trying to get changed
The women
Facing racism
Through no fault of their own
The women
Who work three jobs
To give their kids a home

This poem
Is for the rebel women
With, or without, a cause
The women
Who knock on doors
That society
Tried to close
To them
The women
Who smash
Glass ceilings
And explode
Tired patriarchal tropes
Of femininity
Like fireworks
On New Year’s Eve

This poem
Is for the women
Of the resistance
For feminists
And Marxists
And the women
Who just
Don’t give a shit

This poem
Is a whisper
And a shout
An anthem
For the lost
And the found

This poem
Is for me
And for you

Things that remind me of you

I will forever be reminded of you…

When someone offers me milk in a herbal tea (and hasn’t read the packaging)

When I drink kombucha (especially mixed with gin)

When anyone says the word “squirt” (no matter how inappropriate the situation!)

When I walk through the vegetable aisle (particularly past the cucumbers)

When I hear a laugh even slightly like yours (though none can truly compare)

When someone says they are “all gravy” (even though they most likely are not)

When I eat coconut ice cream (imagining my spoon is your nipple)

The moonlight flickers on your skin

Worlds collide

Into a single breath

Flowers bend and twist their necks

Angling themselves

To face towards the sun

Wind blows through me

A cold chill

Snowflakes fragile and delicate

An explosion in my core

Lahars running

Down my legs and feet

I am usually a glass half full kind of person

But today, all I can think of is how sad I will be

When I leave and it is no longer you and me

How to miss someone

Step 1) Make an album on your phone of photos of them, pictures of gifts they have given you, and some of things that just remind you of them

Step 2) Pore over said album obsessively, whenever you think of them – first thing in the morning, on the loo in your lunch break at work, in the dead of night when you can’t sleep

Step 3) Deliberate on all the memories evoked from completing steps 1 and 2, and cry until your tears have run dry and you need a drink of water to replace the lost fluid from weeping so much

Step 4) Find every message they ever sent you – unless you updated your phone and forgot to back them up. In which case, find the screenshots you took of the messages they sent you and ruminate on them instead

Step 5) Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the material from step 4

Step 6) Finally fall asleep, exhausted and alone, before commencing the process again each new day

A last time

There will be a last time we kiss

A last time we fuck

A last time I make you squirt so much that the bedsheets stay wet for hours

There will be a last time we hug

A last time I wash your hair in the shower

A last time we cry together in your bed, holding each other so tightly

There will be a last time we join hands

A last time I breathe in your scent

A last time we read post secret together on a Sunday morning in your room

There will be a last time you read to me

A last time we fall asleep with legs intertwined

A last time I cook with you as my sous chef, veggies chopped to perfection

There will be a last time you make me tea

A last time we walk home to your flat

A last time I pick you up at the train station across from your work and wait for you in the rain

There will be a last time we go away together

A last time you drive my car

A last time we wake up next to one another on a sunny spring morning, listening to the birds in the trees outside your window

There will be a last time I see you naked

A last time I undress for you

A last time we watch a movie and miss the storyline because we are so wrapped up in our love

There will be a last time I touch your neck

A last time you take my nipple into your mouth

A last time I plunge my fingers inside you and make you come over and over again until you are spent

There will be a last time you smile at me

A last time we go to dinner with your friends

A last time you let me take a photo of us together, even though you don’t believe in selfies

Eventually…

There will be a last time you think of me

A last time I see your face in my dreams

A last time when you and I are an “us” and your house is no longer my “sometimes home”

The stripper

Her company was delightful

Made us both so wet

Her conversation insightful

Intriguing, but yet

Your body and mind

Are the only ones I need

I think you’ll find

Any more would just be greed

Dancing and stripping

You not knowing where to look

Lady garden dripping

Sinker, line & hook

Offers of private bookings

Tempting as they my be

There’s no-one else I’m looking

At, you’re my one & only

Love for you aplenty

Even next to her

Kissing your lips gently

I hope that you concur!

In the cab you touch me

With no undies on

Exposed as I can be

As you hear your song

The night ends & we head home

You can’t wait to make me come

I’m so glad I’m not alone

Tonight was so much fun!