Rosie Elizabeth: Three Poems + Drawing
From the collection Lines of Salt / Drawing / © Rosie Elizabeth
Mother Square
As if we didn’t need any more lines.
Then came along a square to look at and a dot to record.
Squares², all
talking about how to best manage
the Mother Square.
We tunnelled too hard.
Mirror on mirror.
Now stuck in a game that only bends for numerical order.
How to get my square ahead of yours:
Searched for. Analysed for.
We went in, instead of out.
Not realising that the Mother Square holds a light for fiction, and
Not boxing rings between mice.
Ding. Ding.
The lighting is not bright enough, you look too real.
In the dark,
Too Human.
Please:
Light a candle. Make a sound for 40 seconds.
Lie next to your square and orgasm so hard. Tabs closed. Window open.
Strangers must listen, if only to shake the line.
Don’t smash the screen,
Read Her.
Her freckles like pixels.
Her mouse, your mouth.
Turning square
to circle.
The Computer Won’t Miss You
Work will disappear and when it does,
you’ll lose your routine.
You’ll lose your skin.
You’ll change your face.
You’ll realise that time is yours, and that your screen isn’t a friend.
(It doesn’t hold its warmth like a forest floor)
You’ll wake-up and question why you move the way you do.
(What is a hand, but a collection of webbed piano keys?)
You’ll get bored, oh, so very bored
and for the first time,
You’ll feel yourself
in cracking gaps, falling
in flight of total unrecognition.
Sorry but: she’s not coming back.
Sorry but: they’re not checking in.
Sorry but: he’s not staying in your life.
How did we ever allow for such cyclical thinking?
We live in multiples, like embryos doubling in, hurtling
out of ourselves.
And wow, my Other, is it worth living.
It’ll be ok, Darren
Nothing works, nothing fucking works.
And I’m left wondering if we’re still talking about the same thing.
Apparently someone, somewhere
forgot to type letters on a keyboard.
Grant permission to
a Digital something. Keep the gates open
so that something could
move to Darren
in Design.
While I break during my break. A kiwi in half
blitzed for ease. No yoghurt,
it hurts. There is that coconut version
but there’s that E something.
No, I am something, looking
at my face, worried about those
holes and moles that crawl into dark spaces
like that lady in the corner of my room who watches me when
I’m ill.
I plan for my escape. I plan for
Brazil,
closer to spirit where I might be able to
breathe. So I can return to clay on my neck and a forgiven
scar on my cheek. Where absolutely
no Americans are forgetting that: This. Can. Go. To. Design.
Darren goes to bed with a blue screen as a wife.
And I know, he thinks it too.
This isn’t fucking working.
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© Rosie Elizabeth
Rosie Elizabeth (@rosie_epoetry) is a poet and artist based in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Originally from the UK, she studied English Literature at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. She is the creator of Hey Heart Poetry, a trilingual spoken word event and podcast. Her work has been published in Porridge, The Madrid Review, The New Absurdist, Mouthful of Salt, BarBar Literary Magazine, Sunday Mornings at the River, Snowflake Magazine and The Wells Street Journal.