Grinding my teeth through this nicotine gum
lung cancer's looking all the more appealing.
Keeping an eye on this oil-slick starling
crouched down low and lonely on my mind's wire.
Damn thing keeps singing some tune I'd really rather forget.
Wish it would switch to some song I just can't remember.
Back in the real world I'd kill for a drink now
instead I'm swallowing down sips of mineral water that taste of nothing.
The less lines I read these days
the more I read between them.
That pretty little beak is making me nervous
looking like it may just open wide and swallow me down.
Don't like the idea of being stuck swimming around in that belly
still being able to hear that song I wish it would stop singing.
It's 5am and I'm thinking it's just as well I haven't gone to sleep yet
or I doubt I'd have been able to get out of bed.
Go downstairs and drink my morning medication.
Two and a half tablets and a mug of tea.
Keeping my eye on that oil-slick starling
oozing feathers across my sunrise
If someone never said that tasting a poem
is as close as damn-it
to orchestrating an execution, then
someone should have.
Under the sound of the hornets' drone drum roll
that's keeping the beat so the tension's in time.
If you strain you can still
hear the grainy pop and sizzle
of the neon halos
sniggered to the heads
of the sweet faced idiots,
all strung out on poppy seed self-righteousness
their bleating hearts and bleeding t-shirt slogans.
Pop. Sizzle.
Sentiment flares, splutters arcs of ozone
with the slack-jawed disinterest
of some bovine tempered acne enamelled girl-
out of reach on auto-pilot,
mid masturbation, minus much imagination.
The studied insolence of their unapologetic slouching
enunciates the architecture of the slow-eyed firing squad.
Fingers succinct against flesh stained triggers
articulate the bruised and heavy-ankled whisper of
the blue eyed boys. Who decorate the brick wall
along with its blood stains and bullet holes.
And them, totally missing the point
succumb to some delicious incoherence.
Swallowing their silly causes.
Falling for their own infomercial-Rapture.
Smiling
like saints.
Shining
like martyrs.
All smirking and gloating
like suicide bombers.
Pretty,
granted, real prime time juice.
But pointless...
Long live the Lotophagi
When I was eighteen years old I lived in a preppy duplex
complete with lock-up garage for my yellow sports car
that Daddy had given me.
I was also a heroin addict
had been since I was a fifteen year old schoolgirl
Private School-girl.
I had a roof over my head
never ended up whoring myself on the meat streets.
I lived in purgatory
just between spoiled rich kid
and destitute junkie.
I owned diamond jewellrey
that my mother kept safe
from me in a safety deposit box.
I'd sold everything behind cupboard doors
my clothes, my CD's, my books, my appliances,
my boyfriend's washing machine.
After I all but wrote off my car
When I couldn't hitch a lift
I would try to convince my dealer to pay the R3.60 for bus fare
Sometimes he would
Other times I'd just walk while the withdrawal kicked in
I would catch the last mini bus taxi
into Sunnyside at 7:00 pm
Then I'd pass out in the toilet at a petrol station
or a stairwell
till someone complained loudly enough to wake me up
it was the street kids that used to help me get home.
They'd seen me before in my little yellow cabriolet
they knew I was just another spoiled rich kid
They still used to help me get home.
Sometimes in cars that must have been stolen
a couple of times there were no keys in the ignition
There was a taxi driver who I called a lot
I'd say ' come on, please, how many times
have I driven with you?
I promise I'll pay you tomorrow '
and he'd say ' you never do '
'you must stop this shit baby
it's no good for you '
Sometimes he'd cave in and take me home
other times he'd just swear at me and drive off
Almost never when it was raining though.
At the petrol station around the corner from where I lived
I'd sometimes walk there at four in the morning
to buy a loose cigarette.
The petrol attendants knew where I lived
that I had a nice car
that they'd never be able to own themselves
that on the one hand I had more than they ever would.
Still, two of them took some weird kind of paternal interest in me
They would buy me hot chocolate and a pie
and tell me I needed to eat more
that I looked sick and I should be a good girl rather.
One night Johannes even gave me fifty bucks
I swore blind I'd pay him back
I never did
For him fifty bucks was a lot of money
he still gave it to me though
So many people helped me out
when they couldn't afford to do it
Some silly little white girl with an H problem
still probably better off than they were
I had no right to their kindness
somehow that didn't stop them.
Kerryn Potgieter lives in Pretoria, South Africa.