The ocean didn’t stop moving all night
Neither did the woman I lay beside:
She too rolled in forceful exhales
Snatching space like the mounting tides.
The lip of the sea was coming for me
And so was the woman I lay beside.
Birds of prey circled the surface of her mind,
Dying to dive To scavenge the fruits of her world inside.
Like the beach, I fell apart
Eaten alive By the roaring tides
Of the woman I lay beside.
She wanted what I could not give.
Seaweed insecurity
Gripped my throat
A glass was smashed. I: dragged
From bed. Shouts of,
why won’t you-
I: turning red
in shame.
Still, at dawn I’d help her paint the wall
Chipped by the champagne flute she’d thrown.
Laughing at how she’d missed my face.
Neither of us cleared the glass that lay Scattered
Across my beach. Where the child comes to play.
Frothy and cold, she smiled;
In the daylight I retained some power.
She gave me back my grains of sand,
I looked bigger in the noontime hour.
Her seaweed was strewn
Across my shore;
Debris she’d left behind,
As she curled back into herself once more.
But the night always promises to fall
And I lay beside her again
Tense. Waiting. For her body to crawl
Across my brittle ends.
Lisa Luxx
Lisa Luxx is a queer poet, recording artist, essayist and activist of British Syrian heritage. Published in journals, newspapers and anthologies internationally, she has also been broadcast on channels such as BBC Radio 4, VICE TV, TEDx and has toured widely. She facilitates workshops across continents, teaching creative writing as survival technique. Luxx was winner of the Out-Spoken Prize for Performance Poetry 2018 and nominee for the Arts Foundation Fellowship in Poetry.
