this regret machine

  hop and skip and don’t needto look at herto know. what she’s thinking.  orange all over and front facing, front. looking but two ofus and one of him. hungry or confused but either way he is thirstyso. we take a drink. hopping and skipping around the pool we. move quick onground. she bounces and i. hop not allowed to go this far. my mother never goes. anywhere so. neither do i. drink. bathe alittle. he can’t watch both of us. she can’t see me now, but she’s with me. my partner we. find ourselves naturally. in yellow season with orange and fox and cold. the wateris cold but feels. nice. on our feathers.  he makes a move at me. i wing out. too close. she jaws and lunges and peck at hischin. he didnot like that. too close he. bites back and she. moves. swift and quick i am watching her inthe water fly up the tree. the game is. over. she’s found. something. and asks to fly away.  he makes ago again and i. wing. he jaws and i scream. why did shego that far? i thi...

    Their body chose to wake up. From billions of shattered and fleeting fragments, consciousness came back to her like liquid honey, sticking to her gums, spilling through their throat, sickening in her stomach. Their skin became aware of itself, the sweat and the quiet and the space they all filled. Breathing came next, a slow, needed exchange between the body and the bedroom. The air was heavy wet velvet on her tongue. She was awake, breathing, and real.  This year was the first year I started working. Properly working. Full time, seven days a week, zero hour contract work. I’m living the student experience, tossed between three jobs. The hours are nonsensical and shifting. From January to June, I would have a 05:00 start, 06:00 walk, to make it for a 07:30 start. On the same day, my shift could end at 16:00, and I’d start another shift at another job at 17:00, until 20:00 before walking home.     Too, fitting seminars, lectures and reading into this lab...

  (content warning for sexual assault, described. Posting uni work. I'm happy with how I've been doing, but I know I can do a lot better ) My friends have no idea where I am. I left them too long ago. I sit on a vinyl floor, my legs half spread, my fishnets caught in my boots. My back is arched against the wall, my abdomen creased forward, my shoulder blades sharp and pressed. I look ugly against the orange wall, underneath the yellow bulb. Something about the bulb burns my skin.The window is ajar, the floor is cold. My eyes are blue ketteled bubbles, boiling off hot confusion.  I watch her crawl towards me from the other side of the room. In our halved height, we are equal. Her legs are longer and shaved. Her voice is northern, and I can’t understand where it’s from. I hear her speak from somewhere else, like it sounds off the walls, like I’m hearing her through my skin. It’s layered and sinking slow, a boiling molasses of noise. It hurts all through me, but I don’t know ...

it is too dark outside to know the time. the summer never stops to breathe, a constant exhale of music and vibrance and drunk teenagers, shifting from party to party. everything is so much more colourful. but not now. it’s night, the darkest night that he could imagine. he is standing in the automatic doorway to a spar, the doors spread and kept apart. he feels as though he was in their way. the humidity melts away his drunken worry — though giving way to something else. the air conditioning settles on his skin like anxious kisses, pecking the pale hairs down his back. he’s thinking about that scene in after dark , where the two characters sat in a denny’s, mumbling about nothing. he feels like nothing and everything at once, the cold air bringing him down from wherever he’s been for the last week. he walks into the spar. the fluorescent lights greet him, dousing him with the inescapable anxiety of being seen. the shop is obfuscated. he’s looking for a specific place to be. he...

(alcohol, domestic violence & gun mention ) Hurt, 28 years old and wrapped in Vermont thicks Standing on the edge of a field, where corn moves the wind like a whistle through broken teeth Not enough to stop shaking, While waiting at the bus stop They hold their bag close and root through the essentials Passport, purse, change of clothes Pen and paper for postcards, maybe even apologies The bus comes They ride The miners give them strange looks but pays them no mind They recognise one as a drinking buddy, who seems just as blabbering Sober as drunk They retract into the corner a little further They run off two stops early with a clattering down the aisle because they saw a car up ahead And assumes him knowing They get off the bus and run across the road The only person about at this hour Into suburbia, where they always saw themselves headed The houses all look the same in the unwanted dark All blue and all grey They have no idea where to go The cold becomes unbearable Very, very...