I am travelling home from my girlfriend’s.
Yesterday they bloodied two d*kes on a bus through Camden,
So tonight I am taking the tube.
A queen gets on at King’s Cross, lips red and lids smoggy silver.
Hurried and fearful he cleans his face in a black phone screen,
We both understand the urgency of the task.
I want to follow suit but I cannot wipe the queer kiss from my mouth
Or the scared hollowness from around my eyes.
We love with millstones around our necks, and there is always a little crushed glass in the water,
Holdings hands is never just holding hands: we are always holding something so much heavier.
I’d give a lot for a little levity in love,
Or just to get home without contemplating all this.
In Texas they pulled another murdered trans body from a lake this week,
In Tesco’s a woman corners me and demands to know my gender,
And frightened I go home without fruit.
Yesterday they bloodied two d*kes on a bus through Camden,
So tonight I am taking the tube.
– REPW