Featured Poem:
Hopscotch
Enlarge poem
Featured Poem:
Hopscotch
“Alright tight pants?”
He says to me.
I am 16.
“I like the way you wear that
piece”
I am 23.
“Nice puss ** ** ”
I am not a cat.
“Yowsa”
“hey beautiful”
“isn’t she
Gorgeous
Stunning
Bollywood Babe
I want you”.
Sat on the bus with a strangers’ hot breath
“I want you”.
I still feel his heat furnace in my ear when I hear
“Sexy”
“Gorgeous”
“Beautiful”
“Fit”
“Stuck Up Bitch”
“I’d give her one”
“What’s wrong?”
“Can’t you take this?”
“It’s just a compliment?”
“Where’s your boyfriend?”
“What’s your name?”
“Darling, I’d – ”
No
“Has anyone ever told you, you look like Nicole Sherzinger?”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re beautiful?”
Has anyone ever told you
they don’t stop
Telling me
They’re paving my streets with cobbles
“Are you Spanish?”
“Are you Greek?”
“Do you speak Iranian?”
“Oh,
You’re just another sunbed addict.”
No.
I’m tripping as I walk
on
“But you hair
But your eyes
But your skin
But you don’t look Scottish
And where
Where
Are your family from
Originally.”
How I wish
“How I wish I had your tan”
“Is your Dad in the Taliban?”
“You should go back home now”
“Go Back home”
“ Go Back to – ”
Where?
“Your mum
Your mum’s a paki lover”.
I am 14.
“Slut”
She was 43.
These words they’re like Tuesdays
There’s one every week.
And I’ve grown to tell you at 25
That racism, sexism, still so very much alive
Leaves me grasping keys like a soldier in a war
Just to get from here to my front door
Fought on these streets
Of you and me
I exist
Between “Are you Asian”
and “Nice Tits”
And lets
Just name
the problem here
That since childhood the streets I’ve walked I’ve walked in fear
And never once did that fear begin
In the mouth of a woman.
Though this is where it has ended.
These words I’ve given you
I’ve held them pressed between palms
And Yale locks.
Consulted them like a guidebook
To my own hometown.
And though they are not mine
I am leaving them
Here.
“Alright tight pants?”
He says to me.
I am 16.
“I like the way you wear that
piece”
I am 23.
“Nice puss ** ** ”
I am not a cat.
“Yowsa”
“hey beautiful”
“isn’t she
Gorgeous
Stunning
Bollywood Babe
I want you”.
Sat on the bus with a strangers’ hot breath
“I want you”.
I still feel his heat furnace in my ear when I hear
“Sexy”
“Gorgeous”
“Beautiful”
“Fit”
“Stuck Up Bitch”
“I’d give her one”
“What’s wrong?”
“Can’t you take this?”
“It’s just a compliment?”
“Where’s your boyfriend?”
“What’s your name?”
“Darling, I’d – ”
No
“Has anyone ever told you, you look like Nicole Sherzinger?”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re beautiful?”
Has anyone ever told you
they don’t stop
Telling me
They’re paving my streets with cobbles
“Are you Spanish?”
“Are you Greek?”
“Do you speak Iranian?”
“Oh,
You’re just another sunbed addict.”
No.
I’m tripping as I walk
on
“But you hair
But your eyes
But your skin
But you don’t look Scottish
And where
Where
Are your family from
Originally.”
How I wish
“How I wish I had your tan”
“Is your Dad in the Taliban?”
“You should go back home now”
“Go Back home”
“ Go Back to – ”
Where?
“Your mum
Your mum’s a paki lover”.
I am 14.
“Slut”
She was 43.
These words they’re like Tuesdays
There’s one every week.
And I’ve grown to tell you at 25
That racism, sexism, still so very much alive
Leaves me grasping keys like a soldier in a war
Just to get from here to my front door
Fought on these streets
Of you and me
I exist
Between “Are you Asian”
and “Nice Tits”
And lets
Just name
the problem here
That since childhood the streets I’ve walked I’ve walked in fear
And never once did that fear begin
In the mouth of a woman.
Though this is where it has ended.
These words I’ve given you
I’ve held them pressed between palms
And Yale locks.
Consulted them like a guidebook
To my own hometown.
And though they are not mine
I am leaving them
Here.
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