Spite
I guess I have one of those
beatable faces, the sort you want
to blue with a bruise.
He began to not want me.
There was no other woman,
no drugs, no usual reason.
He just started to hate my face.
It's an ordinary face, it smiled
upon our ordinary love.
I want to cry but it's cold,
I think my tears would make
little icicles on my cheeks
so I stick my hands in the snow,
I fist the snow, let it numb me -
I'm not the masochist he thinks I am
but I like this pain, the fear
of frostbite, the way it makes me
clench my teeth together; I can't
feel anything else.
The night he left me
there was no argument, I didn't cry,
I tried to get it right
but he hated my smile,
my acceptance of his leaving.
He didn't hit me, there was no pain.
He just spat & spat & spat.
Page(s) 21
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The