Chloe McIntosh

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Anyway,
Sorry for the teeth at your collarbone,
The venom in your throat,
The way you never got to the centre of me
No matter how far you burrowed
And how much I promised it was right around that bend

The things we are to each other
Are nebulous and weak
As the tea your flatmate leaves
Scattered on every surface of the house

I just wanted you to take a chance, give a little,
Believe in something crueller and more wondrous than what you’d come to expect
But all we got was the shed skin, the tetanus, cold mugs, heating bills we can’t afford,
Ghosts of each other
Ripped out of every photograph

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Chloe McIntosh is a poet and writer of short fiction from Hertfordshire. She has a BA in English Literature from the University of Exeter and was shortlisted for the Platypus Press Celestial Bodies Poetry Competition. Her work is also forthcoming in Lucent Dreaming’s For a Friend Anthology.