Poetry

Talking to Friends

The girls’ mouths flap; happy red cuts.

As clean as a slice to the finger,

in a loud cookery class.

They talk through smiles,

about themselves.

About TV, about ‘hot guys’.

But I drift, as numb as a corpse.

All fat and soggy,

lips sewn roughly with twine.

I try a selection of nouns,

but they only catch and rasp.

I’m tied as tightly as the seams

in a cricket ball.

Though under the throb of a pen,

in the hole between my fingers

and thumb,

a shocked “O” gapes.

Ready to speak,

it tells the paper everything.

It doesn’t care, but opens

and closes, with the ease

of an actor.

Maisie-May Lambert