Sarah Lawrence
Winner - 2021
Sarah Lawrence (she/her) recently dropped out of law school to study acting at Toi Whakaari. Her parents are delighted. You can find her work in Starling, Landfall, a fine line and The Spinoff. Her first chapbook ‘Clockwatching’ will be released as part of the AUP New Poets series in 2023.
MORRISSEY BY “MORRISSEY”
(in five acts)
I.
This is the part of the poem I meet Sarah
tongue-tied & 15, trying to impress a boy in a trenchcoat.
O, it was magic, the golden age of tumblr & Skins UK, back when
the elevator scene in 500 Days of Summer
still felt like a healthy legit way to find your soulmate.
Sarah thought she was deliciously special in her discovery of my genius.
As it turns out, I was simultaneously courting a whole demographic
of pre-therapy teenagers: the kind who hate themselves
in a “GOD WHY can’t I stop being so angsty hot esoteric & fascinating ALL THE TIME”
sort of way. She was disappointed when she found out – disappointed
but not surprised. She knows I’m a whore like that.
II.
This is the part of the poem I throw in a tenuous literary reference.
Something homoerotic. A scream. Perhaps This Charming Man is playing at New World
& you are tired of tongue-tied. He looks at you through the
gaps in the tomato cans & you look away. It is sad indeed that I am not just a whore like that
but also a racist. It is sad indeed when you snap out of it & start actually wanting things like
happiness & real love. There are so many good songs you can no longer sing.
III.
This is the part of the poem in which I am not enough.
When I was not enough, I became ironic. On her first day
in a new city, Sarah bought a horrifically ugly poster
from which I stared dead-eyed. Later that week, a new friend pulled
a chair to the wall & sharpied me with Post Malone’s face tattoos. She spent
that year rattling with laughter, crackling with breath, chewing the black
from her fingernails & playing Hole with it stuck between her front teeth
IV.
The first time she peeled me from the wall was because of a global pandemic
but I still thought it was cruel. The second & third were because she was leaving
in different ways. The fourth time was because too much had happened
& she couldn’t bear to look at me anymore
V.
This is the part of the poem in which I am a good party joke.
At 15 she was explosive & did not know it.
At 15 she had bubblegum in her hair & syrup in her bones.
She tries to remember my first name and it melts under her tongue.
I am not the poem. I am just the wrapping.
I like to think you would listen now.
Weak nights
“Actually, it’s a Saturday,” you said, but checked again,
Brushing lint from the wine cork. We’ll stuff the bottle with
Candlewax & melt it with dinner parties; we are reusing, reducing,
Dragging up dregs of ourselves & watering them down.
Everything is a small word. I
Found bits of it pinging up the vacuum cleaner yesterday,
Got mad without wanting to, like who the fuck keeps leaving that shit out as if we
Have space for it, why do we own so many Basil plants, as if I don’t know what day it is, as
If I don’t know all your middle names,
Jesus. We’ll grow violent cooped up like this, like those
Killer whales in the documentary, with legs grazing under the table. Wiser me would tell you
Life is a collection of gaps between showers –
Maps, ridgelines, longitudinal distances – &
Nothing is there, too. But only if you’re listening. When we inevitably run out of cash, then
Outback Australia will be warmer than here. Heating’s expensive. So is trying. We save for a
Party to spend it kissing someone in a corner
Quietly, thinking this would be so much easier if we were on the internet, when
Really, if I behaved how I do on the internet, I would be sociopathic; I would say,
“Same”, when I see you on fire, and leave the room. Silent
Television dinners will, sadly, have to do for now. I have spent too many days
Underwater & too many nights stuck between
Versions of my own face, until I see yours, like a lifeboat when the
Walls are swimming, ask for
Examples & I’ll pretend I’m not an alien, pretend I didn’t come here because of you,
You & parts of you, just like always, us in our final forms, you in laughter when I’m all
Zonked out & dripping down the kitchen sink