Anna Cathenka
positive thinking
my best friend hasn’t whatsapped me for days
so she might be dead. but all i can think about is
how the people i fancy on twitter are different
to the people i fancy on instagram. don’t you hate
poetry about social media? the cold, damp
soil is not a blanket for the dead. it is more like
a flannel for growing cress. sometimes i think
about being buried and all the cold, damp soil
crashing through the roof of my coffin
when it rains and getting in my stupid, dead
open mouth and hair. i used to work
with a boy called jason who ate soil – perhaps
he was practicing for the afterlife – he used to
masturbate in communal spaces and liked
looking at the way light plays on water. i thought
i was a better person when i worked with jason
but i wasn’t. i am a better person when i sit
around all day in my pyjamas reading t. s. eliot
-prize-winning poems and feeling
the person that i love doesn’t love me back. because
on those days i don’t leave the house. don’t you hate
when a person pities themselves? on cloudy days
the night sky is not a poem with exit wounds
it is an artex ceiling with a sex mirror on it.
During a Repairing,
a Drunk Mosquito
Rushed into Field
bit.ly/2HpOfgz
i grasped
in the bath
what it truly is
to be straight
me in the water
the water in me
& one night i flew
& the little
squares of human life
beneath me made me huge
as if my belly-down body
as it glided over towns
was not far away but houses
& street lights had diminished &
if i reached out
i could caress them
with my exuberant
digits. instead
i just floated & floated
& let them carry on
without me & tiny &
if it's been a while
since i trimmed
or shaved my pubic hair
it makes a very little
penis-shape
under my pyjamas
& you know when
you don't know whether
you need a shit or
a wank?
i don't know
whether i love
your tweets
like i love pets or like
soft furnishings?
either way
they are objects,
objective, i need one
like i need
a mill pond right now
or
a government sanctioned totem pole –
shallowly i i i &
how do i do happy
when my abuser
was called larry?
o, the irony.
drunk mosquito
breathe heavily. the comments say
she's hungry. traffic noises
in the background. it is
green 0, 4 3 3!
o the petrol
peacock colours of her eye!
o proboscis! o
drunk mosquito eye
eye eye
& legs is golden & so
fragile. & every individual
hair shakes
her breathing o
i am sorry
drunk mosquito. so sorry.
i watched that video
after the one of you
reading poetry
on coke & really
i don't know
whether i need
a wank or you
but i think
the latter, deeply.
Anna Cathenka is currently studying on the MA Poetry at UEA where she is the recipient of the 2017/18 ‘Ink, Sweat and Tears’ scholarship. She has recently been shortlisted for the Ivan Juritz prize and her first pamphlet Dead Man Walking is due for release this year with New Fire Tree press. Links to Anna’s published work can be found at cathenka.wix.com/annacathenka