Poetry Reading: LIGHT POLLUTION, by Euphamia Mature

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

tightrope like tied note twirl tangential tiptoe
talk | your reflection
through
twisted spun spiderweb stuck-fly absurdity
scam | your reflection

escape glass enslavement soft falsehood of fractals
fear | your reflection
is lying, what

monster haunts this fun-house body
trepid mask manifests so malevolent
my-flesh does-not be-lieve it-self, bursts
skyscraper hoarding horizon like anti-hero
like the mirrors must be mistaken-

miss taking handfuls of half-full hungry for high school
bathrooms where I held the toilet seat how I wish to be held-
fingers stretched towards the accuracy I believed to live in my throat

hoped I only saw a stranger in the corner shops of Paris where

a boy who kissed me like I was glass
like I was the New York skyline
like the space I took up was beautiful, told me

“you can see Belgium from space they had so much
money from the slave trade they
lit up the whole country” said

“there are no stars in the city
but I like looking at you”

and I was sorry for the space I inhabited and I believed
all the fallacies I met eye-to-eye
all the reflections that lie and do not lie
and I stood in the mirror and wept
for the puddles we walked through and knew-

they were just
piss