Toothbrush, you deserve a plaque.
Morning (noon when I’m hungover) and night
you’re always there to protect me.
If you had a mouth you’d be one of those legends who’d actually speak up and tell me
when I have something in my teeth.
Remember when you fished out that popcorn kernel that got stuck in one of my molars
at the very start of Avengers: Endgame?
What sweet relief it was to see you back home.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Tonight I had a look in the fridge
for something to do. When I shut the door
a part of my brain decided to leave my thumb
inside, trap it and peel off a chunk of its skin.
During after-school football training in 1999,
a friend of mine asked me to stick
my arm out to show me a magic trick.
When I stuck it out, he cut my forearm
with the blade from a pencil sharpener.
After 30 minutes of stopping the bleeding
and sticking my sliced skin back together,
I asked why he did it. I can’t remember exactly
what he said, but it was along the lines of
Something to do.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Admit it, you hate my fingers.
We weren’t made for each other.
ABC is not as easy as 123 for me.
Don’t get me started on EFG.
You lean against the living room bookshelf
keen to tell your stories.
Keen to make the most of your notes.
Keen for your strings to sing.
I’m not your man
but I know someone who can.
And when you’re made to feel at home
that’s something we’ll have in common.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
There’s a man in my knife and fork drawer.
He sits in my palm during dinner.
I need to run through rain in his skin again.
The skip in my record player is a tut
to me slagging off Shirley Bassey.
At night I like to imagine
an eccentric old Oxfam customer
settling down with a hot water bottle, her legs
dressed up in his God-awful
grey camouflage pyjama bottoms.
I wish his warm winter hat fit my head.
I keep fruit in his sausage casserole dish.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
You are the last thing I see at night and
the first thing I see in the morning.
Curtains, you beautifully grey bastards,
I love you. You stop the outside coming in.
You absorb the rays
to protect my sensitive skin,
you blend the days into the next days.
You let me do that naked dance
and open up when you’re ready to.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I can’t remember the last time
I saw my feet in a mirror.
I often forget I have organs inside my body.
My room is full of dust but my skin looks the same.
I can barely keep up.
I used to have three sugars in my tea and
mince pies had the taste of the Grinch’s armpit.
My eyes are the same size as when I was born
but my ears and nose won’t stop growing.
I get headaches in my face.
The creaking of my left knee sounds like
the squeaky front door hinge
of Grandma’s old house.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Cold bathroom tap, you’re pretty cool.
You make quite the splash
of a first impression every morning.
You tell my face the sun’s alive again.
Remember that time I was sick on you?
And then used you to clean it off you?
I wish I was as self sufficient as you,
as chilled under pressure.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
We were all shocked when your eyebrows fell off.
You weren’t. You could feel it coming
beyond your roots.
You felt it in the blurred line between
where the sky starts and the ground stops.
It was a thousand knots tying themselves tighter.
It was the rumble of a never ending
dishwasher coughing up smoke.
It was the slow lane of a motorway to the moon,
a phone call, neatly stacked and organised boxes.
Your pillows were strips of plumped universe,
your hairs a thousand fallen stars.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I’m alive with you in my hand,
mug with the pig on the side.
Your mud on my lips is the shit
your pink-hipped friend would kill to roll in.
It’s wicked, ancient Red Bull,
my tongue loves dancing inside you.
Two fingers through your handle
flickers my calves like candles.
I’m alive with you in my hand,
mug with the pig on the side.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Carl tells tales 