April was having a tough day. An
awful day, if you like. She saw an ant
walking on her cereal, broke
her favourite mug and then all
of her guinea pigs dropped dead from the
deafening sound of the shelf carrying
her books falling on to her Dad’s old records.
That was only the morning. Just
as she got to work her boss called to
say she needed a word with her. “Give
your goodbyes, you’re fired April.” An
awful, awful day. She had no idea
what to do. So she did what most
would do. She got drunk and squashed some ants.
The destruction was horrendous. I can’t
quite describe. Blood. Screams. She went to carry
on when she heard a faint cry: “Too much!
Too much! We can’t take any more!”
The little ant pleaded. “Rather than
take your bad day out on us, go for a
a walk. I know things might look shit,
but it will get better. Piece by piece.
You now have an opportunity of
moving on with life, turning a new leaf.
What do you say?” April thought hard about this…
“Fuck off, you little anty cunt,”
she screamed and grabbed the largest rock she could
hold and proceeded to carry
it over to the remaining ants, where a
bigger squashing massacre took place. With only two
tiny bastards left, she poured a litre
of petrol on them, shoved a flaming rag in a bottle
smashed that right down on top of
them and celebrated with a calming cider.
© Carl Burkitt 2017
This poem is part of a challenge for National Poetry Writing Month 2017 – a different style of poem each day about a woman called April. The final word on each line making Tim Key’s ‘The Main Ant’ poem.
Carl tells tales 