Hello down there.
I don’t think we’ve formally met,
tiny cream bathroom pedal bin.
I’m Carl.
I’ve lived in this flat for a year now.
How have I never used you?
I guess I don’t generally have waste
in this room, except, well, you know.
You seem to have quite a dusty head.
Is that a rusty hinge?
I should check in more.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I’m looking at my flat a lot more lately.
Really looking at it. Beyond the floorboards, beyond the coffee table,
beyond the books, beyond the bookshelves,
beyond the paint, beyond the bricks, beyond the mustard candy floss insulation,
beyond the inevitable mice, beyond the other bricks,
beyond the plum-coloured tree unsure
whether it’s trying to die or regrow,
beyond the road and the bus stop
and the shops and the concrete hill,
beyond the birds, clouds, the sky I can’t remember,
beyond space and stars and black holes
and questions and answers and sleep and awake
and blood and bones and what?
I can’t stop looking at my flat.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
You make me feel
like I’m scrubbing my bits on a bus.
I’m a sweaty sausage on display at a deli,
a ‘break in case of emergency’.
When my brain does that morning day dream
thing of making me pretend I’m performing
the future eulogy of a loved one, I feel like
I’m drowning in a see through coffin.
Sometimes though, watching condensation
drip down you as I sit on the loo opposite
I can remember rainy motorway trips
and the taste of raspberry travel sweets.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
If someone stacked up the number of individual
Pringles I’ve ever eaten I hope I’d be proud.
One weekend when we were alone
my brother and I spread butter on our toast
using fingers instead of knives.
Sixteen years ago I Sellotaped my right foot
to my face cheek trying to earn a kiss
from a human woman. I once spent a whole week
learning the lyrics to Mundian To Bach Ke.
On a furiously sunny morning or afternoon
one November or August or March
I sat in a park or stood in a park and
made noises with my mouth for the first time.
Last week I ate a wedge of Brie like a Snickers.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
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
Carl tells tales 