Out of the infinite yous
living across infinite parallel universes,
which one would you like to hang out with?
The you with the head of a fox and arse of a duck?
The you with forks for teeth and patio slab feet?
What about the inside out you? The one inch you?
The you with fire for skin and chainsaw fingers?
What about the you with your partner’s face?
I’d hang out with the me who likes coconut
and find out how he peels tangerines.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
There’s a man who eases congestion on my morning train platform by pulling across one of those stretchy barriers when a train is about to leave, stopping the late coming rushers from charging at it. We smile at each other every day. I don’t know his name. I see some of my closest friends only once a year. I have second cousins I wouldn’t recognise in the street. I overheard a man reintroduce himself to someone yesterday. Adam, he said. Adam Jones. The last time we saw each other, my mother was alive.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
There was a time I didn’t know
how to fry an egg.
At one point I couldn’t walk,
now I run for buses I know I’ll never catch.
I couldn’t say ‘Mum’ for ages
and now I forget to call.
My fingers remember my PIN number
when my brain can’t.
My body feels like the roots of a tree:
stretching chaos below the surface,
miraculously keeping me pointed up.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Morning Geoff, keeping warm? the security guard said. Inside and out, Geoff replied, with the charm of the silver hair tufts poking out the side of the conker brown flap cap sitting on his head. Geoff’s ‘volunteer’ lanyard hung around his neck like a gold medal. His eyes were a log cabin’s fireplace. He had the shoulders of a man carrying the world but a skip in his toes making it look like a feather.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I sometimes feel like I’m a teabag
in a cup of hot water.
If you let me sit for a while
you’ll see the best me.
Leave me too long, I go a bit cold.
I can’t quite fit inside a microwave,
but two warm hands often do the trick.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Walls have so much power.
Without them we’d realise the ridiculousness
of the fact, once a day, on average, most people
have a shit mere inches away
from a colleague / stranger / boss / potential friend.
When I’m in a hotel I smile at how many people
are definitely having sex above, below and next to me.
And then I don’t sleep thinking about the likelihood
of being adjacent to a murder.
If walls could talk, I don’t think they would,
like a toddler who’s seen so much
they don’t know where to start.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I have blobs on my skin that have no pigment,
mainly on my hands and a few dots
up my arms and legs.
My limbs are like a painter’s palette,
if the painter only painted
rented accommodation in magnolia,
or the occasional ivory when feeling fancy.
There’s one paper white patch
around my right eye slowly growing bigger.
I’m half a panda from Opposite Land.
A negative pirate.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
My belt is cow leather, as is my wallet.
I got them before becoming a vegetarian.
Throwing them away feels like
binning a ham sandwich made by a forgetful Nan.
I’ve never worn fox fur scarves,
leopard patterned trousers or snake skin shoes.
I struggle enough wearing my own skin.
If someone peeled off my top layer,
I’d make a pretty good waterproof dressing gown
for an average sized person looking
for a bloody hug.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I enjoy washing the dishes.
I pretend the tablespoons are battleships
and that I’m giving my hands a bubble bath.
I don’t, but I might next time.
I pretend the plates are my babies
and I’m cleaning a weekend adventure off them.
I don’t, but I might next time.
I like that it forces me to be on my own for a while.
I like that it slows me down, makes me feel useful.
I look out at the bus stop opposite my flat while I scrub
and wonder if the combination of a waist-high
windowsill and a first floor kitchen
makes it look like I’m masturbating to passersby.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
There’s a spiral in my fingerprint that I get lost in.
It’s like something from a Geography textbook.
The middle is thin and intricate
then expands into controlled chaos.
When I think about everywhere I’ve left it
I get a little overwhelmed:
car door handles, ice lolly sticks, eggshells,
the side of my temples, Christmas crackers,
funeral order of services, dog poo bags.
It sits near the tip of my left hand’s ring finger.
That one gets all the stories.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
