My skin is the only onesie
that seems to fit me.
But from time to time
it feels like I’ve slipped
into someone else’s.
On the occasions I’ve wished
to tear those off,
the zipper on my spine has jammed;
a set of smiling metal teeth reminding me
that sometimes things are not easy,
and that’s OK.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Whatever you’re doing right now –
whatever you’re making or saying
or eating or yelling or discovering
or losing or breaking or kissing
or staring at or buying or standing on –
you are the only person on Earth
that is doing that exact thing right now.
Unless you’re synchronised swimming.
But even then, you’re the only one
swimming or drowning in that specific
patch of water. So splash about.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Let’s dance.
You and me.
Let’s dance
like everyone’s watching
and welcome them.
They’re only watching
to learn how to dance
like nobody’s watching.
Let’s dance.
Let’s two-step
our way into a world
that doesn’t care
(in a good way).

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I met someone who worked
the night shift on reception.
I could see why. A fire exit shone
where her tonsils should’ve been.
She spelt Hello with an F,
a U, a C, a K and an OFF.
Her name tag read Don’t Bother,
her job title None Of Your Business.
The Grim Reaper gave her a wide birth.
The lines under her eyes were contours
from Earth’s first geography book.
They say If you don’t have anything nice to say
then don’t say anything at all,
but I’m worried no one would know she existed.
Before she was born, at least one person said
I can’t wait to meet her.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

If a vaguely familiar royalty-free hold music
started playing every time I bumped into
a friend of a friend of a friend
called Joe or John or Jeff or Joe or John or Jeff
on a train station platform or Post Office queue
or in the pub at a funeral wake
and we plunged into the deep end
of an oxygen-starved awkward silence,
I probably wouldn’t wish my brain and heart
lived in a different post code to me.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I’m excited
to one day
meet the man
who seems to live
behind my eyelids
at night
and set fire
to his pupils.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

You
sitting on a birthing ball
crying into a Cornetto
as a fictional fire fighter dies
is how I want to remember
our old life.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I am five and you are 2,000 years old,
a firework of beige whistling
through the front door.
You light a fuse on the sofa next to me,
a Catherine wheel of chatter
spinning stories I don’t understand.
Your teeth are sparklers shining
to every out of date reference.
My toffee apple eyes melt
beside your ancient warmth
and crackle to dreams
of a darker-haired you
telling tales to half my foundations.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

There’s a cat-flap on the side of my head.
April walks through it most nights
between awake and asleep.
Her misty morning eyes blink behind mine
like soft showers tickling cracked patios.
I can feel her midnight tail against my skull.
She hisses when I think the wrong things
and hides behind nightmare sofas.
She still has a chip out of her right ear.
She still doesn’t tell me how she got it.
In the early hours April chases
the loose threads of my mind and kneads my brain
with the warmth of my favourite baker.

© Carl Burkitt 2020