CHURN

vom of my heart, search-scream with me through twist of altercating time as
it is perverted by hoping / watch out in the heavy flip, writhe lousy in the sun pretty
feel the driest dirt hit
some roof, yr fire
tasked under the

neath clouding w dregs

of some sureness see it
line the slime tank

hold on to your life
as something fuming, dear hurt
the cold is seizing
bright
is the ugh
bright is the
out, no infected metal
no buzzing sore of devotion
ní bfhuige mise bás duit
(I will not die for you)

check

an-mhaith

pioc

an-mhaith ró
ualacht gleoitacht

mhaith an-mhaith

on the edge of the streets larking there is ciúnas

or córas

that is, a

corner, a system, silence,

ear to the gloss, near to my mouth + tá me glic

amidst

check ?

(check-check)

memory that

feeling stop that

clock scan the

winding, emotion of

perplexing you, wanting a segment
of me suffice
to say I became partial
to discombobulating u
accordingly / just the
common sense of any
heartsickened
tired thing, marbhím.

níl tinteán mar do thinteán mar do thinteán féin
agus chuir me a chluais I do ghluais I do bhféin
marbhíonn me anuas agus chuaigh me go dtí
gur a bhfaca ar an aice ar an tioctar I do bhféim

I told a bunch of lies to get here

my chair is always moving so gratefully I learn to sit on air feel
that catch-grab-yelp of disintegration ciúnas

in my throat yes
in my body yes

ever ending
mechanical shamework
ever enter your
shame like a
car clamped shut
and sealed, devoid of outside noise
grotesque my relatability by putting

my very worst foot forward
glic glic so clumsy/risk
my livelihood heartlessly
retch up sum mushrooms
into my mask
few more artless
heart-voms / quit my job

and get another,
quit that one and get another
try to unionise told just leave
15 hour shift is workable / against all your body and brain knowledge

hi anyone

who thrives by churning up
the night, insomniacs allocating increments
of despair to morning grief shower
and post-shift-fuck-this-walks

try to spit the fixed listing and beget
derangement in the evenings out the

out of the wax that frames that holds the inter

mittent/minable

still-holding-on of your desire for others

of the
of your

camp kind of gloom pushing always away from the intended gleaming

scromiting: that’s when you’re vomiting and screaming

that’s when you’re done w the out w the

after work my jeans drop off me in a

scrunch of what the fuck just just

sigh metronomically and again collapse

fatigue pushed me into my bed like

it’s so obsessed with me

how to grapple with the cloudy horror

low on the ground

and shattered, can you

hear yourself rn

no and honestly

if I could I still probably wouldn’t even shut up

if you push the sound up from your stomach it’s like you dissolve with it

trampling into air my voice(s) go

and afterwards my body feels

\\

hey legend
how have you been
the soft animal of my body has clocked off and run away from me
how have you been, how have you been again, I know
what I did
not like
one time/big ways more like
small time/always
is it that the map of particular relationships when founded under

under under – ugh

this

ugh, this

are destined for

I can’t really summon an excuse or an argument
I never can because mostly I’m focused
on not turning into a sludge of all the worst
possible outcomes. fundamentally there must be
a reaching-out on both sides there must be
cordialism and communication whatever that means
hey legend
what’s been
going on

////

renovate the glasses and watch how the beer no longer catches on the grease remainder after. watch how sometimes it does. at the days close your hands are stiff and chemical chalky and you spent the whole empty tuesday shift tunnelling into your brain. a customer came in at one point and you misheard everything they said and they misheard everything you said

I see you across the street and notice how it feels. feel plaintive,
feel pain,
a love, desperate
to be near

we are cruel to ourselves

writing is

heartbreaking

you were saying goodbye and I said goodbye too but inside wanted to hold on despite trying to reject the vague polite distancing which seems the nature of relationship collapse when forced to enact frugalness while loving we fade back too busy and too tired to keep trying too foggy and depressed to communicate anything other than a respectful falling out which disallows even the ragged sharp sadness of heartbreak or the mirror of a grievance voiced in earnest the love enshrined in considered critique the arduous bitter good of trying to make something new and the something new when it arrives as a surprise, like I didn’t know I could love you like this

instead a thin smile in the street

am trying 2 spend this time
loving in ways honestly myriad, decaying
and maze-like / trying 2 not falter into the numbness again basically

I can’t say it alone, I need you to respond

I can’t fabricate a response that is like something you would say

broken shit and trash and rubble
waterways and ocean and sand

I’m just telling you about what’s been up
have lost a lot of fluidity and flexibility of thought as of late lately I
just keep repeating in my mind hey,

I miss you, hey, I miss you, hey, I miss you, hey,

I miss you, hey,

heart most derivative
heart most sick

I love you so much and it doesn’t even hurt
how could you

/////

ní bhfuige mise bás duit

to try to live :

while polishing cutlery I
focus on who I need to fuck off
disavow things emblematic
of the classic and original,

the intelligently designed,
those objects that invisibilise
the process of making and forming

time 2 find the seam between

run my whole body down those
places where things join together
and are about to fall apart at once
feel where it pulls
open a little and move myself in,
make a home in the gaps between the stitch
and remember (talismanically) that
all fabrics
have give

*

Francis Jones is a poet based in Glasgow. Their pamphlet, sacrifical fabric, came out with SPAM last year. They make music with their friends, cultivate a deep idleness to the great extent that they can, and parent a fighteningly beautiful cat named Martini

*

The body, proximity, and place can be far-reaching and boundless—this series intends to question these complex questions through different experiments with language, art, cultural phenomena, and writing as practice, and is led by editor-in-residence Hatty Nestor.