Gloves Off Read online

She won’t meet your eye.

  She holds her coat tight around herself, shoulders

  hunched,

  Her face downcast.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Joe asks, home at last.

  Face full of expectation,

  Arms wide in unreturned affection

  As she charges past him, up the stairs.

  As if I ought to know.

  Teenagers,

  I say.

  They’re cruel.

  Don’t worry it’s just a phase,

  She’s just a bit moody these days.

  And there is nothing I can do.

  SCREW SCHOOL (2)

  i don’t want to go to school.

  no one likes monday.

  it’s drizzling

  and it’s grey

  and

  i

  feel

  broken.

  i stand beside the road

  it’s

  early and dark,

  and

  easy to cry here

  in the cold

  with no one else around.

  traffic pounds.

  i stand and wonder

  if i dare step out

  when the next truck thunders hugely by.

  i see the tarmac open up

  to swallow me,

  and hate myself

  for being too scared

  to jump.

  no one speaks to me all day,

  but they’re not afraid

  to look and laugh.

  i sit in class and try not to feel

  the eyes on my back

  the judgements made.

  try not to hear the talk

  What a laugh!

  Did you see . . .

  State!

  i sit forward on my chair

  try to shrink to fit

  the space

  not to spill over the edges

  like too much custard

  jelly

  gravy

  something thick,

  disgusting.

  i get out of my seat

  stumble over

  a chair leg,

  tangle myself up in my bag,

  whistles

  hoots

  jeers

  aidan winks,

  rolls his tongue

  around his mouth

  grabs his crotch

  thrusts,

  stacey grabs his arm

  and laughs.

  SPEAK UP

  miss stands at the front, to explain

  the latest torture:

  a speaking task,

  she says,

  “it’s part of your GCSE –

  think about your grades

  your exams,

  i need you to take it seriously.”

  i worry all week,

  knees shaking

  feet tapping

  nail biting

  heart racing.

  talk about something that matters.

  talk with passion, make a mark,

  she said.

  i want to tell her i can’t do it,

  to point out

  how bad this will make me feel,

  but i imagine her questions,

  her disapproval,

  her knowing exactly why.

  so i spend hours in my room,

  thinking, preparing, writing, practising.

  if i say it well, perhaps the words

  will do the work.

  and they will not see

  the rest of me.

  i am going to talk about war.

  about how one day i intend to leave

  all this behind and find

  the people who are really hurt.

  how i intend to help

  or heal.

  i tell my mum over tea

  she nods and smiles

  and says,

  “yes!

  that’s amazing, lil,

  what a great idea!”

  later i practise in the living room.

  peering out from behind swathes of silk,

  mum gives me a round of applause,

  but it echoes hollow, bounces off walls,

  and slaps me into wondering,

  if anyone will hear my words.

  STICKS AND STONES

  miss calls me up,

  summoning groans.

  i hear those words again, on aidan’s lips

  pig girl!

  fat slag!

  yee ha!

  i feel my face burn

  and pluck at my clothes.

  eyes swivel onto me,

  faces that don’t bother

  to look as if they care.

  can i even begin

  to

  speak

  about

  the bombed and the broken,

  the decimated and the dying?

  my

  voice

  s

  h

  a

  k

  e

  s

  hands too,

  wordscomingoutfastandquiet

  tripping

  and

  stuttering,

  holdingcardsthatblurandsmudgeintoseasofnothing.

  i know i believe

  these words matter.

  the classroom buzzes:

  phones beep,

  voices leap,

  somebody snores, feigns sleep,

  i can’t compete.

  but i talk and try

  not to care. i try

  not to notice the way they stare

  at bits of me that are too large and

  fill my clothes.

  bulges, fat, no way

  to pretend it is not there.

  pretend not to hear the words coughed into fists,

  or see the boys

  on the back row.

  aidan smirking.

  mollie sneers.

  i might as well

  be naked, the way their eyes strip and weigh

  measure, assess, take stock.

  miss says shhhh

  but no one is listening,

  not to me and not to her.

  i am no more than my size, and that size makes

  me nothing and too much.

  a

  paradox.

  MAY BREAK MY BONES

  miss, please, can i sit down?

  the teacher swallows.

  nods.

  BUT WORDS WILL NEVER HURT ME

  stacey stands up.

  the classroom stills.

  they know

  she will have something on her mind.

  “right, stacey,” says miss,

  “do begin.”

  relieved – she knows this will be good:

  the class will listen,

  she will not have to try to make them shut up

  and be still.

  (miss is young, voice small,

  mouthing nothings into the void.)

  but

  when stacey smiles and looks at me

  i know

  that this is something

  that it may be hard to hear.

  “disgust,”

  she says,

  then pauses.

  (drama queen she loves this moment

  flicks her hair, works the room.)

  she shows the first image on the screen,

  talking as if she is a pro.

  a picture of an ostrich neck,

  bloody,

  plucked,

  full of holes.

  “trypophobia,” she explains.

  the class crane forward, fascinated by the sight,

  twisting to see, to get a better view.

  “it’s just disgust,” she says, and shrugs,

  “at something gross.

  it’s normal, a natural, human response.”

  she shows us other things:

  vomit.

  shit.

  she holds her nose,

  the class rec
oil.

  people pretend they’re being sick.

  i know what’s coming, can feel it in my bones

  by the way stacey pauses,

  then looks at me,

  as she clicks to her next slide.

  she clears her throat,

  begins,

  “gro

  sso

  pho

  bia,” she says,

  she spells it out,

  le

  tt

  er

  by

  le

  tt

  er,

  sou

  nd

  by

  sou

  nd

  lingering over the long moan of an “o”

  hissing out the “s”

  rolling the word around her mouth

  and then spitting it out.

  she nods,

  gestures, makes her point

  at me, ever so subtly,

  and says,

  “it’s an evolutionary thing, you know,

  perfectly natural

  to think,

  god, i’d rather die,

  than look like that.”

  she points again, this time

  at the woman on the slide whose body

  spills over a bed, whose eyes seem lost in

  the flesh of her face.

  “not only is this woman fat,”

  says stacey,

  (as if she is qualified in the subject,

  has studied long and hard,

  gained a PhD,

  and now is gravely sure)

  “but she’s morbidly obese.

  can’t move, can’t walk

  just eats and eats and eats.”

  she raises her eyebrows, shakes her head.

  another slide

  piles of junk food

  crisps and chips and sweets and cakes and bottles of

  coke and takeaways

  she flicks back to the woman

  the classroom laughs

  she stills them with a glance –

  “it’s serious, guys,

  you know

  this is what we pay our taxes to support.

  she’ll die an early death –

  self-inflicted –

  waste millions on the NHS.”

  she shakes her head –

  “i call it greed.”

  she looks at me and smirks.

  blood is throbbing in my ears

  a pounding gun,

  the room is spinning round and round

  i sit there,

  dumb with disbelief

  horror firing up my face,

  shooting helpless glances

  at the floor.

  (she’s been to my house

  just that once

  in

  year seven.

  mum was kind

  but i could tell

  it didn’t work

  and stacey didn’t eat her tea

  and called her mum

  to pick her up

  early.)

  miss says stacey can take questions.

  hands punch the air.

  stacey plays the room, smiling

  laughing,

  nodding along.

  who’s the fattest person you know?

  can fat people have sex?

  would you be friends with someone fat?

  why are all these losers getting things free on the NHS?

  later, mollie says

  (her sympathetic smile,

  a pose,

  an act

  – pretending

  that she hasn’t said

  things

  about me,

  behind my back)

  that stacey didn’t mean to be cruel.

  “when you think about it, lil,” she says,

  standing next to me as we queue for maths,

  where i can’t get away,

  the corridors a maze

  that catch and hold and

  trap me here,

  “it’s for your own good, you know,

  we’re just concerned about your health.”

  i want to tell her to go fuck herself.

  IDLE TEARS

  our house is small,

  a box, lidded and sealed,

  cramped and squashed too close

  to too many other people,

  not far from the busy main road

  in a part of town no one wants to live in and

  everyone wants to leave.

  i wander outside,

  look for a place

  to wait the evening out

  a place where i can breathe.

  there is dog shit on the streets,

  windows shuttered, boarded up,

  cars that don’t start,

  broken things

  lonely things.

  people leave their trash

  on street corners,

  spilling out for

  everyone to see.

  “oi, lily,” mrs burns yells from number 53 –

  standing on the step in her nightie,

  her dog in a pram beside her,

  thin and old and finished,

  “oi, girl, what you up to?”

  i walk in the other direction,

  head down, pretend i don’t hear.

  in the

  precinct

  by the

  shops

  you see

  people

  sitting

  frozen

  on

  wet

  pavements –

  statues

  numb

  with the

  drugs

  they’ve

  taken to

  anaesthetize

  their

  pain –

  half-

  slumped

  on

  benches,

  not even

  half

  alive,

  soaked

  through

  to the

  bone,

  but

  the

  rain

  doesn’t

  clean

  anything

  up,

  it

  just

  drops

  and

  falls

  so

  many

  pointless

  tears.

  FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBOURS

  our garden is a square,

  a patch,

  fences high enough to hold us in

  and keep intruders out.

  i end up back there,

  sitting on the step,

  watching the night close in,

  as clouds bank up,

  and a bitter moon swallows the streets

  gulping down their pain,

  greedy for the darkness.

  dad put those fences up one summer,

  labouring hours

  in a vicious sun

  and mum watched from indoors

  waiting to feel safe again.

  i run inside,

  upstairs,

  and lock my door.

  i cover the mirror in my room,

  hide from my shadow,

  just in case

  she sees me

  and recoils.

  i write their names

  somewhere nobody will see –

  the people who

  make me fall, who push me down,

  who laugh and sneer and mock

  and store their faces

  like a secret

  to take out later

  and destroy.

  SPEECHLESS

  later mum calls me down.

  i stare at my plate. don’t touch the food.

  my mother wants

  to know what’s up

  – swipes at my tears,

  i leap back from her touch.

  there are no words to say the things

  i’ve heard and felt and seen.
>
  i push back my chair, stand up, lurch away –

  fight through

  half-sewn dresses,

  fancy gowns,

  and party clothes,

  pins and needles,

  everywhere.

  standing behind the bathroom door

  i punch myself

  stomach, thighs, face, arms

  add new bruises,

  make new marks.

  this body that i cannot change

  (although i’ve prayed,

  so many times

  to wake up

  new)

  right now, will pay.

  i think about my mother,

  hear her calling from downstairs,

  “lily, please, come eat your tea

  it’s getting cold.”

  i think about the way she walks up and down this

  house

  each day, slowly, cleaning,

  wearing out her slippers, breathing hard

  but still moving, trying,

  even if it hurts.

  not gross

  or a loser

  not a failure

  not someone to laugh at

  or to despise.

  just another person

  doing the best she can.

  (but why did she have to be my mother,

  why can’t she die?)

  staring at the bathroom’s sheen, the rows of neatly

  folded towels

  the polish on the shower tiles

  i think about the smell of my clothes, washed and

  clean

  the perfect ironed creases in my father’s jeans.

  i think about how mum hides away and know

  she isn’t strong enough for them.

  but strong enough to keep us whole,

  she thinks, just by doing this.

  how weak am i?

  i walk downstairs.

  stand before my mum and dad.

  and tell them everything.

  my mother’s face dissolves,

  my father roars.

  i sit before them, trying not to feel

  their pain on top of mine

  staring at my hands,

  hating that i’ve made them sad,

  until dad says,

  “i’ll ring the school,

  i’ll go down there

  let’s hear the little bastards

  say this stuff to me –

  give me their names, lil,

  we’ll go round their house,

  sort this lot out.”

  and then i have to beg.

  no. forget it,

  who cares? they’re nothing,

  dad, please, you can’t.

  “that’s right,” he tells me, “less than that.

  you are better,” he tells me, “in every way.”