a fig in winter
a fig in winter
the night after you shatter me
you send me videos about stoicism
like that means a goddamn thing
but you want to help
i’m afraid to move
if i get up i might disturb the memories
might shake up the dust and find it settles
into shapes i no longer recognise
might dislodge the texture of the walls
where you pressed me, where i died
might lose the temperature from the pillows
the sweat of the duvet twisted into knots
by your hand, i am freezing
and you send me the words of dead men
fuck you
they tell me to thaw and surrender
but i am your winter
holocene
holocene
all his exes are crazy
not him
upon waking i stretch
crack the base of my spine
my fluids run thin, deplete
their vitality between bones
he sleeps with his nose
squashed into a pillow
what an ugly thing, i think
to be so sure of sanity
the sun doesn’t visit us here
in this flat, gone noon
the austere, saxe filter
of the day already dying
we are a moment
a lungful of our lives
upon waking i stretch
my mind over the length
of my limits, i’m an ugly thing
for losing myself in another
arise, mad sisters
we are the last
photo by Haojie Xu
Bio: ‘Briony Collins is a poet, novelist, and playwright. She won the 2016 Exeter Novel Prize and has several prominent publications. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Blame It On Me, is forthcoming with Broken Sleep Books in August 2021. She is co-founding editor of Cape Magazine.’
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