Artwork by Olivia Meek AKA Regularfantasy

I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier

and boiling the kettle and forgetting the tea

but the floor is warm and I have my lemon shampoo

there was one day in the spring

I poured the booze down the drain and put the bottle by the window in the light

do you remember the night I was up sick

and feeling very by myself and quiet

afraid to text I thought you’d be sleeping

and now you’re here

and being alone doesn’t fill my brain like that

as a child to relax I’d imagine

taking each bone from my body and giving it a good scrub gently pushing it back into place

but how impossible it is to do everything right

creating space in my spine is a nice thought

and really that’s all

except there’s something right about trying to do better so I try to do better

and boil the kettle

Previously published in rock salt, baseline press 2020

Olive Andrews (they/them) is a poet living in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal). Instagram I Twitter

This is the third of three poems they have shared via Also Cool. Their work has been published in a number of magazines, including PRISM International and Plasma Dolphin. Their debut chapbook, rock salt, was published with Baseline press in 2020. They are currently interning at Canthius mag.

Artwork by Olivia Meek AKA Regularfantasy Instagram I Paintings I Design