‘In the Dark Room’ and ‘Plant-based Fatigue Fighter Detox Supplements’ are poems from MA Creative Writing graduate, Georgie Brooke.

In the Dark Room

The monobath stains our lips a bitter blue

an impression of a field I’ll never see again

your wide eyes develop right in front of me.

And this is how we found love:

£3 wine in a screw-top bottle and an afternoon tucked

away.

Me, lilac-haired and jejune,

ghost bleached by exposure and the race for your heart.

An outline of hands dripping in borrowed light,

buttercups bent backward over grass,

plans conceived in intimacy:

together, we would help the dandelion seeds spread,

as if our puffs of breath alone could have birthed a

generation,

as though our mouths were not already

pressed together between pale sips

My skin pricks as I agitate the tank,

rinse off the developer.

Your eyes are clouded with silver halide;

I dip your gaze into bleach-flix.

Plant-based Fatigue Fighter Detox Supplements (30 Capsules)

Product Description:

Do you suffer from bloating? Sudden bloating? After-meal

bloating? Bloating from stress? Menstruation bloating? Do

you suffer from genetic bloating? Do you suffer? Has lethargy

seeped into your ruby-red blood? Is your life like leaking sap

out of a tree? Like water lilies disintegrating in a lake? When

was last sky you fell in love with, the last time you smelled the

soft tissues of a rose and shivered from the smell? Can your

desire for more drown you like bees in honey?

Our capsules can make you as bright as lily white sunshine!

You, like the star magnolia that just shoved itself through the

velvet iris of it’s bud to give it’s scent to the Earth! Bliss is a

chemical place. Fatigue fighter contains extracts from lilac

capped moonlight jasmine, gently blended with the fresh

vapour of rose otto to flush out toxins and renew you. Ground

yourself into the dusts of the Earth! They will calm you, take

away the sting, like a de-thorned rose. Honey, you will grow,

perk, slim to a petal. Make you a honeyed & subservient

young girl. A fresh world of gardenia girls blooming! You

will be more loved, more beautiful, you won’t cry, your tears

trapped in your stem. Our capsules will be your sun, they will

grow you, they wil l t end you .

About Georgie

She/they

Georgie completed their BA in English at the University of Bristol and completed their MA in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. They are interested in permeating the static spaces between music and spoken word poetry, and is creating their own post-punk sprechgesang that she is probably too shy to share with you. For now, they write word-spew for Clash Magazine and The Quietus. Georgie also writes poetry about the overlaps between identity, self-growth, and queerness. Georgie is interested in widening accessibility to poetry (especially for those from low-income backgrounds, like herself). They are currently investigating how young people can be encouraged to develop their self-expression through poetry.