Alanna McArdle is a writer based in London, UK. Her poetry has been featured in Poems In Which, Shabby Doll House, The Chapess, The Cultist, among others. She has read her poetry at the 2016 Goldsmiths/Literary Kitchen event 'Lit Live'. Her flash fiction and nonfiction writing has been featured at Broadly, Noisey, The Talkhouse, Pitchfork, Crack Magazine and Bluestockings Magazine. You can view some of her published work at alannamcardle.contently.com/
1 poem by Alanna McArdle
Getting ready
I.
Why do you think I wear these clothes?
It is true and disgusting
that you think I must look at you
whenever you look at me
Why get angry when ours eyes do not
synchronise?
Like the moon passing by the sun
just moments too late
II.
STRONG PROTECTIVE POWERS
such as
nicking each
individual scalp
scabbing each
individual clot
picking each
individual strand
NO LONGER AWAKE IN YOU
just
foreign to this body
I am used to
being sifted and
barely noticeable just
like an alleviant
FILL ME UP BUT I AM NOT JOKING THIS TIME
I never was
III.
where will I dream your hands
will go
each dream a
different hand
until there are almost twenty or
thirty-odd by
a long
long way
IV.
what woman
padding on the
mattress
an embiggening
moon
a negative inkblot
in our big
black window
seeping slowly
care fully
watching
tutorials on
how to sever
zipties
what moon
up next 2
the red in my
face
a summons
at the
surface
what woman what
woman would turn
a blind eye
2 the sky
to watch
the eyes that
rest
on all of
us