1 poem
by Freya Robinson
Freya Robinson is the 2004 champion of a longest runner bean competition. She likes bad halloween makeup, afghan coats, and being published in literary journals. You can find her work on Wax Nine, The Rally, and Young Poets Network, among others, or find her personally horsing around on instagram @tigerlilyrob.
Lizzie McGuire Is Punk Behaviour
when people go through my emotional draws and fling old behaviours out onto the floor, I forget that they'll carelessly leave a glint of themselves behind. like a surgeon leaving his car keys in my stomach. and when the evening draws in on their love my heart melts redder than all the sunsets in my camera roll. does it have to be so childish? these torrid emotions set against a 90s floral bed set? I wear a visor to cover them up and make fun of myself for being so uselessly hardcore—burning down a thatched cottage and deleting every post on my instagram.
I am experiencing absolute state of the art delusion. I am going to the cinema by myself and eating a bag full of dates, with all the self image of that fuckin rat from kim possible. ready to say something really masturbatory, out here sexting god and googling winter survival tips. I’m crying over something that happened years ago and knowing I can’t even get paid for historical re-enactment. should I just take up decoupage? give up on spanish and roll my rs into a little ball? in my diary I’ve opined—no, conjured a better version of myself, altered her with food colouring. I trot down this path in my head, running my hands along the stone wall and opening up a secret passageway to an even stupider thought, until I find the worst version of myself dancing around in clogs, handing me a little conundrum: am I only good when I’m performing? walking around with a tasting menu of personality, so I can be the star girl with zebra print emotions and a cherry flavour period?
an amazing question. one I do not have the answer for presently. or even the bandwidth. but y’know not every question has to be decomposed presently. put it on ice, I think, and then continue to wear it around my chest, trying to walk through it like a doll in a latex catsuit. christ just throw me into some french windows already, all of this can get gone. it looks like theme week in my brain, so expect special offers on insults. final sale, all stupidity must go.
but just occasionally, mother mary will come to you, handing over the unvarnished truth. we decide it’s good to be gremlins and hang out on the floor. a regular fright night for hotties in their own flesh world. alright my hounds of love, please make your way to the dancefloor and prepare to go absolutely ham.