metro (tanka) aggrieved and unhinged is my state of mind when I take that gold padlock on the Paris metro to infiltrate their quartz landscape archie (haibun) I exist between two worlds, the innocent and the damned. in the age of innocence, I stir my tea with a sugar cube spoon, taking myself to bed with raspberry sleeping medicine. I drink apple sours in the age of the damned, and I use my lover’s credit card to shift the coke into a neat line. take me out for a drive-in movie where you tell me all about her this in-between state feels like being underwater. the land of the damned is where I belong. surrounding myself with older men is how it always should have been. instead of sitting in a canteen with a tub of cheap pasta, I should have been walking through the financial district looking for prey. pull out my box of my magenta tipped matches and burn your heart whole exit, baby (tanka) unwrap me from your bed sheets because I will scream that you are hurting the both of us, knowing that we cannot escape this place
Author Bio: Courtenay S. Gray is a writer from the North of England. She has been featured in publications such as Maudlin House, Daily Drunk Mag and Red Fez. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize (2020). Courtenay was a runner up for the 2021 Literary Lancashire Award in Poetry. She also has a poetry collection (Strawberry) out with Alien Buddha Press. Twitter: @courtenaywrites / Blog: www.courtenayscorner.com
Beir Bua Press 