UNTITLED
If
love
didn’t
exist
we’d
find
something
else
to
fuck
our
lives
up
with.
NIGHT AND DAY
I dropped her off at
6AM 2 streets away
from her home. She
told me her husband
and kids would still
be asleep. She’d just
get a shower and
change her clothes
and panties and
everything would
be good. ‘ Do you
love him?’ I said.
‘ I will give you a
call tonight,’ she
said. And I watched
her beautiful ass
disappear into the
harsh morning light.
HEARING HER
She mistook me for
Van Gogh and told
me
I was the only man
she enjoyed having
sex with at work
and
the reason she never
called me was her
phone was lost
it was lucky I came
back
or she would have
never seen me
again
and she would like
to see me again
next weekend would
be good
she said
that would be unreal
I said
and left the brothel
with both ears still
intact.
MEAN STREETS by Brenton Booth
Alcohol pulsed like heartbeat drowning fear. The two of us, still teenagers, far
from men, downing straight whiskey from the bottle and seeing who could curse
the best, and fill the school football field with the most piss. It didn’t actually
matter anymore—the act itself was now satisfying enough for both of us.
Trapped in single parent families in a small worthless broke suburb in Sydney,
neither of us hiding our disgust very well tonight.
We finished the bottle. I hurled it at the grandstand hoping for an explosion—
though was slightly satisfied with the mess it created.
“ I’m going home,” I said.
“ I’m going for a walk. I don’t want to go home. I would never go there again if it
wasn’t for my little sister. I have to look after her—save her from them,” said
Tom.
I stumbled home leaving him in the shadows, hoping I’d see him again, those
streets really weren’t safe to walk, but we both knew that worse things existed.
SUICIDE ANGELS
she has carefully styled blonde hair
a beautiful body
and a face that wouldn’t look out of
place in a fashion magazine
and for the past month
i have seen her working the strip
her stunning blue eyes slightly
glazed from drugs though she’s
so new to it all she still looks good—
she actually looks better than good;
and she is,
though after living in kings cross for
ten years now i have seen it all before,
they come along young and beautiful
and still in control of their lives,
though time passes quickly and soon
enough their faces are grey and hard
and their bodies look like starved twigs
and minds no longer think of anything
but scoring:
their brains completely fried
so that any request, even from the most
hideous men
no longer offends;
their shame and feelings of self preservation
having died long ago with all those brain
cells:
anything now to score—
and feel good again.
