Free Verse Revolution:

As the deadline to submit to Issue VIII: Guinevere (rebirth) approaches (November 27th), we will be sharing a few poems which may help inspire you!

You can read more about Issue VIII and our guidelines below.

how to love yourself by Joelle Taylor

London, 2012

you are walking through the left side of London when the past runs into you, at the corner by the train station where young men bottle their faces to sell on the markets later, and women trade teeth for kisses; the Past is standing there, one hand in her pocket, head titled as if to correct the smirk of reality, scruffy bent boy, smoking the same cigarette you still smoke, thin, bitten into the shape of umbilical. Her eyes don’t quite meet yours. How could they?

young men bottle their faces to sell on the markets later, and women trade teeth for kisses; the Past is standing there, one hand in her pocket, head titled as if to correct the smirk of reality, scruffy bent boy, smoking the same cigarette you still smoke, thin, bitten into the shape of umbilical. Her eyes don’t quite meet yours. How could they?

her best friend is shame and her uncle is fear, she has babysat too many times for the children within men, the pregnant males, and she is ready now, you can see it, she is ready now to walk on. you meet her eyes, and her pupils are long dark corridors at the end of which are closed doors. For a moment, you thought you saw them opening, the impossibility of light, bright butterflies of fire, beginnings.

you notice how much Past has changed, how much more like the Future she looks now, and walk forward into your body.