Splint, Tech & Untitled by Alice Chalmers

Spilt

gateways to disbelief

the impossible magic of yr own body

i steal out to the back paddock

i wait in stealth for the first

promise of pleasure

-im dashed

& certain of failure i make that

body of mine

a small ruined crumple

hard up

and splint it to that moment

healing all wrong

a false bone

which fuses slow at the join

and hurts in the winter

Tech

tic tacs tremble in pockets

techtonic plated

i stew in my own gravity

buckle under hum

of large machinery

powerline giants descend in me

my automatic whir.

a current, uncomfortable,

dulls with distance

insisting i am anxiety

but troubles the ground for

a release

i release into pockets,

uncomfortable

in social situations that don't

have rules

i am ruled by physical laws like you

release in you

my untuned hum

my vibrational legacy catatonic,

atomic cacophony to calm, i

spend my errant electrons

into your body

i expel myself

i quit at matter

can i lie in your bed after,

a limp breadpile,

slackened into wall-whir

of your bedroom appliances

Untitled

i woke up four or so hours after the dawn and your hand was touching small parts of my body. easily the most impressive parts of the daylight are when i see so clearly i could scrape the distance off each object with a wet edge, a lick of eyeball to pry the surface. submerged, bodily, below yours, i am out of integrity with objects. i cannot tell the time. i don’t know the difference, i can’t wake or care. the curtain is a kind of time, tallies me with streaks of light like day-lines counted across my body. i am a signifier of the ageing day yet i cannot get apart from it. am i a skylight in the centre of a round room, sunken living area, couched hard feelings swept inward like a stirred ocean.

how many hoarded boxes of regret does it take to get down from there. hello superiority complex, fixed in the stars, coddled by a throttling sensation co-opted in the womb. i am round-about about it. i’ll scuttle. crab-wise and shelled i wait for them to get closer. i pick up a half-eaten plate of eggs. the eggs of a century of longing. which is only a century long because i’m such a drama queen.

i am king of everything i am the half-dead ant on the lowest hill; mound-mounted monument to exhaustion. sweet destiny, i can call this life a soul’s purpose so then i don’t have to try. i can cloak it in anything, soft greens of mosses, a night coat twinkle, piece of the daylight disguise for my security illusions. i delight in it. the paradox of entry - i am on my way out as we speak, the hairs on my head give up their pigment; a circular way of saying “i am linear”.

line-building with you. we wrapped all the lengths in a circle so that we could see it the way it makes sense. i knew you in a past life or the future, or knowing you now preserve time in a physical form, split the distance. a spring on either side of us, a gentle squeeze together, cosmic wrappings on internal takeover - hey, you have taken over my body, i like these moments where i am a seaslime ensconced in you. i am part of the particular though, i give a weight to myself then. i can throw my form, in a particular light. particular-feeling. broken daylight caught in the arm of a clock. you set timers. you set them and they go off anyway and we go on diving. even my own bedroom, sets off a collection of buzzing familiars - times you chose my face over facing time. times i built you a continuum.

is this formless task a tight tender present. am i writing a gift to you or do i lightly press myself for more truths. am i ending on an ocean, planked out at sea, merely a sign for you from deadwood; i drift and drift and can’t find a landing. i gift and gift and can’t find a name for myself. is this why i don’t give you something to call me. just call me my name, call me love, darling, ocean flame. i can’t speak it, it veils an empty mood: let’s escape form together, i am a twelfth house sun. after all i barely know you. i love you, after all i love you. let’s go into the sea

i wouldn’t know how to tell you anyway besides with my body. i am a body after all. big love finds a vessel, i am physical. dirt-king magics give rise to me, i read and ripen. how dangerous to live in a skin - i might split at any second. give great fruit, go to seed, gorgeous grey-area. gag-revival. so inspired to write you, i can’t even thread the cheese evenly, there is no adventure like the promise of a new word for love. romantically, i am dignified in that. but i spout a tough waterfall of reassembled simile, smile for you in silence while you ask me what i’m thinking. i’m a bucketful of romo, babe you must know a frustrated poet. fistful of sweaty lines lean like lame offerings - like my limp floral arrangement?

i’ve sworn it, i’m thwarted, i said it already. i cheapen it with words, i worry it open. how heavy the lens. your several sworn allies haven’t met me yet. wakefully, waiting for you to make me smaller, stretching new rope. i can’t make you a container because you’re so big. i must count you as an equal since you stare back into me. i back into walls just to feel you pushing. now i’m gushing now you know what i’m like when i talk about you.

A Bonus work from Alice is available on our Patreon.

Executive Producers

Daniel Henson

Karolina Ristevski

Sue White