kmbgpoetry

[kmbgpoetry]

☆☆ in 1996, Bridget Jones lamented about the seduction of the informality of messaging mediums. clearly, we haven’t learnt much since ☆☆

| I Can’t Be Trusted to Text Appropriately | KMBG |

Are your words real 

if your tongue never forms them? Does it count 

if the air doesn’t vibrate with the thrill of it all? 

Of us. Of the game we’ve made of deceit.

Tell me there’s such a thing as platonic arousal.

Placate me. Sorry, what I meant was fuck you. 

I think you feel similarly about me, wishfully. 

I don’t think we know how to be. We’ve always lived 

and died on messy boundaries and still, every now

and then we splash paint around, leaving handprints in lieu 

of responsible lines. If God's a foreman, 

he's running out of tolerance for our claims of ignorance. 

Each time, our skin stains faster. We know better now, and less 

of each other. Are they my words now? 

Sure, it’ll only be a few years before 

one of us digs our fingernails in and begins 

to chip away at new cracks in that same ridiculous paint. Again. 

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

☆☆ the two buildings above the Marks & Spencer are strange bedfellows - they told me this. ☆☆

| Princes Street | | KMBG | 

18 August- 24 September 2024 

the Auld Lass lets out a flat goan that’s swallowed 

by the surrounding streets. another weekend in the Capital. 

a mother gathers her chicks beneath bag for life wings, a deft movement, 

and her glasses only just manage to maintain their perch on the tall bridge of her nose. 

She watches the brood, sandstone brow heavy, and thinks of the children She dreamt of. 

creatures alight with youth wander through extended adolescence, absentmindedly

setting fires where their bodies crackle and splinter. if only We could be consumed

in flame like them, in their vulnerability and temporarity. Her closest neighbour, younger, creaks 

His joints in anticipation of Her next protest, for they move as though they share foundations

now. He knows She’s cracked, too. look at where We exist! 

it’s the heat. can you imagine what that must feel like? aye, We feel their reverberations 

echo through Our empty chests where We know hearts would be

in another life; this cool stone of your face is sun-warmed…but true heat? 

to feel sweat seep from pores, a pulse against your lips, a stranger’s wrist soothing the pounding

in your temple with the metal of their watch strap, with the metal in their veins. 

once She learnt of spreads of moss beginning to bloom across her cheek, stroking Her

smoke-stained window panes, and pretended they were a bruise, pooling blood under soft flesh as they

soaked up the water that poured below the sill, irritating the years-old brown staining of long-felt sorrow. 

they drank Her in, sprung emerald tendrils, beautifully odd in their fluffy bluish greenery; so alive

for minutes of Her life before they too succumbed to their susceptibility; impotent in Her immortality. 

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| Nurture |

before my cat attacks - foot or foe -

she lets out this little squeak; prepared air

involuntarily exhaled, her lungs reveal her master plan. 

wild ember eyes wide, watery, watching veined wings. 

chin lowered to leather, she trembles.

squeak. silly little lioness. 

against instinct, surely, her unselfconsciousness.

if not for her status as a kept woman, she'd starve, 

her poor generosity a local legend to tenement mice.

not once has she caught anything substantial, maybe

the odd unlucky moth tricked by the gleam of her teeth; 

rare triumphs sparse between daily failures. 

half an hour frozen, eyes on the flies, muscles flexed.

squeak and so they scatter. a picture of composure, 

she dares to begin her sit-in again. 

she doesn't blame herself for her nature. 

maybe I shouldn't blame myself for mine. 

| KMBG | 14-30 September 2024 |

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| tone it, like, way down | KMBG |

18 August - 23 September 2024

I edit each text

before I send it. delete!

exclamations choked.

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| to be Blunt | KMBG |

4-12 September 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| each year's worse | KMBG |

11 September 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| WARNING: Unstable Structure | KMBG|

17-30 August 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| reflections on kindness | KMBG |

9 September 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| The Girls' Bathroom | KMBG |

2-18 August 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| crude constellations | KMBG |

8-9 August 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| burst bubbles | KMBG |

10 August 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| Whorticulture | KMBG |

9-10 August 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| such good friends | KMBG |

10 August 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| Scottish Summertime | KMBG |

10 August 2024

linktree

[kmbgpoetry]

| Reservations | KMBG | 22 July - 8 August 2024

medium | substack | instagram

[kmbgpoetry]

| preoccupation | KMBG |

4 August 2024

medium | substack | instagram

[kmbgpoetry]

| to think of you | KMBG |

4 August 2024

medium | substack | instagram