Knives We Used on Our Skin

 

Who did we imagine would pick up our filters,

our shattered glass? Our minds were closed buds.

 

In the oaks and pines by the old icehouse

we sparked firelighters, threw back naggins,

 

cans of cherry cider. We sucked Bensons and mints,

had our first kiss, our last smoke.

 

What did we know of a beer cap in a vixen’s throat

or the stomach of a hare gagged with cigarette butts?

 

All we knew for sure was if we drank enough

we could voice the panic attacks we had before maths,

 

the mantras that our bodies were too big, too small,

too riddled with spots. We confessed

 

that we watched our mothers dice carrots

with the knives we used on our skin and babysat kids

 

by the river we dreamt of walking into.

Here we uncapped what was held so tightly

 

like a sluice trap after so many winters.

Our tense jaws, our cramped hearts, were held

 

by the earth’s nerves, those roots and vines

that quietly lowered the pressure of our blood.

 

 ‘Knives We Used on Our Skin’ won the second place prize of our 2021 International Poetry Competition.