A newspaper page. Mothwing thin. Translucent, in your grandfather’s shaking hands. The way the streetlight watches him through the window, never saying a thing.

The first tooth you ever lost. Swallowed.

Photographs laminated in yellowed scotchtape. The way the little cobweb faces smile from yesterday, ignoring you completely.

The lines under your mother’s eyes. How you drew them the same way you drew on the wallpaper at five years old, while she slept.

The first boy you ever loved – how he ran his hands over you like he was at the supermarket, trying to work out The Good Fruit.

The way anything, at any time, could so easily tear a seam in the night.

How all of life is punctuated by the pairing and unpairing of socks.

The worry that some of them are bound to get sucked up into the machinery of the washing machine.

The thought that you might be the washing machine.

 

Richelle Sushil is an Indian-Indonesian poet and literature student from Jakarta currently pursuing her MA at UCL. Her poetry has recently won the Cosmo Davenport-Hines Prize 2020, and is featured or forthcoming in Hobart, Wild Court, and Honey Literary, amongst other publications. She tweets @RichelleSushil.