Everything is wipe-clean-friendly

            Alice Frecknall

The scene starts in a bathroom:
red between thighs
she’s laughing,
It’ll look like a massacre
by the time I’m done!
Our bodies’ little rituals of emptying.
This isn’t quite how I pictured it
‘love’
me trying to
adjust to my own hot blood too busy to notice
the ache of it taking hold, my fingerprints’ quick-drying stains.
Showering,
the salty film of her/
me
falls off
my skin
and I’m out
in the wilderness, joy-stripped
and sodden.
It’s really very cold
to be so undressed.
It’s really very cold
and sodden
in the wilderness. Joy-stripped,
and I’m out—
my skin
falls off
me,
the salty film of her
showering,
the ache of it, taking. Hold my fingerprints, quick! Drying stains
adjust to my own. Hot blood too busy to notice
me trying to
love.
This isn’t quite how I pictured it—
our bodies, little; rituals of emptying.
By the time I’m done
it’ll look like a massacre.
She’s laughing,
red. Between thighs
the scene starts. In a bathroom
everything is wipe-clean, friendly.

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Alice Frecknall is a writer and artist. Her debut poetry collection, Somewhere Something is Burning, is published by Out-Spoken Press. Alice won the London Independent Story Prize 2024 and was shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2023 and the Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry 2023. Her writing is widely anthologised, including in The Stinging Fly, bath magg, and Butcher’s Dog.