Who will I be in Manchester?
A variant of who I was here?
Cheekboney and unhinged;
visibly anaemic and buzzing with need.
Will they be able to smell the woods on me?
– the others, who crawl inwards from suburbs
I have seen from trains, up and down, for the past six months
I will have to explain, all over again, why I don’t have
a mother fawning over me in my dorm room, why
I wash my hands so much. Dress like I’m ancient, talk
like I’m fucking hard. Fuck the Tories, fuck the
world that made me so hungry and aged me
so fast. Kiss like I’m over it, kiss like
a student, drink the way my sorrow taught me, kiss
again. You’ve an interesting face, people tell me, so I
Google what that means. You’re a messy drunk,
people tell me, so I say sorry twice as loud. Music
remains, my unburned bridge, because shared headphones
equals shared time, even if the notes echo backwards
in other ears. Who will I be among taller buildings?
Smaller?
Daisy Harris
Daisy Harris Poetry 