writing

A Million Tiny Sherees

| Sheree

I feel like I’m holding a million little Sherees
in my arms and each one with a need to be fulfilled.


I’m lost, not knowing what to do for the best,
who to listen to the first. All are fragile and in pain.

They’re little me’s at different times in my life.

The little puffy afro-ed toddler.
The dreadlocked housewife.
The first school bunchies kind of kid.
The jet black straight haired newborn.
The baldy divorcee.

Mini Sherees all making noise
vying for my attention, craving love
wanting to be seen and healed.

I’m afraid one will slip through my fingers,
or I’ll break the neck of another.
It’s a huge responsibility to carry myself
alone. And not allowing one single Sheree in.

Rubbernecking

| Sheree

She’s called Daphe, the woman running the business training out of her Notting Hill home.

The Thames curves south from here by Chelsea, sluggish brown. The city’s awake and burning.

Have you been to see the damage yet? he asks, in our snatched conversation.

Almost gleeful in his hunger to hear details about the tower block which blazed leaving so many people missing or dead.

He says there’s photographs of the missing stuck to tree trucks, walls and railings. Black, brown and olive skinned and missing.

I don’t want to see this suffering. The ruins becoming a tourist attraction. Leave them with some dignity. Always having to endure the gaze in life and death.

Summer Fox

| Sheree

Could I be as cute and cunning as a fox, I giggle into another snapshot filter. 

Happy in my play and disregard for others’ opinions.

His eyes are open and still. I think he’s a he, slight and young. Pointy nose with white frosting.

The rest of him is a dull orange red.

So whole and perfect and dead.

Lying on his side at the edge of the motorway, four legs sticking straight out as if ready to bounce back onto, after playing dead. 

I feel guilty. I didn’t hit him. He was already dead when I flew by in Summer, my metallic orange Susuki Splash, honest. 

But when I see him dead as clear as day, I feel shame at my mini Snapchat film and buying into the cunning as a fox stereotype of fairytales. 

My heart stays in my throat for the whole day.
Why did he have to die, such beauty and no blood? 

The Outlook is Good

| Sheree

uncomfortable sensations which can only be described as pain course straight to the core

to release endorphins of joy

the outlook is better

the outlook is golden

the outlook is diamond

the outlook is bright

the outlook is purple

the outlook is a gift

Wandering Around the Cores

| Sheree

I’ve always had a wandering relationship with water.

Called it curiosity as a child. Call it freakiness as an adult. To feel the curling nothingness upon my skin, turning once dry to wet.

I’ve always wondered where the water flows,

why it’s never the same sea twice and

why they keep pulling me back to dive deeper into their cores?