top of page

Jorja

Luna

Stella

Chloe

Justine

Lydia Allison


Lydia Allison graduated from Sheffield Hallam in 2014 with a degree in Creative Writing. She is a member of Sheffield’s Writing Squad and has just come back from a year in Huizhou, China, where she was working as an English language teacher. She has appeared a number of times both online and in print, including two of Pankhearst’s Slim Volumes (This body I Live In, No Love Lost). She loves beautiful things and her poems are heavily influenced by bridal gowns and the women in them.

Follow her on twitter @LydiaAllison13 and find some more poems, stories, and links here: lydiaallison.wordpress.com

the saturday girl

asks about the ring / colour

schemes / my mother

 

tears small as plastic

beads show her mistake

she turns me / laces up the back

 

says / i know / places hands

on my sides then / let’s show them / a tissue

from nowhere / magician

 

turns to nurse / holds the white

to my eyes

then she’s flower girl / bows behind

 

throws my train / slick ivory weight

sighs / breathtaking /says

what she / ought to say

The earth used to spin in 22 hours.

Since I met her the days seem short again.

As though I sleep too much.

My time turns to dust.

 

She moved quickly.

Hit into me at speed and knocked me.

My life tilted. Now

I mimic her shifting moods.

 

She never turns her back

but I love her face.

Can’t bear her gradual movement away.

Almost undetectable

 

like the growth of hair or nails.

Unnoticeable on waking.

The first time is white and hazy. We had shared a taxi before but we were quiet. I let him pay and breathed through my mouth when we got out.

 

I felt the way upstairs. Found the room that was only there in theory before and he was behind me and then in front and we kissed in real life.


The heat hit like a cloud. I walked home, thinking of myself: a body in a life like mine.

i woke with the room full of dandelion heads

it was warm and the sun lit the floating seeds

 

it was so quiet

like they cushioned all sound in white

 

and my breathing released more

reverse-parachutes defying earth for air

 

no sign of you ,  no tracks through the fluff .

i hang a hand over the side to touch

 

to dust them ,  scalp small heads ,  my jaw clicks .  i wept

last night over nothing but the pressure to be happy  .

 

      I picture us over and over: now on the road I love. Good coffee and haircuts. The first place I ever taught, this perfect line-up turns to a sports-day strip to sprint. We kiss.

     Then the station: grey and cold and dry as pantry walls. The train’s delayed. My hands numb. I wear my leather coat, find your door.

     Reality puts me in the car park behind the bingo. I forget my glasses and squint at strangers’ cars. I’m ten minutes early and you’re five late. I miss you and then you’re metres away. I drop my phone/bag/keys. Our bodies hit.

bottom of page