Respond to 2025: Industrial Heat
Industrial Heat
Time to get on with it
A good day at the factory
A cool down on the hamster wheel
A tin ramekin caressing the wage cage
7.5 hours of heaven – baybey
Respond to 2025: my qualifications will never be enough to outweigh internalised transphobia
my qualifications will never be enough to outweigh internalised transphobia
my voice textured with HRT vibrato
raises the interviewer’s eyebrow.
she ticks a box next to lyrics
I can’t quite read.
Respond to 2025: Year of the Snake
the day after the sun we’ve made
merciless sent the mercury
& everything else sky-high
all my windows & doors open
so a mid-morning breeze might offer
the possibility of better weather
being: no bombs, no drones
no kids with begging bowls
in war zones, no balaclava-clad men
Respond to 2025: the gates of colesworth
it was easier. to trail aisles. taking what you needed. buns are just so grabbable. sausage so easy to pass off. when bulging. i check expiry dates and claim the soon to be unworthy. in my clutches.
Respond to 2025: Algorithm
The last time I fully inhabited this fleshbag
was in the hours after my iPhone 6
joined me for an ocean swim. Since then I’ve learnt
more about the algorithm than any sapien should.
I mark the passage of a day not by the sun’s primordial arc
but by ideal story times, the hours of peak engagement.
I ghost the dead zones where meatspace movements
preordain my audience’s absence from the cloud.
Where to draw the line between dopamine hit
and digital affliction? I tried to touch grass once but now
even the Windows background has husked to an arid brown.
Respond to 2025: Graduation
Tonight you’re wearing purple
the colour of suffragettes
holding up half the world
did you realise that?
Respond to 2025: Five Friends Catch Up in the Group Chat
Isn’t this our third Eid in genocide / it’s Eid? / another day, another missed deadline / I am the worst mum, kids going to need therapy because of me / they bombed overnight — is your family ok? / this election, hey? / cancelled plans. again.
Respond to 2025: Elegy for a literary journal
It’s minor news, nothing deemed too relevant.
Two workers out of work, a loney welcome mat.
Subscribers suddenly without subscriptions.
Even the art house rags forgot to cover it.
A submission portal closed indefinitely.
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