by Rhoda Taylor
Philately
Fuck me isn’t it exhausting
even to declare that I enjoy balconies and
black coffee with a little sugar in a petite cup and
rooftops gilded in sunlight and
stacked at different heights and angles
biting into each other like parsnips and
getting undressed at open windows
for the sheer love of small harmless audacity
when there is a residue
that is the grit of former claims that said
balconies are too small and
black coffee too bitter while
sugar is too sweet and
the rooftops cling like a pair of sweaty tights
polluting the sun before it reaches the skin and
to be so much as seen is to be exposed
no matter how many layers I’m in.
No I’m not more than these fluctuations I’m just a body that sheds and remakes itself in a month.
I would like to say I’m okay with you
collecting my caprices like postage stamps, sticking me
in a book, but there is an intimacy that is invasive,
obliterative, that is content only when it has discovered
there was nothing there to find. No more projects.
For my sake, let’s pretend
this is what I’ve always loved.
Elena Goulding lives, works and writes compulsively in South East England. She also loves finding hidden patterns in narratives and poetry. You can follow her on Instagram @_elenajoy_.
Rhoda Taylor was born in London England but has been living and working in Southern Ireland since 1996. https://rhodataylor.com