methods of self-transfiguration (to satisfy a craving)
1.
each stitch unpicked, fingertip needles, fur peels like fruit skin; scraped out soft stuffing is twenty years too worn – the doorbell has fresh wool for me.
2. black to blank, sliding scale, these antique lead scratchings persist as rubber dust. now to stray from shades of greyscale
necessary: a sweeter colour
to trace grooves left over.
3. all our eyes sting, bright white old bulb, holes scorched in its shade; today, i will change to a warm yellow – please, come in – admire me.
*****
i can't help but rewind a year
when we were still new and walked as one body
with blue fingers in the stinging cold
at least i had your hand to hold
even if i couldn't feel my own.
the wind was blowing
with such force that the river warped,
swelling like our breaths; it was so alive and yet
when we wiped our eyes we realised
the water was perfectly still.
now my eyes fill again,
threatening to spill and there's a chill
that claws at my skin, piercing
the hand that still doesn't understand
why it must brace the cold solo
through this winter that is passing too slow –
it is not even the end of november
and i wish that at 12 o'clock
i didn't remember
that today is your birthday
Evie Calver is a third year English student at King’s College London, where her poetry was recently featured in an Intersectional Feminism exhibition. She is also the creator and host of a student-focused mental health podcast called "Can You Hear Me?".