She keeps secrets in me.

Lifts my lid for privacy,

blows bubbles in my guts,

leaving evidence inside

with full impunity.

I am discreet

rebellion.

 

He spits bile inside me.

Hatred for his mummy

and the baby

and the way the teacher treats him

like he's soft.

He's not.

I contain his scarlet ache safely.

 

I display names and dates,

scratched in perpetuity,

significant to no one now

but me.

I am their history.

 

I soak up saliva, endeavour, secretions, bad temper, frustration, intentions, and tears.

 

            I echo young flesh bent double

            over long division

                            desperation;

 

water colour imprints of a small boy's dreams

wrought in indigo blooms                                          

OVERFLOWIN

G     rough-book margins.

 

I have held purple shame, ragged breath,

passed-around-the-class nasty notes,

stolen fuzzy felt, plasticine catharsis

coloured orange, blue, and green.

I am wood, legs, nails, holes, hurt.

I collect.