what do you think it was?
The thing the sweet French doctor was calling me to
find.
All these rooms I’ve occupied.
I hate to walk you through them,
though I must.
I think I should have never left the countryside.
The mackerel on the barbecue,
the clean, clean air. That big sea view.
The real estate’s quite good down there.
You’ve probably been on holiday – ice cream, pasty, surf
school, rock pool – not calling you a basic bitch,
but Ava, you do wear Karen Millen.
Happy birthday by the way,
I saw your post this morning.
You know the first thing that I noticed when I looked you
up is that you’re thinner than I am?
Isn’t that the worst?
It’s hard to keep it in sometimes. The hate. The hurt.
Last week, I was walking through the city, fast,
was marching to a meeting, completely lost in thought
and passed two women interacting with a large stone
frog outside a restaurant.
They were patting it and hugging it,
laughing,
pretending to agree with it – all quite lovely really –
wholesome fun.
But as I passed I caught the eye of one of them and her
face fell.
Embarrassed, she dropped her hand that had
been pressed against the frog’s stone brow as though
checking for a fever,
and gloomily, they went inside.
What had my face said, Ava?
My legs had carried me quickly on, but I wanted
to go back and say,
Madam you misread me! Please! Enjoy the frog!
It stung, Ava. I thought of it a lot.
Do you have many friends?
I couldn’t hold one down,
