I’ve been trying to write a poem for you

that’s lacking in lust, that has a point of reference outside of itself

which is you, not the rhetorical you

and me, the real me-misis

not cornered in a self that frankly even as a feminist

I’m getting tired of problematising
I’m being devastated by the hard lines of words

and the absorbing whiteness of it all, the sheet

the mirror suck of the

context of these blocks waiting to be filled

for me to touch them into being and say

something that I couldn’t just say

because it doesn’t exist yet, how could it?
One thing that went wrong is I’ve been

trying to construct a metaphor

around the way that

keys on a keyboard are pressed to make letters which make words

which a word processor can decipher and register
it probably involves electromagnetism or

code or something but there’s no way of googling that doesn’t

lead nowhere, like

I’ve tried how does word work and how do we make writing

and computer typing science and how does word word

which was a typo and nothing so no metaphor, barely any poem at all
it was supposed to say something about form, about a meaning filling

up its neat preformed box and the relatively limited

materials we have to work with and way language ultimatey blocks communication

and I was going to fill the serious space in the middle with some

pasted scientific words

(cf. all the poetry I’ve ever read or written)

but as I’ve no idea how it works

there’s no hope for my metaphor

but there’s still a poem for you

it’s not disappointing, it’s not vacuous

it’s not me, it’s not you, it’s

really for the reader, who’s being a brat 
What’s the worst thing about this poem?

Well, it might actually throw the whole thing out

like, this is me at full stretch and this is the best you’ll get

What did you expect? Do you even know what it’s like being alive right now?

Someone’s probably emailing somebody else right now
I’m only good for my carbon

I’m offset by tax breaks and charmed by incentives

for our love

house prices are improbably going up and

the sky is frozen like its been stuffed

at the back of the fridge

I’ve been winded like a horse

stashed in the out-buildings like a corpse

strung up like road kill meat, free and illegal

and broken all the way through

shook up like change

rolled up, crushed between forefinger and thumb,

kept in a bag, lost on the Tube

befriended by cats, stuck all over with hairs and making

peace with corners and undersides and insects and

the enormous cells of their eyes

nonbeing is the new being

muyu is the new yu

one of the things about the self is that its edges bleed, and please
I get so sick of these poetry boyz being always making a fuss

writing poems about love like it’s the final cleverest metaphor

LOVE

if you were in love with me you’d shut the fuck up about it