Apprehensive

In this place – the room that is at

once her childhood bedroom and the

entrance hall in which she waited,

feet tapping nervously, before

her first piano exam – the

moon is inside. There are stars on

the walls, and they are looking at

her, greedily, mockingly. The

boy who asked for her number at

the bus stop when she was twelve now

wears a dress and offers a glass

of scotch, which she accepts, only

for the glass to transform into

ice, right there in her grip, and drip

like wax, hot in her lap. She stands,

knocks her head on textured ceiling,

drops to her knees, mattress beneath.

She is on the top bunk in

a Welsh hostel, carving a name

into wooden panelling, young

and insecure in this minor

act of rebellion, loving

the girl in the bunk below her.