Performed by Val Cole
POEM:
Your brain is a sea,
your irises my windows
to watch you drown.
You choke on waves
meant to break on my shore.
You choke on your own hair.
From your skull
tentacles peel,
crawl down your face
like purple ivy
over my windowsill.
You freeze.
They pulsate and feed.
I wait.
They thicken,
they branch,
they fill your throat,
suck your lungs shut,
while I stand ankle-deep
on a dry shore.
They turn upward,
pierce the soft floor of you,
slide across gyri,
hide in sulci,
lie low
before bursting through bone
to bloom a sheaf of veins.
Only then you reach for me.
It knots itself around
a spine you no longer have.
So take mine.
Turn ribs to thorns,
legs to trunks,
feet to roots,
As I infectthe space
your body leaves behind
and call it shelter.
WILDsound Festival 