HOLLY ISEMONGER #4: King St.

Photograph by Tori Lill
Photograph by Tori Lill

There was a time

when it seemed romantic

Hemingway etc. Now I go

to the cafe to avoid eating

Doritos in bed. ‘Study’ ends

in caffeine jitters—I do nothing

but stare at boys and expensive sandwiches.

Sydney forces bodies into the world

there are limbs everywhere, a calf

muscle on a pedal on a bike

by the traffic lights, arms

covered in wisps that look

like fairy floss in the beery light.

There are boys skinnier than me

boys with skin like milk, some are

carved from leather, and some

might be girls. I imagine

each one throwing me

onto a bed and the wooden

smack of the headboard, while

I lurk behind my laptop, sweating

my eyes slightly too wide

my toothy mouth too parted

in the street. The stream is never

ending. A gallery of dead

white intellectuals leer

at me from my computer

I look into my palm, ashamed

at the infinite swiping on Tinder

I brush them away.

There is no potential in this heat

it’s a show, a screen. I know full well

that no one will be thrown anywhere

certainly not me.