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Isla Anderson

bulletin freak

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so:

it has come to this. cityshock. undone
at the sight of a gull. obvious, really,
to go where the waste is
to leak on the bus
out of town. it’s been a very long time
since you were carried
like that—all
sainthood, shotgun
in June. it’s ok to bleed
as long as you show
contempt for your own

      bleeding. the self
a glum muscle
-letting-go.
this comes
with an avoidance

of winter, seascape, the arson
of measurable light
remembered
ponytails
dragged backwards
through a house or
muzzle, gaping

at: the altar: when
the groom crawls from your mouth.


Holiest Day

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It’s the holiest day of the year.
A strange

Game. But I do own a rock
from the moon. We shall.

And in an instant I am freighted
with this continuing
threshold
of myself.

Nearly ____ yesterday. I’m always afraid I’m
going to die I’m always afraid I’m going to
make someone else die.
The nearly into
today.
Dig a red thing out. A yellow. Piece of plastic

thread. Lots of space inside me for such
things lots of space to unspace lots of small
beads to usher a nervous system down in
the dead of night in the cruellest morning in
the finding yourself still here.

Mother Theresa, by the way, was not a
terribly nice person—

flawed. It will never be linear not ever I’m
going to feed you little gummy worms my
girls love this one.
Do you hear the words
that are coming out of

your mouth? And how long will I live for and
how long will I live and how long will I and
how long will and how long and how—

I’ve had those thoughts. But our voices
aren’t two ghosts in a chamber echoing our
minds are distinct they are terrible in their
distinctness I want to press my face into
yours for the rest of my fucking life I

promise you. Soldering. It is so clean in here so
warm and wet in the garage I can breathe if you
hold an item in your hand and it doesn’t give
you joy you should get rid of it.
Jesus ___
everything is gone did you not want to keep
anything?


jet

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so you knew. so aquariums
swim after closing. small, gelatinous
lives in black water
defiant
in their writhing
of the extinctions you presume
in leaving: ice-cream
carseat

wayhome

so
way home. I turn
my favourite rainhat
inside-out, cross
my legs. what
we are going back to, what
I am. in her tank, a cephalopod
unfolding
in the dark. mantle,
siphon,
etcetera.


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