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Delivery 

Hanging preschooler sized pants on the line
On a sunshiney lockdown day

Brrrrmmmmm
The postie bike stops at my gate

Through he comes with two big packages
“I’ll just put these here”

They sit by the door 
As I continue my dance with the endless laundry cycle 

I pick them up on my way inside 
One, a bundle of online fast fashion for the teen

The other addressed to me
Flat, registered, with stiff cardboard inside

My graduation certificate and testamur
Just like that

Ten years of isolated online toil
Solo parenting, working so many jobs

My Masters degree has been conferred in hi-vis 
From the other side of the laundry basket

Not a mortarboard in sight
But what beautiful weather for Graduation Day!


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Breastfeeding 

I remember 

It was years ago now 

Sitting in a privacy cubicle in the parents’ room in the middle of a shopping centre


Conditioned air
Piped muzak
Grubby curtains
Playschool on the tele on the other side of them

Seeking some rest before attempting
The epic effort of loading the car with baby and self 
Back to the place of endless labour 
and insufficient sleep

Feeling a little self pity
At my lot
As a single mother
not by choice 

And a voice 
From the next cubicle 
Where two local mums had been talking
Cuts through my ruminations

“Babydaddy’s a useless C##T anyway
All he ever does is
Smoke ice 
And
F**k putrid hoes.”

Yes, I remember that.
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Cigarettes 

Can you go buy me cigarettes

She rasps from the dark cocoon of wherever she is with her demons 
On the mattress on my bedroom floor

I take my school uniform off and change into civvies
Put on some mascara so the 7/11 guy will sell to me

Come back with the goods 

She’s still there 
Deep in her turmoil
But also she sees me
As I bring her lighter 

I was raped
She drops it
Like a bowling ball through a glass table
My feet beneath.

I feel the impact
On my childhood
On my innocence
On my place as her daughter 

As she discloses
For the first time in her life
Nearly fifty years old 
Her vast history of horrific sexual assault

In graphic detail 
Of the violence
Of the humiliation 
Of the insidious threats to silence her 

A suite of stories 
That I now see as almost universally thematic for so many women

But her first telling
Was my first hearing

And already I had my own
Silenced stories
Tucked away inside so many poky corners of my soul

She draws on her dart
Exhaling putrid smoke
Into my asthmatic face 
She’s feeling that relief 
Of no longer carrying it alone 

Meanwhile
My feet feel the bruise of the bowling ball impact
My soul is writhing with the discomfort of being made the listener 

She looks at my face
Hers switches up and she blinks
Dons the facade of adult
And says

You’d better put your uniform on and get to school


Copyright 2021

Posted on

It’s ok 

Actually
It’s so totally ok
That I’m tired

It’s a massive job
Being a human

It’s a massive job 
Being a parent
To small humans 


The world is in utter turmoil


So much doesn’t make sense


Our innately, exquisitely intelligent children can see this so clearly 


And they know


They know how to pull us back to the truth of our reality 


They know how to pause in wonder at 
birdsong, starlight, new fungi 


They know how to play


They know how to feel


They know how to take their sweet time



What they don’t know 
is how fucking uncomfortable it is
to be stretched across the chasm of their knowing of what’s real
and our adult bondage to
the bullshit reality of late-stage capitalism 



It’s so totally ok that I’m tired

Copyright 2021