Barbican Young Poets 2019-20

everybody knows when i am lying
because of the things my nose seems
to say    once i pretended i belonged in the room
& instead of blushing   my nose wept red clots
into the pillowcase for days  & just before
i was first kissed i swore i felt something

warm stirring behind the centre of my face     something
liquid and metallic     in this poem i am not lying
i promise     but stop me if you’ve heard this one before
when we kissed i could feel warm milk at the seams
of my eyelids     ready to fall out in clots
if i opened them into the light of the face     a room

opposite mine     how about this one     in my room
i have a broken hoop earring shaped something
like one of the nose rings off the clotted-
artery aunties by the bus stop     lying
down in the dark last night i swear i could see my
forty five year old self with gold hoop floating before

face     on the verge of orbiting nostril     before
all this     they told me eyes were windows so a room
a pair of old women lives in my face     unprick the seams
holding nose stitched between cheeks & you’ll find something
like twins     heads of greying hair on twin pillows     lying
beneath the skin     with twin clots

of darkness expanding     i used to ask lots
of questions     what did i look like before
my nose fell down the stairs one night?     was lying
any easier?     was my face a different room?
in another poem i’d make up something
about how kissing felt like tumbling again     or seemed

to     have you ever watched the light turn on seamlessly
between waking & sleep? they say that falls clot
your brain until it is just some thing
rattling in your head     nose stapled on afterwards     or before
they say your nose forms first in the womb
before the mouth or the hands     i can’t tell if i am lying