"You're a Monster!" - Three Poems by Charlotte Geater

Swollen Lip

I think, fights, steady in my seat
lining up the contents of my pencil case:
HB pencil, 2B, H, 3B, 6B (no lead), red,
a fountain without a cartridge, dry,
pencil sharpenings, blue, three small highlighters,
rubber, sharpener, yellow biro, blue biro,
black biro, a red pen that I stole
I’m thinking of punching someone in the eye.

I write a note to myself in red –
no, yellow, yellow’s better, harder
to read. I write

            and you’ve got to stay
       peaceful, remember
       to always be a pacifist

I think that’s what always did it.
I’d remember the and, but not what came before
I’d have a handful of change to give
a customer in the pasty shop

        and I’d want to smack her
       with the money, the metal.
       No, I never fought with anyone.

I tell people how I feel, sometimes.

The Hairdresser's Boy

“You’re a monster!” he said, because I cut off his hair without asking for permission.

“You’re a monster,” I said, “look at your hair, it’s all over the place.”His hair had cascaded down his neck and throat and sat in clumps on his collar.

“You’ll want to wash,” I said, but I took him to the zoo where we fed elephants and giraffes with unripe fruit because we just wanted to make them hurt.

“I hate the baby animals,” he said, “Don’t they make you want to vomit?”

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked then brushed his hair from his eyes.

The hairdresser’s boy made me take him home and his Dad called me a savage, said

“Do not ever handle scissors again, do not ever touch them ever again,” but I? I wouldn’t listen.

Cautionary Tales

“Condoms are like barbed wire fences for sperm,” you said, “they’re effective when they haven’t been around for too long.”

“Things are different now,” I answered, “sex is boring, one of many dreary things that the media is attempting to sell us. Advertisements make me hate contraception. I want to confound expectations.”

“Do you remember,” you asked, “kissing me through the school fence? My lips bled as I walked home and I didn’t speak to you for the rest of the year.”

“No,” I said, “you have confused me with someone else.”

Charlotte Geater was a winner in the Foyle Young Poets competition in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and a runner up in the Christopher Tower in 2006 & 2008. She is on the editorial staff for Pomegranate magazine.