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Simone Gilson


I am 24 years old and studied for a BA English at Royal Holloway University, from which I graduated in 2004. I currently work as a Marketing Administrator for an international publishing company in London. 

 

 

 


Broken

Fault lines run across 
the surface like
cracked pavements
solid surfaces, bending
malleable under
heat, skipping past
broken fragments
shards of bad luck
stretching upwards
to grasp your ankles
lines splitting
across the light
an exit with nowhere
to go, fault lines
that are all mine.

 


Inside

There is a woman in 
the attic, she is locked 
inside. I can feel her 
pacing, pacing frantically 
backwards and forwards. 
She has no where to 
go but like a clock 
ticker forever swings 
back and forth searching for 
a way out. Your prison 
is like a maze they say 
there is an exit route 
but there are no signs 
to offer the how and where. 
I feel her frustration 
bubbling over, building 
up until she screams 
inside my mind for 
room to speak 
reverberations knocking 
soundlessly. But She, is 
the calm one, the reason, 
whose utterance 
means so much more 
than any garbled consonants 
that fall from between 
my lips. She is chanting now. 
Asking for help. I fall silent. 
I have no answers for her.

 


Oranges

You handed out promises 
like presents glistening
fruits, valuable to the 
touch, pockets weighted
down with tree roots
that you refused to let
seed but offered out
like branches of peace,
potential humming 
around the room, cut off
at the stump.

For me you gave an
orange, oval resounding
with positivity. I wanted
to take you away
safe where no one could
harm you. Cherish the 
how’s and dream of 
beginnings. I watched
daily waiting for you
to flourish and grow.

But you did neither, but 
with the warmth
of hope forgotten
began to shrink, 
dying slowly from the
inside out, a vacuum 
turning from yellow 
to white with anger. 
I wanted to swallow you 
whole and lodge the seeds
inside until you remembered us.

As time passed, fallen and
bruised, promises turned into
omens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

copyright © Simone Gilson