Rosie Allabarton is an English writer who lives in Berlin. A graduate of Birkbeck's Creative Writing MA, she is currently working on her debut novel about the family unit and the strange things it does to us. When she's not writing, or trying to write, she likes to eat overpriced banana bread with black coffee. You can see more of Rosie's writing here.
Budapest
Made up for two
I intervene
taking blankets to the living room;
that grey area that grows
between us.
My dog bed
is wet through
from hot tea and
we clasp chairs close to our chests
like the children you
categorically don’t want
and I do.
We laugh, eyes
on the ground that is temporarily ours;
mine wet, my belly loud
and insincere, chest puffed out
and, catching myself,
I breathe out –
the sound a soft whistle through
gapped teeth. Mine.
On the other side
of the partition door
you Buda, me Pest,
your cough is a bark in the darkness
and later
(ear to wall)
I catch you calling out across the Danube.
Murder
There have only been waking states;
holding the morning back with my hands
holding the curtains closed
against thick light
that becomes so easily thin
and frayed at the edges.
It slips through my fingers,
clings to the particles of dust
that lurch through the air;
a crowd
grounded, small patches of joyful filth
making a home on my clothes and skin.
His top lip curls when he says my name and
standing too close he asks a question
he doesn't want an answer to,
the sound of his own voice pearls
in his cloth-ears
sodden with vowels.
The king of that unwanted morning
asks how I am and laughs
when I answer, laughs
before I'e even answered
and under the covers
dust under dust
I kill him nightly in my dreams.
horse
My hair was a crown and
I was a horse
as you walked past the house
and I galloped across the road.
Hooves against glass
I peered through the café window, only
to see us eating eggs
in the dark;
our smiles glowing over coffee,
butter that I thought was cheese and
across the years
that have passed.
It was silent inside and
I snorted.
The chairs were stacked high
on the tables that were islands
and menus fluttered like leaves
to the freshly washed floor.