Business and the Usual by Olivia Burgess (17)

​do you remember what i told you about normalcy,
how it’s painting on nail oil infused with the sponge metal of stars
 
and rolling pebbles on trainers pretending they’re fiery hail, or hoping bitter clouds plummet
into my coat pocket. when you asked me your face ignited

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​with neon retinas, tissue paper lashes, questions foaming like scum on a stew.
what is normal though and multicoloured interrogatives
 
i watch your eyes deciding to flash emerald or brown
and the pencil you keep clutching climbs up the graphite scale and slides and slides.
 
nevermind -  you brush my hair with my stagnancy, strap a hand mirror to my palm
and tell me to have more faith. things will happen.
 
this is bad times for our physical selves but we can pick up our souls
like an after school club. a terrible party. a long-lived phone call.
 
i will forget about the normalcy and wait for the words to arrive on strings,
sitting in a waiting room of clefs and staves
 
only I seem to have dropped my pen.
 
mundanity is a spinning plate waiting for the china to give up, heave a final platitude,
sing a grouped sigh. stagnancy is spit on a pillow and a flannel
 
hardening in pulverised air conditioning, swallowing itself like predisposed origami.
normalcy is you, waiting for me to breathe.
 
normalcy is me, trying less and less to just be.