jealousy

from bra strap marks at the end of hectic days
to the imprint of a hot water bottle’s grid
we’ve come a long way, body.

and you take exception to the way i look at other girls
envious of their brisk stride and their late-night-smoke-filled-party-girl carelessness
and you tell me so.

yes, i’m listening.

you don’t need to wonder if i know what you’re doing
i know
you want me all to yourself
you’re the jealous type
and who can blame you

i’m sure there were times i abandoned you
made you feel unloved
times when i took liberties with you
and i do apologise
i do

but i want out
from under your thumbs
from under your bent back and your tired, tired blood
from under your limp hair, your empty stomach
your spreading flesh.

co-dependency never suited me
i’d be better as a floating brain
better as a stream of bits
digitized
uncorruptable

but instead i roam these four rooms
rearrange the furniture
die a bit more quickly than planned

and we betray one another every day
you and i

trying to disentangle to be rid
and the elements come apart like bits of string.

Jetlag

2 am at dad’s new house, where i have never been
the jetlag when i came here was immense
now it is there i feel out of time
the backwards math to the place i came from
what time is it what time is it
never a casual reckoning
vital, somehow

now it is that place which does not know me
friends i had still know my girl-voice but
the only place i have been a woman is here
and the girl-self seems unlikely, impossible
though secretly i know i would go to her if she weren’t so thin
so eager for my sleepy embrace.

j a ross

lives in Edinburgh, Scotland with her partner Louise and her two rabbits, Luna and China, and Salem the cat. she is studying for a BA in Publishing, and her work has been published in "Scrivener","Anarchist Angel", "The Amethyst Review" and "The Dragonfly Review".

she also made this online journal.