Content warning: mention of blood
BIGGEST FOOL OF ‘EM ALL!
Excerpts from a zine of poetry about grief and the passing of time, by Pluto Ferri
Instagram: @slimpyhead
If I could do it all again, be 17 again,
I’d punch myself in the nose
And have the time of my life!
Drinking A Whole Cigarette
If I run and fall will you be the blood that comes from my graze, that stains my pants and I can’t wash it out.
You feel like the glaring sun when you look directly at it, and I can’t stop looking directly at it.
My blood lingers mid-air, my blood that is you. My blood lingers mid-air, will you catch it too.
My tongue is twisted and my heart isn’t beating, it has lost its air. I look in the mirror and it’s you that’s there. My blood lingers mid-air and I wait to catch it but it has to drop sometime.
You protect me and save me and hold me and care, then why is the blood pouring from my knee, why is it staining my pants. I can’t wash the stain, I can’t stop the blood, a pool in my soul that you fill up.
I stumble my words and the words have less meaning,
but would you have one last moment with me outside,
drinking a whole cigarette.
Tuesday Afternoon
Maybe the passing of time is best when it’s on your own accord, not the palpitations of your chest.
The blood in our boots doesn’t stop for the steps we wished we took, the steps to the beat of time.
The passing of time doesn’t stop for the death of a friend or the coffee stain on your favourite shirt. There is no inbetween, no time to breathe so I bear a love that drowns in the vase I left you in.
The passing of time begs for growth even when the past is just a stabbing pain in your chest, maybe it should beg for forgiveness instead. The passing of time is the fence I could barely stretch over as a kid, the springtime sun I catch in my senses, the Tuesday afternoon on the steps waiting for you.
The passing of time is the mucus and phlegm stuck to my chest, filled with the grief I can’t unfold, dripping into my stomach and filling my lungs. Each breath isn’t possible with you. The passing of time comes up like a cough, abrasive and rough yet you crave it each time. The gentle release of the badness inside.
The passing of time leaves you waiting forever on that step you once sat, for a soul that won’t come, because it isn’t that Tuesday afternoon and maybe for a moment you feel it – it’s as if they’re still alive.
Pluto, they/them