FRANCIS ASCHOFF
Juliet on the balcony waiting 4 u
I have to feed the ugliest pigeon in Midland Park bc what does it say abt my humanity if I
don’t? I chew Mrs Higgins cookies in the back of my throat and spit it out on the concrete for
them / Like these birds, I am impatient for nothing but love / Love that tastes worse but is
better for you / Love as useful as an iTunes voucher / Love that causes insanity like bread
crumbs in a bed / I hold a daily 1 pm press conference to let the New Zealand public know, I
am searching / Declare I am ready to be ensnared by whoever knows how to gargle and spit /
Every time my phone pings I think it’s someone professing their love for me / But it’s always
just another fucking Briscoes sale
Like these birds, I am willing to beg and barter / Keep swiping right till my body hits a
window pane
Try to wash the mould off your sister’s shower curtain with my bare hands
I swap my sweetest milk teeth for a stale $2 bag of milk bottles
Learn to associate comfort with danger and hunger with passion
Like these birds, I’m not used to a full plate
And yet, I am unwilling to be satiated
I grow a second and third stomach,
just to pass the time
Manifest someone
who will not reply to my texts
Dance the rite of spring
and sacrifice myself to the earth
just for you to say my name
I dream of holding a horse’s face
in my hands,
of wrapping my limbs in a glowing sunset
& peeling it from the sky,
of giving you a lemon from my tree
I dream of dying
from an empty stomach
I am impatient
for nothing
but
love
*Note: ‘just another fucking Briscoes sale’ is a line inspired by a now-deleted tweet by NZ poet and author Hera Lindsay Bird.