The Most Awful
Thoughts are like a menu and it’s true
no one orders every item. I’d never choose
the coffee cake with candied ginger –
that combination of polished bitterness
and spice exhausting the wet of the tongue.
This train is so dimly lit, is it any wonder
we slip into talking about the worst times?
We both whisper the most awful
afraid to let go of the words in case
they might want to re-enter our brains
like birds on rewind, skimming back to the start,
the egg in all its fragility –
hold it up to the light, it is almost blue.
Natalie Thomas
Natalie Thomas is a young poet writing about mental health and identity. Her poem ‘The Most Awful’ explores the struggle of opening up about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Natalie is currently working on a new pamphlet about her experience of OCD and, in her spare time, writes for a travel poetry and 35mm photography project: www.penandbulb.com. Her pamphlet 'Hiraeth' was shortlisted for the 2016/17 New Poet’s Prize.
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