AEIOU
I guess I just didn’t realise
how important this was for you
I would have worn a cleaner shirt
and my good shoes
I would have washed my hair
and listened to you more carefully
when you talked about the elections
how it impacts the world
your garden
and our relationship
I should have paid more attention
when you told me about your projects
and why you wanted to change your name
so that it was only vowels
how did I not see it
even after it arrived?
You were in conversation
with the horses
that’s where you went on weekends, right?
It was a lot of hassle
buying all those books
it was a lot of money
when we didn’t read them
didn’t have time to even look at each other
even through a screen.
We wore shorts
because it was hot in our home
but it was cold outside.
Frog Karma
It is likely that I am cursed with
frog karma
for killing so many of them
when I was a girl
collecting them
dumping them in buckets
forgetting about them all over again
doing what kids do
not doing things
that don’t conform to fun
learning things by surprising
your mom and dad
saying motherfuck!
And mother hears you and says
Fuck! Where did you learn that
and gives you a tap on your behind
which is more out of love than
anything else more cruel.
You are reminded of this later
in the early 2000s
when you fell in love over MSN
and he said things
you don’t like to repeat even now
but for some reason it was
better then.
You are reminded when you
fell in love in real life
and encountered real life spanks
which you didn’t like because
you thought about forgotten frogs
about saying motherfuck
when you found all your
amphibian friends dead in a bucket
and your mom doing what she did
out of love
but also out of something else.
Jessica Schouela is originally from Montreal, Canada and is currently pursuing her MA at UCL in History of Art. She has been published in Metatron, Electric Cereal, Squawk Back amongst others. To read more of her writing, you can visit her blog: http://cabbagemoths.blogspot.co.uk
