leni‘s swagger

It's complex.    I want to shake the hand that slapped me, and I want to burn the hand that slapped me. I long to see you as a child. I want to see you smile with baby teeth, scraped knees and wearing a shirt with your favourite superhero. I want to see you next to your parents and meet your brother. I need to see you as a person, a son, a s ibling, a child.  I need to see you as something other than your hands.  I imagine your way to schoo l. I think about your favourite subjects and childhood nemesis. I try to guess your favourite smell and the food you would crave when you were feeling sad. I make a mental note of old songs I think you would have danced to or turned the radio off for. In none of t hese fantasies do you grow up to drink or get mad.  I don’t exist in these thoughts, imagining that my presence might be the reason for your ang er.  I want to believe that you were a happy boy. A curious angel, striving to make a change. A friend who admits...

  Do His Eyes Recognise His Hands?  - Maybe we  should just hit each other  if communication  doesn’t  work anymore .  His eyes refuse to meet mine. The boy in front o f me avoids my gaze as he fantasises about dragging my cold corps e on the dirty pub floor. I think . I  actually  don’t   know  what he imagines  doing to me , because  he’s  too scared to look at me after  dropping something that feels like a bomb  o n us.  His boyish smile  doesn’t  seem  to agree, and his legs that refuse to stop shaking even after he takes a sip of his beer betray him. The boy is  nervous; he is scared after his joke. A dark, unfunny, rude, obscene sentence makes him shiver. His eyes that refuse to look at me  aren’t  mean . They  don’t  want to hit me, instead they roam around the room, praying to find something distracting enough to avoid my reaction.  What is  my ...