Muse Arcade - Carmina Masoliver

Muse Arcade

By Carmina Masoliver Carmina Masoliver is a writer who bridges the gap between the page and the stage; she is a member of several collectives, including this year’s Roundhouse cohort (Kid Glove). Her work often explores the human experience with a raw honesty and quirky humour with which audience members connect and identify.

Carmina runs She Grrrowls at The Gallery Cafe in Bethnal Green and edits the Poetry&Paint anthology. She recently won the Poetry Rivals 16-­‐25 category, with her poem ‘Paradise’, a protest piece to Page 3. Carmina had an Intro booklet published by Nasty Little Press in July 2014.

www.carminamasoliver.com

Contents

Antisocialist The Whipping Teeth Most Likely To Recede Talk Like a Pirate Day on D Block Lure The Honeyboy Thug Paradox The Lie Unlatching The Ode Not Taken A Series of Fortunate Laments

Antisocialist

Believe in biology, bones and brains built on evolutionary theory. Nature as a blade of grass, a sharp tooth, a claw digging backs.

House made of a solitary brick. Smash systems made of bleeding hearts. Handle with gloves. No blood on my hands, no blood on my hands. National cries dumbed down, stuffed into one voice box, changing the tune, twist minds in the liminal, white space of red top stacks simply sensational 72 pt. headlines, sex and drugs and moral panic on family coffee tables to the sound of a happy slap, a smack against a slipper, a broom handle, anything I could get my hands on. ASBO tags, masculine bracelets of bravado, left to burn, locked up and sit down and think about what you've done. Prisons don't need books, never liked school, never liked reading, not gonna change a thing. Like childhood bedtime stories would ever rest my mind. No sleep, no rest, no sleep, no rest for the wicked.

The Whipping Teeth

clenched jaw threat wild beast but hairless wonder win a bet

lucky untouched risk take unafraid to keep in clutch

held to body treated so well so supportive money depleted

gave anything everything such a passionate person shine diamond ring

pearly white gates lashing tongue black hole waits

for forgiveness pleading now the whip of it gives toothache needing

dentist chair drilling shell of a tortoise skin needs filling

Most Likely To Recede

Others open mouthed, feathers in stomachs, lips unturned cartwheels morphed into clown faces, mascara streaked accidents.

Down-­‐to-­‐earth stage dweller, roots tangled in neurones mirror dancing miracles saved this day electric with each hand clap.

Sorry, I've used up all my happiness today climbing three-­‐storey stairs I should be grateful to have the legs, these thunder thighs

and Destiny's Child have made me proud to shake jelly, eat ice-­‐cream every night. Love these molecules of flesh. But like the water cycle -­‐ what goes up, must come down.

Talk Like a Pirate Day on D Block

Me hearty, we stay solid in the hottest of heat. Aye, we do not move our molecules like rubber bands, do not expand like puddles in monsoon season to flood, no, we stay as one.

My beauty, we will not walk the plank to the depths of the darkest nightmare.

Currents pass through us like ghosts, so beware ye fragile hands.

Avast! Ye may not melt us, asphyxiate us into nothingness, make us into dust or invisible air.

We fly like Jolly Rogers and nay, we are not edible -­‐ note the poison should ye try to take a bite.

Lure

eyes stare glossy cover the shelves say you are an animal a defunct brain hemorrhaging sperm thrusting like a boyband

inside rape jokes meet apologists white space blurs lines between text this is where abuse sold as banter for boys

passed round playgrounds as girls learn red lips mimic pussy shapes nipples not made for milk fullness of fat in concentrated areas

paper legs spread party trick splits with side of masturbation shame buried in bodies yet to grow hair from armpits for razorblades and wax

to undo, nature's mistakes computer aided for your pleasure, your meat market fresh for devouring.

Remember, go in head first.

The Honeyboy Thug Paradox

You told yourself to believe

sweet lips, talk in cubes, mouth lined with granulated sugar from the words he speaks, but he tastes like the rim of a mojitio.

You think back to the fire your felt inside of him, how it burned you even then.

Now, the scorch of his slap, the branding of your iron left to cool through what they call domestic.

The green light he shone seemed gallantry, his tight grip on the hands of other men greeted, evidence of the affection he felt for you.

Misuse of words like passion and honour spelt out on headlines. You'd always told yourself you'd walk away if in their shoes. Now here you are, a pair of heels you never thought you'd wear, too small.

They pinch your toes until you curl inside yourself.

His honey has you glued, so during make-­‐up foreplay you say to stop. But he keeps on going, as though the push against his chest is a playground game.

And people compare him to a stranger, say your bedroom's not an alleyway. Argue that the lamplight of your memories was too bright for you to see clearly, that the line is too fine to draw.

And what about him, they say. How evil a mind to ruin a life with such honesty. Or else, cannot fathom why you would bury such secrets when each word you swallow is a nail

in the coffin of another victim. You were lucky; hair grows back, bruises fade, blood dries like court crocodile tears and post traumatic stress disorder is all in the mind, like a lie

you told yourself to believe.

The Lie

Beauty > facts etched in your head, balanced on a tightrope, juggling knives and sticks of fire and nappies and period pain and Excel spreadsheets and Power Point presentations and jokes in the corner of your laughter lines and crow's feet age worse than men.

> compassion and empathy, doors held open regardless of gender, standing up for those less able to stand up for your rights, to care about more than makeup brushes and the laws of attraction, to care about it, yes, but not as much as pay gap percentages, rape as a weapon of war, people discarded like mess swept up with dustpan and brush, along with children inside systems instead of homes all because

beauty > humanity's progression through the emancipation of women, of young girls whose bodies are not their own, because this thing we need to dismantle tells us it's nature, evolutionary biology taught like Darwin was more perfect that God. Follow this religion, its myths in magazine bibles, and you will find happiness in flesh coloured face paints, Gravity-­‐repelling body parts and fabric to cinch in any bits the surgeon might have missed.

Unlatching

House party pulling as many tongues as I could tug, drunk, I asked if I was pretty enough. Before our date he asked if I was the slutty one. Was I supposed to say yes?

Pressed bodies fully clothed, when all I asked to do was talk.

He spoke in imperatives, talk then, toilet tears, cards from his

girlfriend. I was his girlfriend and he never told his mum, while he handcuffed me in plastic and I struggled to break free.

Told me to take off my clothes, so I polka dot dressed the floor; on bed in bra and cotton knickers asked me if I had any self respect. I thought this was foreplay, not that I

wanted it, waited for him drunk on wine and he came after work, came all apologies and after years built up like walls we'd finally knocked down, I wouldn't have cared, but he tried to tell me that he would lose respect for me.

And, well, if that were true, then more fool you. I was true.

True as the words I say, because we need more of it.

And I will not apologise to you for believing the words and misplaced musical notes wrapped round your neck.

I will not say sorry for meeting someone new after repeated clichés down phone-­‐lines and we both knew it wasn't love. And I cannot admit I'm crazy for knocking on your door just to know where I stand.

And I will not regret the tears I cried, will not judge myself for being young and naive and self-­‐medicated.

Because I respected myself more than the boys I chose, didn't think slut was derogatory until it was aimed at me.

It was they who doused my body in shame. The only apologies to myself, for the mistakes I made, for the unlatching.

The Ode Not Taken

As a child you pin-­‐cushioned cheeks, manipulated Toffee Crisps from those you where you saw kindness as weakness.

And you, as a teen, stole men, put on your Christmas list, competed with others, won and saw it as completeness.

I don't know these people now, but I cannot find their missing piece.

Through the children at work I realise the bruises under your bagged eyes, that school was the only place you could scream without a beat.

And you, that our desires were all too similar, our dancer's thighs too eager to bend back for boys, so we both kicked our feet.

Grudges embedded in dry jokes, but I need to move from these memories.

A Series of Fortunate Laments

Born crying, seen by my father in hospital, as my mother held me.

Adrenaline lifts in the air, I flew on swings and blue-­‐yellow hexagonal spider-­‐web climbing frames. Friends dropped out of dance, but red shoes, my toes kept tapping. Bikes and blades and broken bones, I kept moving. I cried every time it was time to leave the park, until I discovered the Internet dial tone, cable TV and games of simulated life.

My flesh too consumed with the touch of heartbreak, my mind spent an equal pie chart of time on an obsession with the opposite sex, and with books.

Pillow stained, my days in the park just go to show I'm just not good at liar letting go.