LAURA COONEY

Welcome back, poetry fans! SHINE's newest feature is the talented Laura Cooney. Laura offers us "I Am Here," which is written in a prose poetry/flash fiction style, and "Two Macaws at Lunchtime," which engages with lines like, "always wanting even when they’re getting | they call it need." Thank you, Laura, for allowing me to share your words!

I Am Here

You hold my hand in the dark, tiny fingers, looking for surety. I am here.

It is the pumpkin hour if you believe in fairy tales but here
we are, in no fairytale, on the mattress on the floor in the dark. No pillows.

Your curled up little body needs me and I need you. You cannot know what an anchor you are. Without you I’d billow out into the midnight sky and be gone. It wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing. You ground me.

I listen to your uneven and heavy mouth-breathing and am jealous of how deeply you sleep. How little there is in your head to keep you awake and I while I know that is right, the way it’s meant to be, I am jealous of your tiny head. And though I wish peace like that, all your life. I know it is unlikely but I wish it all the same. I am barely protecting you from reality now, so there is no hope really.

Midnight, dark o’clock and still. Things always seem worse in the sleepless night. Don’t they? I should not hide under the blanket and reach out to anyone right now. With the right word from the other side I may just lose what dignity I have left. It’s sparse, but it’s keeping me afloat on this mattress boat in the Sea of Room, where I, the Captain, lie with my anchor as we sail off on an adventure to Morning. That’s how we’ve made it, but its really an island and there is no way off it. I’m trapped here and one day, you’ll leave me. I’ll make you a raft and push you off.
I will.

I check the phone. The light flickers under the duvet. Speak out?
Don’t!
Hang on.

Till Morning.

There are no hours longer than those after midnight. It’s three whole days till morning and I lie here
awake your
tiny hand in my hand.

My heart beats ... I am here. I am here. I am here.

Two Macaws at Lunchtime

a husk

what is left when the fruit is removed

an empty shell
a cracked nut, innards released

the birds cling on and never leave the branch

emptiness is a vacuum
like a squeezed out child’s food pouch
there is a little left inside, but not enough to keep

always wanting even when they’re getting

they call it need

and you stand at the counter surrounded by people and

voices and this odd noise
but you’ve never felt so alone in your life

the small parrot chips away at the outer kernel and you hear
the other mimicking

it isn’t too late to stop the anger that bubbles through the fog of silence you can hardly see

it isn’t too late to respond better

it isn’t that you don’t love them

it’s just that there is little left inside

once the vessel; pure, passionately chemical and protective yet now
they hang to the branches of the tree with their tiny claws
pecking and squawking, oblivious

there is but a husk

what is left when the fruit is removed

Laura Cooney is a writer and spoken word poet from Edinburgh with work published both in print and online, most recently in HAD and The Voidspace Zine. Her first collection Motherbunnet is out now courtesy of Backroom Poetry, and Waiting/Leaping is coming soon. When she's not writing, she'll be found with her daughters, as close to the sea as possible, seeking shells. There will be ice-cream!

Find Laura on all socials @lozzawriting and at www.lozzawriting.com.