Jessie Millson

writer, actor, creature

Trust, truth, and tequila.

Could you date someone of the opposite class?

Does class actually determine politics?

What happens when the patriarchy walks into a bar?

Hang on, this was meant to be funny...

poetry

the self centred section

Jessie Millson (she/they)

collection 1;

waiting for what

Waiting For What is a collection written over 2020-2022 and one I hope to publish at some point soon! I will welcome any feedback and advice with open arms! Contact me on Twitter in the link above or on instagram @JessieMillson !!

waiting for what

This little spider is so cute.

Tiger striped

And jiggling her ass in the wind

As the

web shakes

like bass.

What's she waiting for?

All the flies are at home,

Stinkin round my buzzin bin.

She looks hungry.

I wish the wind would stop.

Must be like a waltzer on that silk wire.

i saw a man in a suit on the seafront

published - lucent dreaming, issue 11.

The sea is rising, slowly.

Currently at ankle height.

I do not know whether he stands

To admire beauty or await the rising tide.

I wish to wait and watch the sea

Climb higher on his grey suit

Until the ash wool resembles

Charcoal after a fire. To watch it

Reach the knees, hips, elbows…

But I do not wish to see him drown.

The image is so serene, so meant,

That it would be like burning poetry,

Scrapping art, to save him now.

His knees are wet.

So I watch, for a moment more

Then go

Wandering back across the pier

And wonder for a week or two

How high the tide rose.

Safety Just above my pillows

Or In The down of my duvet.

Comfort in the way our boots

Move together, in syncopation

With the fellow ginger voice

Blasting through the little kitchen speaker.

‘Let the children lose it.’

The speaker’s too small for a youth this big.

Our voices drown him out.

They don’t blend either.

He’s above us, in the stars like he says.

You’re in the ground, grounded,

And I am floating just above the kitchen sink.

safety

I will always be here.

And I will always hear this when I

Understand your jibberish scrawlings

That bombard my phone

On your crawl home from 11 jägers.

I can understand the vein on your temple

When they talk about your home town,

Or football, or the queen.

I can understand the fiery tybalt,

The boundaries of family and friend,

The first pint we shared.

I don’t mean to say I get it

Because we are not the same.

But I’m semi fluent

And I hope that’s enough for now.

Tell me how you can bear hug me

Without danger. Tell me how

Im comfortable here. Tell me how

I feel like dandelion seeds

Settling.

quiet walk home from the club

Walking home

The angles of the buildings are off

As if some prodigy child

Has found the playdoh

And created this

World.

They’ve had a tantrum at the cathedral,

Couldn’t get the bell tower right

And hit their hammer hands right down on the spire last week.

I don't know how they made this playdoh sky.

Must be a dome.

Maybe that's why

It's so quiet inside.

They’ve put their laughter in the street lamps.

It’s bottled, trapped inside glass

That wouldn’t smash

But can’t be heard

on a lighthouse near eype

I shout across the bay, a hue you cannot yet hear

A yellow hope you cannot yet comprehend.

You, in the light, needless of a future.

You, in the light, needless of assurance.

In the light, your face turns and goes

Towards the light, towards the light.

You do not need me where I stand.

And you will not

Until the house grows dark

And you cannot see the shore.

You do not need me yet

And yet I stand,

Ready.

softer.

I want my world to be knitted.

I mean, I think

People would be kinder

If they had woolen nails and teeth.

If a handshake felt like a pillow fight

And sex felt safe.

I think I’d like a knitted world

Where nothing's at stake.

dis-card-ed

I collect all of daddies post cards

I have boxes and boxes

I made him once.

Put all the postcards out until it looked as big as him on the floor.

The speed Iimit

I cross to avoid

That tells me 20.

Go at this pace.

I can’t even drive yet

But feel myself flying

Over speed bumps in the road.

I thought they were graves as a kid.

Go at this pace. 20.

Wait until you can drive.

To run any faster

Would be a silly idea.

Go at this pace.

flying through

I pass a cafe and speed up

Because I’m scared of how slow

The old Italians are driving

Spoonfuls of soup into

Such patient mouths,

Waiting for the sweetness

Between soupy sour conversation

On the topic of how promiscuous

The kids are these days.

Memories of young moans

Waste away

Into greying ash on their plate.

I start to run.

london , a

Go at this pace.

I’m scared if I controlled my speed

I wouldn’t move at all.

I’m scared if I cared at all

I’d lose the need to sprint.

Go at this pace.

Fly. Catch your breath

In moments between

The numbers.

Stop

For no one but yourself.

I’ll learn to drive soon

And go much faster

But my legs are pretty good

For now.

while back

response to

'grief is a thing with feathers'

Indeed, grief is love’s

Climax. I have never loved as much as

In grief. I’ve got Hughe’s crow KR-KR-

KRAWLING through my veins, turning my

Blood to bile. I have not felt this

Kind of grief since leaving home,

No, since they left, no,

Since the side of that motorway,

Hurling and wretching

Into a field of curious cows -

Oh,

it all happens again

Doesn’t it?

It repeats.

I’d like this grief to last a long time though

Id like to be acquainted with heart ache

To know what I staked was

Worth this.

first and final reactions

love's gonna hurt in the morning

The day you touched me

I turned into silk

Slipping, scrumpled, To the floor.

Sliding into slumber I cannot escape

As you drape me, scarf,

Round your tree stump neck.

I bend to you as a stem in the sun,

Following this course, utterly yours.

knock knock

Silence by the violence of the sirens

On the road outside,

I wait by my window

To see you. Would you climb up

the gutter if I couldn’t muster

The courage to open the door?

I know that you wanted to see me

To tell me you couldn’t see me

Anymore. I’m silently waiting

For your words to break me,

I’m sleeping beauty,

The pinprick ran through me,

I’ve been told my ending before.

I’m waiting for you

To battle the thorns

And climb up to the window

To kiss it all better.

To wake up would mean

The sirens that scream

Are really there, flying down my road.

There’s people in danger

And I cannot seem

To answer the door to you.

Everything is slow.

What if I said no

When you eventually tell me

You won’t see me again.

What if I said no

And I don’t let you go

See, we signed a contract

Where ‘friends’ just won’t do.

I’m crying whilst waiting for you

And your words. My wails

Like sirens because you are my world

And my wound. I want to see you,

That’s always true.

But I hear a knock on my door

And can’t help thinking

‘Too soon.

anton du beke kind of heartache

I knew your body so well

That I formed that perfect shadow of you,

Hole in my house,

When you ran through the wall

And left.

Could even see the frizz at the back of your hair

That now pulls the plaster

Into grizzly flecks round the bedroom.

I have to dodge them when I go to bed.

sillylittlementalhealthwalk

On escaping definition

How should I know

How sweet the sorrow

In the sweetness of the sound

Of a lark in this park can be

If they keep taking birds names

Out of the dictionary?

How am I meant to write my poetry

If the meaning of natures reality

Keeps changing with the

Growing concrete.

Secrete my senses then.

Block me in then with the men

That walk to the office

At 7am to meet with

Their surviving adolescence

And their computer screen

And pen and stumble towards

A world that may

Never have needed them.

Fill me up, then,

With screens

Not buttercups,

I don't know what that means.

This world is growing greyer

By the hour

And I'm tired

Of waiting for then.

I write from the confines

Of a love sentence.

My words to you disappearing

Into these plaster prison walls

And escaping through the bars

To the outside, to no one.

love sentence

Sometimes I whisper them through

My little food door

Thinking they might reach you

Should you be on the late shift.

I wish I could hate you

For locking me up

But instead I suck

Loveless air

Through my little food door

And hope you won’t ignore

The groans and moans

You heard from me before.

I hope one night

You’ll punish me.

Slam my face to this

Concrete floor

And kick my ribs in-

I don’t need them anymore.

I want to feel your palm on my face again.

Gun to the head; ‘I want love, or death.’

for amelia

Sweet as the scent of tea

That rises from the kitchen

And warms the passage

From sleep to waking sleep;

Bitter as the books

That made her cry,

Or laugh, or weep;

Musky as the scent of those pages

Is the dawn that wakes her gently,

Spilling gold and amber

Onto her tender face.

Oh, what a beautiful day!

i promise the sun will rise tomorrow

One day,

You will wake up

And it will be summer again.

You will not have noticed

The hours growing,

Or the leaves.

You will not have realised

The nights are not so long

And the days not so grey.

You will step onto the threshold,

Bracing for cold,

And notice

Warmth has returned.

And you will wish for eternal sunshine.

collection 2;

and then they went home

bzzzzz

do you think birds on telephone lines

feel odd,

sitting on all that energy?

I do.

fucking hell

A man once looked me in the eyes,

Precisely,

And told me he sees my insides

When he fucks me.

He feels the curves of it all, sure,

But he also sees the walls

Collapsing,

Folding in and retreating

For him.

He sees red in darkness.

The lights are out

And he has a golden desk lamp

That makes me look 2D

As the drawings of teeth

And feet

And tits

Climb up from pages

Stare at us.

He sees inside,

Pushing, prodding,

Inspecting.

I am not a partner but a patient

And he is disecting,

Slowly,

As if in love.

But his gloved instrument

Is merely moving

As it should, in sequence

With the red and the black,

Pulsating.

Where the incision began,

I try to hold him tighter

To remind him of

My beating heart

A little too far below his.

He is looking in my eyes,

Seeing

The freckle on the back of

My retina

The strain on

My optic nerves.

I think the blue of his eyes

Is the same shade as the river we swam in.

He sees in mine

The brown of my father and my mother's green.

shut up, brenda

I can't sleep.

Something is eating at my feet. I think it's Brenda.

She won't shut up. Shut up Brenda.

Yesterday, I was a child again.

I could have flown a kite. I should have flown a kite.

Today, something is eating at my feet.

I tune into the radio, playing

'Get well soon, my lovely husband, Dave,'

And wonder what my wonder woman

Is cooking for tea.

I tune into how that nurse with the fringe

Is getting on with her divorce

Then Brenda chimes in-

Shut up, Brenda.

Perhaps the nurse will forget Brenda in a week,

Perhaps she has already forgotten me -

It's ten past three. They're late.

Ben has already shouted twice for codeine.

Something is eating at my feet.

I'm going to go to sleep now and

Hopefully,

Tomorrow,

I will wake up a child

again

pre drinks

Crumbs

On the countertop

Through my fucking fingers.

Thistles. What the fuck -

Shit. Just clean up your shit.

And, while we're on shit

What the fuck are

The millions of smells in this house?

Like some alleyway in Soho

I don't want to know

Just clean it up.

And, while we're on clean,

I called mum today

The signal is still vibrating

Through my face,

Twisting my eyebrows and mouth

Into whatever this clapped

Thing in the mirror

Is meant to resemble?

Fuck, I'm late.

And I'm late.

I'll buy a test tomorrow.

Fuck, I have a test tomorrow.

Cover, no, smother yourself

In makeup tonight

Then at least you'll look right

Under club lights.

Specimen on their metal table,

Exposed and scared

As the doctors stare

At my insides

Through the bassline.

Fuck, I'm late. Run.

Brush your teeth!

Oh my God, I feel so much better now. I'm so sorry you had to witness that.

we rolled our hearts in paper bags

We rolled our hearts in paper bags

And stuffed them in our pockets

Amongst the array of junk

We'd picked up that day,

Thinking we'd keep the moment

Forever.

We tried to blink when the image was right

As if our minds could capture the night

Like film, like pixels, like ink.

Laughter sinks into the sepia of our night on the town

When your trousers got soaked

Because the child in your soul splashed

Laughter up from a muddy puddle.

We lit cigarettes on the harbour

And hoped the smoke stain wouldn't last

Like the papers that disappear

With each unwatched toke.

We hoped the paper in our pockets

Would burn slowly,

Would protect our vulnerable hearts

In that moment.

i come from i come from i come from

I come from a place

Within which every family name

Is on one of our benches.

Proudly. IN CAPS LOCK.

I know all of them,

Where to go to check our their view.

A newer name in the town

Where I come from

Wouldn’t notice them.

Would perhaps enjoy the view a lot more.

They’d be able to sit on benches

And stare from their own experience, paint the trees themselves.

I just think it’s sad these names on benches

Spent their whole lives here and chose,

Or were chosen to keep their

Names and graves stuck in our mud.

Bleach and orange juice

Make a metallic

Tang in the back of my throat

Where it’s swollen

From holding down my anxieties for this many days.

She hasn’t drunk her orange juice

And the plastic cup has left

Little wet rings where she’s tried to move it around the tray.

Mmmmrrreurrrgh, I hear.

She’s singing.

Hello, Darling, she says.

But my feet are still on the polished floor, blue with flecks of darker blue

Like the bottom of a pool. It’s so clean here, polished perfectly

And I feel bad that my feet are muddy from cutting through

The hedges from the car par to the door.

I wanted to save time.

christmas day OJ

mmmmmmmm.

Very clean, but it does smell a bit like wee too.

I say hello and cross the floor leaving footprints

And hold her hand. She’s held my hand all my life

And now mine outweighs hers so many times over.

I am very much holding her hand now.

Hello, I say again.

I swallow the metal,

Officially in charge.