nothing’s changed, I still love you, the song shapes me back to notting hill gate and secondhand
gemstones for less than twenty pounds
there was a time I was being flown around to do nothing
on someone else’s dime
when I discovered nine out of ten people made a point of cutting their nails the night before leaving on
a plane, or a train,
get this: there was a long stretch of time you could fly to london
and imagine a love there sometimes
imagine you could one day come home to someone you loved there
a daniel, a quiet face, blue eyes
or, fashion a new life for yourself, stun, a life where you would
be able to navigate the underground
a life of basement tiles never closing in, thrumming water
a life of amphetamines and pleasure, simple good, of being well
and over time you’d be recognized as belonging
and over time you’d morph and fuse with the tunnels,
you’d spring up up up elongate your beautiful face would sprout wires, develop a frame of past and
glass
and over time you’d be careless enough to find a diamond in the rough
and be blissful at the taste of it

Barbara Genova

Barbara Genova (she/her/they) is the pen name of a public woman who went private. Poetry written as Barbara has been published / is forthcoming at The Daily Drunk, surfaces.cx, Anti-Heroin Chic, Sledgehammer Lit, Scissors and Spackle, The Final Girl Bulletin Board., Fahmidan Journal. She can be found on Twitter @CallGenova and on Instagram @thebarbaragenova