I’m reading Matthew Dickman,
keeping my sunglasses on,
listening to new arrivals lament
their eye problems to reception.
A man in denim, jacket pinned
with rock god badges has the attention
of the waiting room, says the weekend
in A&E was busier still, here till midnight
the nurses agree – it was diabolical.
Paul is back Monday, losing his sight
jokes about seeing everyone in double.

About the author:
Rachel Burns is a writer living with disability and chronic illness. She lives on the outskirts of Durham, England. Her debut poetry pamphlet, A Girl in a Blue Dress, is published by Vane Women Press. She is published in literary magazines including Butcher Dog, Mslexia, The Rialto, The Moth, and Magma Poetry. Rachel was shortlisted in the 2017 Keats-Shelley Prize, came second in The Julian Lennon Prize For Poetry 2021, and was longlisted in The National Poetry competition 2021.

Disability Poetics Course: https://www.creativefuture.org.uk/events/disability-poetics/

this ghost and me,
we’re both mourning the same thing
 
we miss
the smell of rain evaporating
off hot pavement
 
air conditioner blast
shivering against sweaty air
 
fingers sticky ice cream dripping
soles melting onto pavement
 
we miss
our bodies in the city

Don’t talk to me about the dam and the dreamscape and
spires scuba divers stand on like statues
of some long forgotten sea goddess.

Don’t talk to me about the flood
that devoured my hometown.

The stopped-up river swallowed the main street,
and our tails split into two
unsteady legs;
dislocated, we crawled onto the rocky shore.
In winter, we walk out onto the ice,
towards the island we can never reach in daylight.

You’ve never waded those half-drowned streets,
slick with snowmelt
but they flood my memories.
​
So don’t talk to me about magic
or the prayers I say to strange gods,
or the broken glass grinding in my knees,
or the language I speak in my dreams.

     I’ve had my boss battles with exes & ecstasy,
almost lost my lives & pressed my perks,
      but in real life, you cannot change difficulty 
 
Zeffo checkpoints, slave to shapes 
& analog sticks, new cut scenes,
            I’m stronger with armours, upgrades & allies
 
but the final boss taunts, taking
names like Coronavirus & BXO
                                   & PTSD – I am not ready
 
           they know the force better
 (& their weapons are way cooler);
so, for now, I hold this ground
 
& I’ll always remember when I heard you say
                       ‘when an obstacle is in the way,
                                           it becomes the way’