MESS

By: Devon Webb

My duvet is on the floor

& I haven’t emptied my rubbish bin

there’s dust on the shelves & hair on the carpet

& crumbs between my sheets

what I mean is I’m a mess

& I’m embarrassed by my own lack of composure but

I curl into the thought of you anyway

cos it takes me away from this

box of a room which howls all through the night

my heart a wind tunnel & you

blowing into me & out the other side

leaving me shaken &

displacing the cobwebs from the roof

maybe when you are here we’re not here at all

but in our own projection of paradise

where everything is air & light

a bright fracture in my dusty claustrophobia

a perfect stillness in my cluttered mind.

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Devon Webb (she/her) is a writer & editor based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her award-winning work has been published extensively worldwide & revolves around themes of femininity, vulnerability, anti-capitalism & neurodivergence. She is a staff writer for Erato Magazine & Pulp Lit Mag, an editor for Prismatica Press, & a founding member of The Circus, a collective prioritising radical inclusivity within the indie lit scene. She can be found on social media.

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