Hung-over Fairytale: 6:38
Formal introduction to the acid taste in the back of my mouth:
Aspirin. Water. Cheese sandwich. “Likewise. A pleasure.”
Hands shaking, I curtsy, grab the edge of the sink.
I’d better ignore the mirror and the strange frog
sitting amid the ruffled sheets, rubbing his eyes.
I leave the bed unmade.
Later, on my way to the station in the early-morning rain,
a raven on the rooftop: ‘She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be a pigeon?
Your wet, black feathers are not the quill that writes my story.’
I board the train at the very last moment. And sit –
thinking about white knights, and the cracks and dents in my nail polish.
By Anne Runkel
Anne Runkel is a young part-time poet and musicologist making a living as Administrator and Receptionist in London. She adores Getrude Stein and likes to tap her feet to avant-garde jazz and fresh indie sounds. Suffering from Cosmopolitan Nationality Disorder, she finds it hard to remember whether she is from Hamburg, London, Kiev or just a tiny island off the coast of France.
