Un-Morning Person
by and published in Edition Four of Pomegranate
I would like to be fresh again, not this, not
peeling a dress from sallow arms, all awkward
elbows and fingers dry from clutched cigarettes.
My mouth tastes of night, of gum, of tongue,
I am sickly from hours of talk and stale air.
The shower seems to ring, alarmed, the water
heaving and convulsing over my shoulders.
I am always the same at this time of un-morning
away from the streetlights sliding all over the city.
Just me in my skin again, scrubbed and scentless
and new here: quiet, white.
Nina Bahadur
Nina Bahadur is seventeen years old. When she is not writing or sleeping, she is procrastinating studying for her A-Levels in Biology, English and Fine Art. In August she will be moving to America to take on the American writing scene from Princeton University. She was awarded Third Prize in the Christopher Tower Poetry Competition 2008.