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TOAD

 

i take a pin, press it into the hollow crease of my belly button, 

bloody my lip to silence its injection

 

the pin grows a stain of purple around its entry point, 

squats neatly between my folded skin

 

it keeps hold of all the things i do not want to lose, 

memories, artefacts, things i cannot say out loud

 

i often touch its head, the comfort of it cold under my finger, 

my body slick and fertile, acid yellow seeping like a whisper

 

my secrets hardening behind the chrysalis of skin, 

my stomach dry mud, pond-scented 

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Rochelle Roberts is a writer and editor from London. Her poetry, non-fiction and reviews have been published by Perverse, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Postscript, Streetcake Magazine, Tentacular and The Droth, amongst others, as well as in the book Cusp: Feminist Writing on Bodies, Myth & Magic (Ache, 2021). She has guest edited issues of The Modernist Review and The Debutante, and in 2020 published a zine of short writings and photography called Pooling. Her debut pamphlet is forthcoming with Broken Sleep Books in April 2022.

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