Written by Daisy Chadwick

Chalk 

When I was wee wee mama said
‘baby, you do yours and I’ll do mine’ 
and walked out the door with another one.

I nibbled my nails and sucked on my hair,
till I hacked up soft fur balls 
and had nothing left but raw stumps.

But I didn’t like the taste of myself
in my mouth, didn’t fancy anything 
so fresh or so sweet.

I wanted something to chew on,
something to bite. So I went to the stalls
that sell apples and melons and carrots

but they tasted like customers,
picked up and put down again,
left in the sun to fester and burst.

I went to the south to fill up my stomach,
and toddled on broken glass
till I put a fistful of sand in my mouth.

But the sand didn’t cut it,
its texture too shallow,
taste too much like sunbathers and chips.

So I grew and I groaned, at night
my teeth ground together
and began to wear down to my gums.

Now I live on a different coast
where I have found my delight,
gentle alkaline with hollow crunch.

White cliffs that sink deep in the ground,
I can taste your salt and your stillness,
your texture is rest and the passing of time.

Daisy is a student of creative writing, currently living in Paris. She loves writing poetry because it is a place where all things exist alongside each other. She sometimes struggles to explain what she means in conversation, and finds that writing can be a good way to help combat this frustration.