WAITING FOR THE RAIN TO PASS

Kali Richmond

everyone’s pretending
to support
independence while consoled
by getting exactly
the coffee

they expect distressed
columns a decade behind
Dalston
where I lied to myself
even then

how embarrassing
to lose interest in inked skin
but really
I couldn’t care less
about my façade

it’s a spaniel
stronghold more people
wearing glasses than not
indicative
of tech jobs

I can’t write
extensively about my twenties
when
dickhead
would suffice

she gave me The Road
to Wigan Pier
as if to say my version
of poverty
is soft

somewhere there are kids
boring miles
beneath the surface
developing
godly bodies

that we’ll never see