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

Kali Richmond is a neurodivergent writer and video artist living in York. Her poetry has featured or is upcoming in Under the Radar, The North, PERVERSE, Gutter Magazine, Crow of Minerva, and elsewhere. Her debut pamphlet, Gradual Reduction to Bone, is published by Nine Pens (2021). She is a current recipient of Arts Council DYCP funding, exploring poverty and addiction through poetry and film.