I am a sweaty peasant
Me and the girls, smelling like sour sweat and Dove and baby wipes, drinking coffee with our sunglasses on.
Me and the girls in our boots and cowboy hats, our tiny shorts and eyelid glitter,
Me and the girls, braless, holding plastic portaloo doors shut for friends and strangers, swapping cigarettes and buying each other drinks,
Me and the girls stopping other girls, telling them they’re beautiful and really meaning it,
Me and the girls laughing so hard we can’t walk, hunched over, squeezing each other’s hands, we document our joy religiously, because art deserves appreciation,
and some of us get a little careless, blushing tomatoes passing round the aftersun. At one point someone has an eyelash in their eye, we blow on it gently to dislodge it, carefully wipe away the mascara,
that’s the kind of easy love we love.
Me at the girls with the list on our phones of where to go next, we move in packs, like lions, no one left behind.
And me and the girls kissing each other on the cheek, the lips, the neck, in the Latin tent at 3 am, passing out hair ties, shining in our sweat,
we can touch each other and not be weird about it.
And someone has lost their phone, we go, “what’s your number, let me call you,” over and over again as we search underneath our feet, buy a burger and settle back-to-back to eat it as the sun rises,
check on the girl who has lost her own girls, tell her to sit with us for a while,
she splits her fries, and together we are hilarious, whooping, happy creatures, talking about little things and stupid things and dark things and very very big things, painting freckles on our cheeks.
Me and the girls, thick with sleep, smelling like sour sweat and Dove and baby wipes, drinking coffee with our sunglasses on. We laugh at you, over and over again, and then you slip right out of our heads and get smeared into the ground. Last night when the queues were too long, one of us pissed on you as we stood around her facing outwards, steady guardians. In our world we’re too loud; there’s no room for a hatred like you.
Me and the girls, we’re too busy loving each other, and laughing
holding hands and not paying you any goddamn attention.
