LEN LUKOWSKI
Strings 2
‘about lighthouses not having to move to save a ship’
September 2024
It’s a Wonderful Life
You want to remember it like a scene from a movie.
Emerging from your friend's tower block at 5am
on Boxing Day to a sky full of snow, wavy on wine
and an unexpected pill, pausing for a moment
before unlocking your bike, dazzled by the brightness.
The roads are empty as you cycle home, the cold
on your face waking every cell of inebriated DNA.
You're horny as hell, mind fixating on how much
you wanted to fuck the postman who'd bought the pills
along, Christmas gifts from someone on his round,
though he himself did not partake. The postman,
a friend of a friend, was almost certainly straight.
All you can think of is getting slammed
and how miserable the cold is and all the dumb things
you said. Talking about the agency that turned you down,
saying they had someone else too similar. You said
maybe they had too many white men on their roster
and you meant this in their defence, now you're convinced
it came across bitter and sincere and you sounded like
all the successful white male authors who complain
they are now the marginalised. This is the lasting imprint
of yourself you have probably left forever. That,
and how much you clearly wanted to fuck the postman.
Your leg muscles are tense and achy. The saddle
is against your groin. How needy you are, humping
the bike like a dog. Now you're thinking, even if the postman
had been straight he might have taken a bro-job
or you could have presented your dickless body to him
like it didn't count, like it made you not a man, your dignity
less important than getting railed. Once home you run your tongue
against the indents of your mouth, which is sore from gurning.
You really should sleep, but you end up sharing grubby messages
with terrible men online 'till 7am when your body finally shakes
in a pleasure that immediately regrets itself, regrets the bits of you
you shed across the internet. Nothing's ever deleted now.
Later that day, when you are able to move again, you text
a friend to tell them about last night — flakes tumbling down
against the darkness of winter, how you cycled home
through a city asleep but for you and your bike, snow gently
landing on your face, how it was beautiful, like a movie.
LEN LUKOWSKI is a writer and performer based in Glasgow. He writes poetry, fiction, lyrics and memoir. His work has been published in Extra Teeth, New Writing Scotland and many other places. He has won the Wasafiri New Writing Award and been shortlisted for the Aesthetica New Writing Award. Len's debut poetry pamphlet The Bare Thing is published by Broken Sleep Books and his debut collection, Bodily Fluids will be published in 2025.
