morning meditation so I don’t have to move yet moving my mouth before my hands and my hands before my body and my body before my brain coloured blocks of time on the calendar a peppermint tea or an iced lolly depending on the season moving the coloured blocks of time walking with music and making everything wait picking up the phone for more than a text finally feet planted on the same patch of earth laying in the sunshine for as long as possible notifications off and sometimes travelling in an aeroplane in my own home podcasts and drawing and colouring-in reading a fucking book or something made of paper instead of staring at a screen a hot bath with bubbles and a fucking face mask trying to stop my mind flying out the window when I cream my skin or brush my hair haciendo las básicas y aprendiendo español refraining from hitting myself literally and metaphorically for feeling feelings and not being perfect moving the coloured blocks of time again maybe less, maybe more sometimes worse, sometimes better knowing one day we will swim, we will float
by Carmina Masoliver
Carmina Masoliver is a poet from south London, and founder of She Grrrowls feminist arts nights. She has been sharing her poetry on both the page and the stage for over a decade, and her small chapbook was published by Nasty Little Press in 2014. Her latest book ‘Circles’ is published by Burning Eye Books (2019) and is an illustrated long-form poem, and she recently self-published ‘Selected Poems: 2007 – 2012’, a mixed media pamphlet of poems. Her poetry has also been featured in publications such as Popshot Magazine, The Rialto and Brittle Star. Carmina was long-listed for the Young Poet Laureate for London award in 2013, the inaugural Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowships in 2017, the Out-Spoken Prize in Performance Poetry in 2018 and the Grindstone International Poetry Prize in 2020. Alumni of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, she has featured at nights such as Bang Said the Gun, and festivals including Latitude, Bestival and Lovebox both as a collective and individually. She performed internationally whilst living abroad, in Singapore, and in Spain. www.carminamasoliver.com I/F: @carminamasoliver T: @CarminaPoetry
Photo credit: Monstera
Aayo Magazine 