Caroline is a poet from London. She works as a yoga teacher and leads creative workshops for University of the Arts. Through her writing she explores themes of womanhood, sexuality, grief and loss. Her poems have been published by Trope, Little Stone Journal, New River Press and she was long listed for Bad Betty Press’ Survival anthology. Caroline was part of Apples and Snakes Platform Poets collective in 2020.
Instagram / Twitter @carolinedruitt
Email: caroline@druitt.com
_____
Have you considered your options?
When the first drop of blood comes after ingesting that small pill,
its foil four times larger than itself as if it knows its size doesn’t
equate for its power, I am floored. And when I say floored I mean
I cannot move from a square of my floor where I lie and think burgundy,
scarlet, crimson, ruby, candy apple I think misoprostol, mifepristone,
miso, miso, cloudy, grainy miso soup. I think vacuum aspiration, dilation,
evacuation, abandon? The last thing I did before flooring was read my junk
emails. Dating for sex from Siliva Fattig, Cindy Chambliss I’d like to meet you
pal, an invitation to fucK from Harry. I wonder if his offer still stands, if
Silvia knows that sex can end here, if Cindy would hold my head while
my face breaks, twirling curl upon curl between forefinger and thumb.
_____
Daddy
When the boy you like asks you to
call him daddy, it’s thrilling as you
tap those letters forming a word you
haven’t used since you were eleven
used only for a man who died, his
picture on a table at the end of your
bed turned slightly askew as if this
might muffle the sound
shhhhhh
as it leaves your crying lips
daddy
I’m not calling for you this time
_____
The way we keep on living
There’s a light at the end of the street that always stutters, throws flecks of gold onto passersby, their faces shades of happy. I sit cross legged at the bus stop, the perch carving ridges on the underside of my thighs, leg hairs on end where socks abandon and leave space for the rain. I think, each moment feels like an elegy, a quick note scribbled to you, these are the things we’re all still doing. That girl dancing purple through the window. The cold slam of a car door, a cigarette silently smoking on the floor. The edges of the sky reaching for the softness of the city over and over and… the girl stops dancing, falls back tired on her bed and I see the room try to grasp for a pocket of her joy. A crow lands on a patch of ground that separates me at the bus stop from her in the room through the window. At home, mould appears again just weeks after removing it. I run my finger smooth beneath the basin. Watch its viciousness smudge clean against my skin. Doctors said the chance of regrowth was small, one in six he’d offered, but that March they bloomed again, didn’t they, lumps blossoming with the first signs of Spring.
_____
I’m drinking so much coffee my bathroom smells like a cafe
What do you take with you
when your father is dying
this poem is called struggling
to write or maybe
wondering if your last
therapist remembers you
check the weather app five times a day
throwing fists at the sky
the same parakeet greets you at
the dawn window
sprinkles your mood
over the garden
the ferns have died again
we’ll keep crossing every road
in a mild state of panic
searching for original
metaphors
looking for pain to bathe with
the morning asks for jazz
you give it a candle
watch light fight light
until evening kills them both
thoughts of nakedness
washed out with the white sheets
their familiar stains
birthmarks
you want something
to grow inside you again.
_____
I’m sick of all my poems being about you
These arms are lyrics,
the whole street a ballad
for tired bodies
to move through. Over
the hedge a man
quietly hangs feelings out
on the line, the pegs
pinching each one
firmly, I watch them tumble
apologetic over
the breeze. ‘When I cry,
now I’m free/ Sour flower you’re
so mean’ Lianne’s
words, they cradle me.
I wait for spaces between her breaths
to fold myself into.
I’d like to die on a Sunday in
the month of June.
When the parakeets are
busy threading their
sounds through the
trees. The crowded heat
wrapping my curls in
ribbons. The street songs
bursting into the afternoon, I’ll be gone
before they reach the end.
A little patch of sunshine
hides at the foot of my
bed. We’ve always shuddered at the
sight of one another. Today I
squeeze my knees up tight until just
a square of light and rest.
_____
‘Siri, find me a suitable container’
If you’ve ever placed a hand on empty stomach imagined kicks sat in a park watching happy shrieks melt on your skin held hands with a stranger under toilet cubicle collected blood with your words let it stain waited your turn in a room full of women heard tears bleed into walls looked into his eyes said I know we are losing googled am I allowed to grieve dreamt arms were laden awoken body abandoned wondered if you’d just said …