Brendan Fraser and I Aren’t Talking By Oak Ayling

      ​ bronx. Flickr



​Brendan Fraser and I Aren’t Talking
 
Croatia is creaming us
We’re rooting for opposite teams
We argue over Lovren and the biased Ref
Brendan laughs
And I imagine the deep crow prints
In the snow skin around his eyes
Though they sparkle wide
Like he’s still a small boy
I think that’s why we love him
His grammar is terrible
But I ignore what I know
I tell him
That if we forfeit our morals
To win
Then the victory is empty
He’s bored of the debate
He tells me I look pretty
And for a sad moment longer
I am not alone.
At 4pm in Georgia
He apparently falls asleep
‘Stressed up’ from the match
The next afternoon
We have our final fight
When I ask him
Who he really is.

​

Oak Ayling is a young woman quietly stitching poetry into the blurry windswept border between Devon and Cornwall UK. Highly commended by Indigo Press in the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize, She has gone on to be published in the inaugural edition of the fast growing literary magazine From Whispers to Roars, its anticipated second issue and in the forthcoming charitable anthology “Shorthand” by author Helen Cox in support of UK homeless charity StreetLink. Oak is a poet "fervently seeking purity and purpose".

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