Poetry by Gina Lomas

Piece 2

This competition will endure until the end of time
After I’m long gone and she’s immortalized.
Possibilities gone, fluttered into outer space.
I’m the antagonist who won’t leave a trace. 

I’m ill-suited to be in her divine shadow
Of every gold standard she set in tragedy.
Bad fortune that it was her life to give. 
Fate she had to die and I had to live.

If suffering was a will, I was the main benefactor.
It’s not a contest, and I’m not the winner.
She is an angel, frozen in time - 
I’m left here with devils, out of my mind. 

I’m a poor man’s version of her- 
Scrutinizing myself to fill an empty place.
It’s misplaced - I’m led astray, I’m lost in this world - 
This phantom rival has left a cruel space.





Piece 3

I loved you in a marijuana-induced delusion
Stoked into life by an inhale of a blunt.
You were my idiosyncratic belief
Someone worth my conviction

The devil’s lettuce made me think
That you were meant for me
Obsessive nature took my head
​an abnormal fixation on what could be.

My false impression stayed with me
Until it pulled me down and made me sink
Scaring my loved ones away with my obsession
You were the object of my psychosis
Fallen prey to my dark delusions.

I was out of touch, out of my mind,
I scared you away, I’m not surprised.

I needed to put you out.
And discard the roach.
Breathe clean air in.
And breathe you out.

Manic and spiralling;
Voices telling me you’re the one.
I was deciding fate. 

You left as a ghost,
Haunted me ever since.
Stayed high to keep you alive.

You were as good as dead,
I put down the bong and lived life instead
Realized the love story was all in my head

You were a desire, one that couldn’t be
How could I not tell that you were not for me

The only way to keep you away was to tell you I loved you
So, I did
And I never heard from you again,
It was the smartest thing I ever did.




Piece 6 

I sit very distraught, looking out my bedroom window. 
I am smoking a joint and holding a black coffee filled to the brim.
I am weeping
Feeling helpless
Not sure why

The body has its reasons.

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Gina is a poor (wo)man’s poet.  She is educated in heart break, loss and grief; with achievements in degradation, shame and contempt. She has the highest accolades in mental illness diagnoses, and she is her therapist’s favourite patient (uncredited).  You might recognize her from notable presentations of bathroom graffiti, intrusive thoughts, and shadows in the corner of your eye. Small-town bred, big city livin’ fat girl who has been torn apart and reassembled again a thousand times over.  

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