Amy Bodossian is an acclaimed cabaret spoken word icon and published poet known for her blend of whimsy, wit, and heartfelt storytelling. With appearances on ABC’s Spicks and Specks and Please Like Me, and performances at major festivals like Big Day Out and Woodford Folk Festival, she has earned awards such as the Green Room Award nomination, the Melbourne Spoken Word Convenor’s Choice Award and the SA Young Women Writers Award. Her latest show, In Bed with Amy & Friends, has enjoyed sold-out seasons at Melbourne Fringe, and the latest incarnation received a City of Melbourne Creative Arts Grant.
More Than This
Autumn leaves twirl through honeyed light
to the crackling ground
I’m sitting on a bench in the middle
of a quaint park near the Kew library
after hunting down a rare poetry book
to use at my night classes;
I teach poetry now
it’s so romantic
Lately, my heart’s been doing strange things
in the alone hours,
arhythmic,
rowdier than usual;
under the covers and panic-stricken,
I text my best friend
impoverished words on a screen
she replies:
‘take deep breaths’
Doesn’t she know its more nuanced than that
doesn’t she know I have OCD
doesn’t she know I need skin,
I need to be licked back to wholeness by a big mother elephant,
feel her wet tongue reconnecting my synapses?
I creep into the hallway and pat Plato,
my housemate’s dog
Friday night, a Bumble date cancels
I immediately text my old friend / lover / who-fucking-knows,
go ’round, scatter my flowers throughout his man-cave
He tells me for the first time in fifteen years
that he’s almost always anxious and afraid
and all of a sudden our elusive kiss that never seems to fit
makes perfect sense,
smoothing his brow I whisper:
‘I don’t know if I can get as wet these days, peri-menopause’
And with that confession
my rivers are unleashed
naming things is empowering
We make love, laugh like teenagers
and trace the shape of each other’s humanity
in patches of Collingwood streetlight
seeping through his bedroom window
until asthma and OCD wrenches me away at 4am
I left my puffer at home,
who knows if
or when
I’ll see him again
Lately, I’ve been leaning against tall, muscular trees,
weeping into their warm sentience;
they don’t have anywhere to be
not like my friends:
‘late stage capitalism’
everyone’s a lonely
wandering cloud
or not even, more
a lonely, busy, traumatised cloud
Kim Kardashian poses on the red carpet at the Met Gala
a little girl with ringlets and black starving eyes
plays amongst the rubble at a displacement camp in Gaza
I want to be a leaf, content to atrophy
and fall to the soft ground,
down
down
will I always watch the world through tears,
my heart forever breaking?
Hungover in a backyard in Fawkner,
my ex-boyfriend’s little girl’s first birthday party
we gather round as he lifts her onto his shoulders like a triumphant athlete;
her big achievement?
being Her
she beams as the congregation of Melbourne musicians, artists, teachers, grandparents
sing Happy Birthday.
The old Italian guy from across the road cheers, his face is a flame of joy
Later, she is plonked down into my lap, this bundle of light,
I rub her back, kiss her head,
and whisper,
‘We love you Susanna,
everybody loves You
You are so
so
loved.’