Henry is a writer, poet and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. He has a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Birmingham. His poetic novella, ‘Notes from the State of OMNESIA’ was published by Impspired Press.

A Long Time

  Being stuck in an existential prism
 seems like an awful long time
 but I am told it is the mediator
 that splits the light of being
  
 and creates a simulacrum of sanity
 so my scar-ridden soul is 
 no longer exposed 
 like a badly peeled potato. 

Cento (from the work of Luke Kennard)

I
 ‘You have reneged on your promise,’ he says.
 ‘I’m so sorry you’re hurting,’ I say.
 (It is like the thwarted sound a siren makes as it rushes away from us.)
  
 ‘I’m the last one to judge someone for being judgemental,’ he says,
 ‘I’m not about to start getting on my high horse here.’
 ‘Well, many of us have our own version of events,’ I say.
  
 I walk very slowly towards the window and look at the clouds. 
 I heard a note that carried my will away.
 I thought about dignity.
  
 ‘Someone tricked you into taking yourself seriously,’ he says.
 ‘But you’ve got to stand out from the crowd, right?’
 ‘Depends on who you’re trying to impress,’ I say.
  
  II
 ‘Should anybody ask me how we met,’ I say, ‘I’d write something nice.’
 My clothes feel tight under my armpits.
 I’m not really comfortable in his presence now.
  
 ‘Those nights we stayed up worrying we were frauds,’ he sniffs.
 He tells me he wants to blow his nose.  
 ‘I knew ultimately, you would want to get rid of me,’ he says.
  
 All is born of boredom.
 At this point, what choice do I have?
 He left and never painted the triptych he was supposed to.
  
 III
 I am alone in the house as fireworks burst over the city.
 Everyone’s cigarette has gone out, 
 everyone’s pilot light has gone out.
  
 I can hear him saying ‘I assumed he would take me back.’
 I go to the fridge. 
 I take out a bottle of Sancerre, a hard cheese.
  
 The piano tuner arrives to tune my piano. 
 I don’t have a piano.
 ‘The world is not built on metaphors,’ I hear him say. 

Book Soup

 Imagine 
 if you could make a soup 
 of floating letters,
 like 
  
 that time when you 
 got drunk and 
 shredded 
 the pages 
 of your favourite books 
 and added them 
 to your Saturday lunchtime salad 
  
 in the hope 
 it would make 
 you creatively fluent.