Ollie O’Neill

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My mum is dead

& I imagine drinking to meet her there
my mouth numb & enormous with totality
I imagine taking myself to the coast to drink
the whole shoreline salty & indicative
the first night after the fact I do not sleep
instead drink the darkness slowly until
it becomes morning for my sister I drink
the grief too I drink the days we didn’t speak
& it takes me the rest of my life I drink
my childhood I drink Kilburn & Cricklewood
I drink Dublin & Kildare I drink the convent
in Newry she was sent to get right in as though
faithfulness could drain the spirit from her
& the nuns I drink them too the black
from their habits & God out of their mouths
I drink the piss out of her bed sheets
& the addiction out of our bloodline
I drink all of the wanting there ever was in the world
& when I wake I want again I drink because

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OLLIE O’NEILL is a writer based in London. Her debut collection What We Are Given was published in 2020 with Write Bloody UK. Her Pamphlet Ways of Coping was published in 2019 with Out-Spoken Press. Twitter: @olliecmoneill.