BURNING HOUSE PRESS

girls are silver

                                          I was taught that

girls are silver       smiles to be polished

laughter the sound of a fingerflickedagainst

a     trophy     ringing  with emptiness.

                                              I knew that I wasn’t

silver   knew I was drinking from the depth

of starving wells     knew that girls

                                                        like me

                                                          would

rust

           a coin sunk     in shallow water –

                               I dreamt about holding

each knife-edge-lie between grinning teeth

filling  every cup with   mytarnishedblood

learning to    

                  weigh myself

                                            with my every

new word                                      like gold.

Olga is originally from Northern Ireland and now lives in Warwickshire, where she is a teacher and mother of two daughters. She writes poetry and flash fiction, and has had work published in a range of publications including: Rattle, Magma, Ink Sweat and Tears and Under the Radar. This year she was one of the shortlisted poets in The Poetry School’s Primers competition and was one of the winners in the BBC Proms Poetry Competition.