this is about you & this is bridget hustwaite with good nights, &, alternate ways of spelling tony by Maddison Brake
this is about you & this is bridget hustwaite with good nights
triple j is renting my spare room zero interest
they’re keen on doing impressions —
bridgethustwaite & avanidias & davidwoodhead
voices that put the dishes beside the dishwasher
instead of inside it & perfume genius plays
as i stack them in their porcelain prison
or while waiting for your call or confessing to the optometrist
i broke my glasses thinking about us making out
sometimes my tenant mumbles
what’s your hottest
one
suggested: beloved
i call in and say youyouyouyouyouyouyouyyouyouyouyouyouyuoyou
i’m looking at you standing on rainy bourke st, pellegrini’s-high on
chaos, pasta, this! i’m wearing sandals that get wet whenever we’re together
& i put these letters in your stomach te sakam with water-pruned fingers
over the weekend unearthed soundproofed and lost their
deposit all in a day! monthly inspection, eggshell
foam fell on the realtors’ heads boom! it’s not the first
time i evict them & the daybed starts crooning relentlessly
use bloody command hooks next time, i plead them to come
back & the daybed hums & hums & hums & hums
you laugh it’s 2 AM & i crawl home into your shadow
of women: sappho, gay, winterson, nelson & me
underneath your chin behind your ear beneath your thighs
we can hear the late-night program through the wall
in the car, they won’t be quiet
wordswordswords silence WORDS
you ever know what it’s like to be on all the time they ask
oh yeah it’s bloody tiring thrums out of me
& my thumb holds their volume button down
i only turn it up to hear our songs
stark stumbling & sudden in the mouth of my radio roommate
im going to kick them out eventually when all our love is gone
unrelated: you mind if we have a third housemate when we
buy our place?
alternate ways of spelling tony
1. at Footscray station there’s a woman who asks us for directions and her English accent presses up against my interstate, half-Canadian variation.
2. She tells us her new partner dropped her off here to get back to Springvale. “I’m still getting used to the whole PTV system, after being in a cult marriage and all.”
3. She asks us about our lives, our jobs, our lovers (which is, of course, each other. But we refrain as not to tarnish the interaction with oh so I’ve always wanted to ask how do lesbians….).
4. She mentions her son, a man of thirty didn’t respond well to her divorce. “I told him to grown-up. I mean really, don’t I get to have some good too?”.
5. Then Platform 1 opens itself up and we’re holding the back of her neck in our hands, which feels like this: she wasn’t allowed to be herself, have freedom or choose her friends in during THE MARRIAGE. She hasn’t been to see her family in twenty-three years, apart from two funerals. But, it’s better than nothing right? And her partner’s children have put her motherhood in a jar at the back of their wardrobes.
6. She let us pile all her stories into our Savers bags, padding them with a warmth that’s dripping down our hands as we hold onto the straps.
7. We say our farewells on the platform before getting into side-by-side carriages.
8. My lover asks, “I wonder what is it that makes people confess things to us,” and I nod absently, staring at this woman who introduced herself as Tony, or Toni.
9. I can see her through the carriage hop over door speaking with someone else, so I try not to catch her eye.
Executive Producers
Daniel Henson
Sue White
