TERRA TOXIC – a parallel between a climate apocalypse, the beauty of the natural world and the destructive nature of toxic relationships

This poem ran madly through my head and raged onto the screen. It's about counter balance, the absurd teetering around the forbidden abusive lines of a love affair. About the seasons and how they came on board and helped mock and demystify the image of my girlfriend which gave me a sense of purpose and helped my stake out boundaries that burnt without flame. How the microagressions by humanity to others and this beautiful planet. Be it plastic fibres wrapped around a badgers snout or 'amusing' casual racism in a corner shop in Scotland. I use the sun melting the tarmac to illustrate my apathy and despair, my joy when an April shower rains literally on her 'parade'. And my sense of wonder and comfort when the first snow falls and darkness comes early and for me it is beauty and peace, and for her it was boredom and claustrophobic. The pitch black lens that I viewed my ex lover as she loved and flirted so casually with foolish men and women who thought they had pinned her to a board like a beady eyed arachnologist. Fussing about tiny spider hairs as they pushed their thumbs through her thorax. But my lover was made of airy stone. A pumice Medusa. all mouth and no trousers, all soft layers and sharp glass intestines. My particular madness scoured from both nature and nurture flavours my words and the images. At one point euphoric, at others plotting murder, and once wishing for the apocalypse. I think this poem can be read on multiple levels, through many lenses but not to be put into boxes. I hope there is a freedom in this work, where forbidden thoughts and taboo ideas about love and sex and the climate can combine to be a force or ... just a poem waiting to be read.

The project is part of the subtheme Hybrid Selves – Gender, Identity, and Posthuman Intimacies, Unruly Forms – Experiments in the Poetic Wild.