Okay, we're (finally) here for real. Don't watch the timestamp. I almost got shegged by the flu but I shall overcome.

Here is the poem for Day 1. Special thanks to Laurie Ogden and Jeremiah Brown for their edits. This was called 24, or love is dead (thanks to Theresa Lola for that title) but editing has changed that. Maybe I'll save that one. Post-upload edits are allowed.

Shout-out all the NaPo-ets. Check the @Sugar_Dread feed if you want to read some of them.

Enjoy x

24, thank god for life

you don't know what it means to celebrate a birthday any more,
opening gifts with a straight face.
you’ve forgotten how to respond to presents,
tried with yourself and got bored.

another neighbour has cancer. a father is going for biopsies.
a 10am sky is liver-spotted, so pale its veins are showing, congested, losing its hair.

you want to be something elsewhere.
a few weeks back snow fell when it shouldn’t have.
today, another overcast spring.
your bedroom ceiling, speckled and stained from old leaks in the roof,
gives a sardonic me again. sorry yeah. your whole bed is lukewarm.
your eyes open kissing their teeth.

Gabriel Akamo, 2018