This is me performing in Borders bookshop in the Bullring. I was commissioned by Brook Avisory Service to write a poem to celebrate their anniversary and then perform it at a special event. I suffer with anxiety, depression and fibromyalgia, so performing is difficult, but I've managed to do it a few times. Anyway, below is the poem that I wrote for them.

You Don’t Know Where They’ve Been

Gary tells her he is okay,
he’s had a vasectomy
and he gives blood regularly,
so they can go bareback,
it feels more natural that way.
Laura obliges and opens up,
crying in the waiting room later,
passing time, reading out-of-date
magazines and panicking
that she might be pregnant,
and her Dad is going to kill her.
Donna says she is okay,
she’s on the pill and it’s been
a long time since her last fuck,
she’s not infected with anything
but lust for you, Bay-bee.
Ben can’t believe his luck
he’s fancied her for ages,
he can’t think of safety while
the slippery walls of her cave
are sucking him into oblivion.
Simon and Mark are okay,
they say, only mates,
having a laugh that night,
a bit drunk, it’s not like
they did anything wrong,
Right?
Of course they’re not gay,
lady killers, the pair of them,
on the pull tonight to prove it,
dance with a pair of right goers,
then give them false numbers.
Johnny is lonely, he used to
be one of a pack, now he lies
forgotten,
past his sell-by-date,
in a dusty bathroom cabinet.
He always wanted to be
a superhero, to slay chlamydia
and fight the advancing hordes
of gonorrhoea and herpes.
But he could only watch,
a mute witness to the reckless
mingling of bodily fluids, and cower
when he saw HIV stalking its prey,
powerless to save those who
would not accept his protection.
Gary
Laura
Donna
Ben
Simon
Mark
R.I.P

Clare