Sorry, again.

Ok-some tiny changes in the main body…and I think the ending’s stronger now…

I want an apology.
For the gloss wrapped varnish
of womans magazines.

For the fish slick pages
of fake dreams;
models like cars,

with their
air brushed charms,
come hither dressed in

children’s jeans.
I want an apology
for the girl,

splaying the weight of her thighs
on a gym seat, frowning in a mirror
and connecting up the

place at which they meet with
the skimming of calories in breakfast.
I want an apology – for the long-fast

of the woman shivering in spring,
examining her wrists
like a witch through railings.

For the witch,
who’s really just a
woman over 30,

trying to hide
the lines that she’s laid
whilst falling in love and

breaking her heart and
having a future.
I want an apology-

for The Snow Queen -
happy to be childless
and The White Witch -

carving a world
from the ribs of the man
who’d been thinking he’d made her.

For the blood on her gown
and the hooves in her face
and the maw of a lion.

For Medusa
and Delilah,
and the old crone,

and the weird sister-
and for the 4 siblings
that couldn’t all

be Cinderella:
for the women who fall
so she can stand

I want
to say this:
to scratch and cut

and scrawl the words
on mirrors, bus stops,
cars and doors.

The SOR the RRY
in looping lines on
Topshops blinds

I want the words
to break apart
the glass.

I’m sorry.
I’m sorry,
I’m sorry-

I wish they could.