Cantaloupe Follows Me Around
It haunts me,
lingers over me
when I eat breakfast,
lunges at me
when I take a shower.
There is nothing
Cantaloupe won’t do.
It rots in my fridge,
hangs out on my patio.
Refuses to pay rent
or bills,
doesn’t even wipe down the surfaces
of my kitchen
or take out the bins.
It steals from me,
wears my clothes
when I’m out.
Cantaloupe uses all my honey
to make face masks,
rolls down my stairs
in the middle of the night
and won’t even kiss me
when I wake up,
sweaty and confused,
from honeydew nightmares.
…
Ava Patel graduated from the University of Warwick with a First in an MA in Writing. Her debut pamphlet ‘Dusk in Bloom’ has just been published by Prolebooks and she runs an Instagram poetry page: @ava_poetics.Her pamphlet is available to buy here: https://prolebooks.co.uk/
atriumpoetry.com 