The pills made you larger and that security guard at Westfield’s didn’t help,
chasing you around, you thought it was the pills making you larger,
you wanted to get to the Reject Shop to put your resume in,
a job over Christmas, that was going to happen before you were bounced,
pills unleashed on the floor, it was a two dollar coin
no ones gunna hire you now, pills to make you money
stop taking them yourself, make them your slave,
you gotta get off them before soccer training starts,
pills make you possessed with that wing defence position,
maybe slip some of those pills to your rivals.
Your mum, your pills mum, she paid to put credit on your pills phone,
made your phone larger for a while, then smaller
pills undermined her house key, in the bottom
of your bag with the pills, couldn’t find it for hours
stole your grandparents’ pills while they were at a viewing,
preserved your sanity with the pills turned up loud.
Jordan said pills made him larger for sex,
pillaged the fridge for your mum’s left-over pill lasagne.
Your brother’s pills made you larger came home
he was reducing at a mate’s, the weird one, pulsing in and out,
he said he was going larger, smaller, larger, and you’d better do his washing,
he reduced you to pills, the washing was pills,
you sit in the pill corner, one leg swinging
cut off trackies shoes scattered at the toes
pills waiting for your name up next.
Linda Godfrey is a poet, writer, editor, teacher. Program Manager of Wollongong Writers Festival 2015 – 2018. Fiction reader for Overland, online fiction editor Overland Autumn 2018. Fiction and poetry have appeared in anthologies, audio anthologies and online. Recipient of a Varuna Longlines Residency Program and an Australian Society of Authors mentorship. Curator of Rocket Reading, readings of poetry at the Wollongong Art Gallery, part of the Sydney Writers Festival and Viva La Gong 2007 to 2018. Member of Word Salad, a literary salon associated with the South Coast Writers Centre, 2017 to 2019.