Pledged by Ross Thompson
Bedtime but abruptly interrupted by the scuff
of a manilla envelope being clumsily shoved
underneath my dormitory door, just snagging
on raggedy wood as it shuffles like a hockey
puck across cheap fibrous carpet, dove white
in migrainous strip light, stuffed like a drug
drop, not with crisp fifties but with a sheaf
of neatly folded sheets of lyrics: the entire
discography of a long since defunct indie
band copied out longhand in Sharpie bold
and black as a cemetery, countless screeds
of lovelorn sentiments burning inkwell fires
on the page, so full of secondhand yearning,
such a plundered bounty of mid-90s ennui
ventriloquised in the rehearsed cursive of a heartsore
introvert whose true identity I never discovered.
Ross Thompson is a writer from Bangor, Northern Ireland. His debut poetry collection Threading The Light is published by Dedalus Press. His work has appeared on television, radio, short films and in a wide range of publications. Most recently, he wrote and curated A Silent War, a collaborative audio response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He is currently working on several projects including editing a second full-length book of poems.