Devika Brendon: ‘Distressed’ and ‘Slash and Burn’

Distressed

Fashionable people use this word
To describe certain new-made fabrics
Which have undergone a process
To make them look more interesting:
“Vintage”, and “iconic”, and “refined”.

We sensitive beings
Are covered with skin:
Stretched across our bones
We are intermittently contained
Often barely holding ourselves in.

We age photographs
to make them look classic,
Invoking the sepia quality of archival footage,
and stain new-minted
luggage labels with tea.

Simulating in an instant what happens over years:
Our stiff body armour
Constructed to encase us
Subtly softens into flexibility and responsiveness.

Our characters emerge
From specific refining experiences.
Early defiance scoured off
Under the gloss and varnish
We all carry the raw and tender outcomes
of the daily wear and tear.

Devika Brendon

Slash and Burn

I imagine that the day of death
will be simple and natural:
Like shedding extraneous clothes
When their protection is
no longer needed.
Relief would…