HLR


The Warning


Feebly dragging a brush over your molars,
you spot, for the first time ever, the warning

printed on the back of your almost empty
supermarket-own-brand dry shampoo can:

              WARNING
       SOLVENT ABUSE
    CAN KILL INSTANTLY

& that word glimmers in your mind,
as it so often does: suicide sprints

from one edge of your head to the other, starting pistol still
pointing skyward, the unloaded assurance resounding,

the promise of smoky nothingness. You imagine it.
Death by spray can. Death by aerosol. Death

by refreshes brunette locks between washes!
You haven’t tried that method yet. Never thought of it.

What magic, that you could simply snuff out your life INSTANTLY
with a can of pressurised powder! Thrilling, this shiny tin & its capacity

to be deadly. You know—better than anybody—the urgency of needing
to die leave. You spit the mint foam into the cracked sink, wipe your mouth

with a drag of your hand, twist the can to face away, unsure
whether you’re saving this new knowledge for another day,

subconsciously squirrelling it away with all the other inventive
manners of death you’ve hoarded over years of despondency,

or if the idea will leave you just as quickly as it jolted into
your brain tonight, like a serrated yellow lightning bolt

printed on a dry shampoo can, that charged electric graphic
guarding the tempting warning, fixed in a permanent state

of striking, forever splitting an imagined sky in two.
You flick the light off, slink into bed, force yourself to choke

down your cocktail of meds, promise yourself that you’ll wash your hair
tomorrow & throw away all the aerosols you own, dump them determinedly


into the overflowing recycling bin first thing in the morning & go on choosing
to exist, with echoes of a lifetime of thunderclaps rattling your soul.

..
..

HLR (she/her) is a prize-winning working-class poet from North London. She is a commended winner of the National Poetry Competition 2021, and she won the Desmond O’Grady International Poetry Competition 2021. HLR’s debut collection History of Present Complaint was longlisted for the Poetry Book Awards 2022. Her pamphlet EX-CETERA will be published by Nine Pens in 2023. Twitter: @HLRwriter.


To discover more content exclusive to our print and digital editions, subscribe here to receive a copy of The London Magazine to your door every two months, while also enjoying full access to our extensive digital archive of essays, literary journalism, fiction and poetry.

Subscribe for the latest from the UK’s oldest literary magazine.

Sign up to our newsletter for the latest poetry and prose, news and competition updates, as well as 10% off our shop. 

You can unsubscribe any time by clicking the link in the footer of any email you receive from us, or directly on info@thelondonmagazine.org. Find our privacy policies and terms of use at the bottom of our website.