Carmien Michels

• Pen pal
  

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Hello lift-dweller in the station
whom I never speak to because I’m afraid
of what you think when I give you money
you look like my pen pal from when I was fourteen
who I sent a picture of my nipple in exchange
for a Kipling monkey and a packet of crinkle cut crisps I never got
I couldn’t take my nipple back
and so you remain a silent friend
I write letters to
in the landscapes I travel through
 
The beer drinkers with empty cans in the quiet carriage cursing at delays
know better than I do
what they wish for
when they see an oil-lamp in the clouds
a sip of beer within hand’s reach

translated by Michele Hutchison
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Photo credit: Saskia Vanderstichele

CARMIEN MICHELS is a Belgian author and performer. Dancing between the urban and the classic, her passion for rhythm and poetry reached boiling point on the spoken word scene. In 2016 she won both the Dutch and the European Poetry Slam Championships and came in third at the World Cup in Paris. Collaborating with various artists, she has been touring ever since. In 2019 she joined the European poetry platform Versopolis. Alongside poetry, she has published two novels as well as the story collection Fathers Who Mourn, which was shortlisted for and awarded with several literary prizes. Michels has a preference for characters who do not entirely belong and are searching for connection, for meaning, and for a place of their own.

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