NaPoWriMo #8

Misgivings I Will Only Admit to Friends

On pain of above-par trivial pursuit skills
On pain of aversion to milk in tea
On pain of loyalty to Waitrose
On pain of pretentious baby names
On pain of pretentious dog names
On pain of periodicals posing
On pain of allusive non-drip gravy trains
On pain of internet-composed faux-ancestry
On pain of Smeg fridge
On pain of avocado coloured bath suite
On pain of inherent gout
On pain of shoe removal prior admittance
On pain of high-thread-count Persian rugs
On pain of understanding ‘æ’
On pain of unfathomably boring parents
On pain of conditioned love for Chaka Khan
On pain of socially-triggered overcompensation.

On pain of shoe removal prior admittance, not adhered to by Work-Colleague – despite clear Japanese-inspired ritual of the house plain to see via the IKEA lattice-work shoe rack opposite front door. Then when Inevitable happens and dusty prints left as ghost-patterns all over import-Kilim and She goes into hall to take a loud call, you think twice when you stoop to apply the hand-vacuum cleaner to the filaments in case you are found out as On pain of shoes and On pain of Persian rugs, so to compensate when gravy train is put in the cavernous Smeg to coagulate, you stuff the rug in there too, asking questions like  – did they notice the carefully stacked pile of Archæology Reviews next the portmanteau? What about the avocado coloured suite? – She emerges from bathroom, you shout: ‘Milk in your tea?’ to which Betjeman barks as though he’s been asked – dumb pup – but at least the perfect square of polished parquet is off of the mind burner. Then Persephone comes down stairs in miniature avocado-coloured Waitrose night-dress to see the Colleague and the volume, and calls you ‘meany!’ when you tell her to go to sleep. On pain of ungrateful spawn. Just leave so Ain’t Nobody can blast forth from the surround sound system knocking off the framed print-out of the family tree dating descendants back to Imperial Shogun Dynasty – to which the father of the father can wax lyrical about On pain of unfathomably boring parents.

On pain of eco-consciousness
On pain of overuse of hyphens
On pain of overuse of ‘of’
On pain of BBC Radio 2
On pain of hijacking-Literary-forms

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My thanks to Alexander L. – and apologies if need be.

Fionn Coughlan-Wills