This "choose your own adventure" poem was published in raw edge magazine (new writing in the West Midlands) number 24 [spring>summer 2007].

[More:]

Planning a holiday

We look at the brochures:
sunny beaches, smiling faces, happy blurb.
I’m desperate to go
somewhere, anywhere.
You’re not so sure.
“That’s okay,” the travel agent promises.
“Anything's possible. Take your pick...”

Or we end up in Warsaw, maybe travel to Krakow
where something sets us off rowing.
The toilet seat? Towels? Make-up on the mirror?
You move from “I don’t want to see Auschwitz!”
to “There’s no point staying together.”
I find myself alone in the remains
of the prison camp, haunted by ghosts
and tears frozen in time on the barbed wire.

Or you won’t come, I can’t wait.
On the U-Bahn to the Berlin Wall
my life expands.
The colours of the world astound me,
exhilaration fizzes champagne-like through my body.
At some point, I think to send you a card
– Paris at night, the Eiffel Tower, pretty lights –
but the empty spaces say more than the words.