There is something about a fire escape that just sets me off, the danger red latches onto the blood in my veins like a leech and beats on my heart, an old alarm, metal against metal, a beating drum metronome, faster and faster. I feel the sweat run its race from my head down to the midrift, a cross country; first one to reach the privates wins, my clothes turn cotton to lace, see through sex, reminding me of the day I spent in prison from publicly revealing myself. My hands shake an earthquake, I am Muhammed Ali, I don’t fly like a butterfly but I die like a bee post-sting.
I push the door: the ringing pulsing through me and I am cattle-prodded, electrocuted and fitting in my own excitement, before I know it the whole building assumes that we are in the midsts of a disaster, before I know it I am back in prison.
Craig Broad is a contemporary writer from Cornwall, UK who, having been influenced by the likes of Jeffrey MacDaniel, U A Fanthorpe and Sylvia Plath amongst others, is looking to create something of the same ilk that is both different, imaginative and also emotionally invoking all at the same time. Having had his poetry published within the BBC, The Big Issue and a forthcoming issue of new independent poetry magazine, Oddrot, he is looking for more publication in either press or magazine literature.