Amy Acre

“A sexy, soul-enriching little wordsmith, who cuts to the quick of your heart in full sight and rifles around in your guts while you're not looking.” Katie Bonna

“AMY ACRE strings words together so adeptly that even when she is being uncouth you can’t help but notice her poetical grace. Ms Acre delivers lines that enable your most vital organs to better understand what life has put them through.” Anna Le

Amy Acre started performing poetry at open mics in summer 2009. Since then she’s won a few slams, featured at spoken word nights all over London and a little bit of Melbourne, been Bang Said the Gun’s resident poet, hosted a poetry gameshow, performed at some festivals, co-founded a poetry collective called Dirty Hands and received a commendation from South Bank Poetry magazine.

She writes poems and stories to reclaim a soul previously sold for a career in advertising. Her rhymes are often drunk, love-struck, impetuous and lecherous. Some of them have been issued restraining orders.

 http://www.myspace.com/amyacre

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=599127393

Toothpaste

Do you remember that time you let me brush your teeth?
We stumbled in sideways, silly as monkeys –
We’d had too much to drink, to smoke, to eat,
Tired but still horny, I wanted you
But still knew the importance of dental hygiene
So as you stood, half our clothes on the floor already
I made you an en-suite toothpaste present
And came at you with the Oral B.

You stood, arms out like a theatrical child
Getting dried off at bathtime, wrinkling your nose
As I sunk my pink stick into your cavity
And traversed my way along your ivory coast
Just when I thought I knew your mouth back to back
I was staring at these bone-white TV ad bad boys
Scrubbing them, whipping up a satisfying friction
Watching foam glisten against your brown skin
Sloshing my paste around your gums with intent
To brighten up your smile and leave you squeaky clean
I’m not a dentophile but I have to confess
That in a funny way it was better than sex

And all those things we shared, the little trespasses
Into the mundane secrets of each other’s bodies
Got caught up and pinned down and stretched out inside my head
And came out having achieved a higher significance:
You washed my hair in the shower,
I popped all the pimples on your back,
You held my nose for 20 seconds ‘cause you farted in bed.
I know it sounds dumb but I liked that.
One night I threw up worms, you’d still give me a kiss
And I’d think, ‘that’s what love is, that’s what love is,
That’s what love is’ I said to myself
But it’s kind of a shame you were fucking someone else.I should have known by the Hollywood smile.

You were so out of my league, I felt like I was drowning
But I made believe, and when you opened wide
I lapped up every pearly white lie
And I thought it was all subjective
That’s why I could never tell you, you were hot -
I hoped you wouldn’t notice.
Though it was plain as Jane to see you could do better than me
I tried to trick reality by keeping it inside of me
But secretly I pinned you on my wall.
I built statues in your name
But the pedestal I put you on just kept you away
And I can’t blame you for that.
The fact is you knew you’d find a better girl
And now she’s no longer hypothetical.

So what could I do? I had to spit you out.
I had to rinse the bad taste out of my mouth,
Pull off the proverbial plaster
And let my wounds heal out in the open air
But all those entry points, the places where I let you in
Turned into internal scarring ‘cause you got under my skin
And I can’t win with you

And now my eyes are green, but it’s spread to my limbs too.
I’ll have to amputate a leg to cure myself of you
But when I’m through I’ll be all new and strong and serene
With a mind that’s minty fresh and a heart that’s squeaky clean.
I’ll turn you out like a light, I’ll say goodnight to my grief
And next time I’ll look for someone with a beautiful heart
And bad teeth.

 This poetry

This poetry
This is mine
It’s the beat that keeps my lifeline in time
When hell comes to meet me between unslept sheets, it’s divine
When I can’t stand up straight it’s my spine
When latency claws at my throat and litters my voice with doubt, it lets me shout
When the raging sea spits me out it’s my shore
It’s everything my mother and father taught me
It’s every lover who ever left me wanting a little bit more
This poetry
This is what I live for.