Victoria Adukwei Bulley
[white] noise
& even when we said we were alone there was [white] noise on the radio & there was [white] noise in the car & there was [white] noise at the dinner table & there was [white] noise on the internet & there was [white] noise on the aeroplane & there was [white] noise in the system & there was [white] noise in the economy & [white] noise was the economy & there was [white] noise on the train & there was [white] noise on the road & there was [white] noise at the board meeting & there was [white] noise on the field & there was [white] noise on the kitchen counter & [white] noise in the cutlery draw & there was [white] noise on the tube & there was [white] noise at the hospital where there was [white] noise in the blood & there was [white] noise in the water supply & there was [white] noise in the ocean & there was [white] noise eating the ice caps & the polar bears were drowning because of it & washed up on the beaches then was a sorry & off-white [white] noise & there was [white] noise in the streets & there was [white] noise in the ozone a whole hole’s worth of [white] noise & there was [white] noise in the photos of us because [white] noise was on the lens & there was [white] noise in the interim & there was [white] noise on the brain scan & there was [white] noise during the exam & there was [white] noise scratched into the desk & there was [white] noise in the textbooks & there was [white] noise on the television & there was [white] noise in the census & there was [white] noise in the law & there was [white] noise at the cinema & there was [white] noise at the seminar & there was [white] noise at the church & there was [white] noise at the peace talks & there was [white] noise in the rent & there was [white] noise on the wellness podcast & there was [white] noise at the workshop & there was [white] noise in the obituary & there were little [white] noise cookies even after reject all & there was [white] noise in the inquest & there was [white] noise in the commission & there was [white] noise in the system & the [white] noise was the system & [white] noise was reform & there was [white] noise at the supermarket & there was [white] noise at the chicken shop & there was [white] noise in the wound & there was [white] noise in the wording of the apology the noisiness of which made void the apology & there was [white] noise in the email & there was [white] noise in the diversity goal & there was [white] noise in the WhatsApp group & there was [white] noise on the phone call & there was [white] noise in the silence & across the timeline was [white] noise & there was [white] noise in the package & there was [white] noise in the returns process & there was [white] noise in the practice & there was [white] noise in the prayer & there was [white] noise there in the room with us still even when we said we were alone even when we swore that we could not hear it
VICTORIA ADUKWEI BULLEY is a poet, writer and filmmaker. She is the winner of a 2018 Eric Gregory Award, and the recipient of a 2019 Technē doctoral scholarship for practice-based research in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.