A poem by Justin Heazlewood: ‘This is an ode to hanging out by yourself – and the magic of flavoured milk'

The Guardian

a day ago

1
The word Lisa is etched into a tree
and I feel ill.
2
If I had a straw I would breathe
some life into my milk.
3
She says hello, he ignores me
and no one is drinking chocolate milk.
4
It's too sweet
like melted soap.
5
Another boy drinking my brand.
4° of refrigeration.
6
The chocolate milk doesn't know
that I'm preoccupied
with listening to blackbirds.
7
He's got plain milk and a tennis ball.
It could be an apple.
8
My chocolate milk and I did not guess that
girl would finish her tea and have a limp.
9
This milk is unnatural.
The corners don't fit my hand.
10
My chocolate milk has faded since I bought it.
11
All I want is someone to agree with me
that it's cold, so I can throw my milk
away.
12
I can look at my chocolate milk on the
internet.
13
If I drank my chocolate milk and no one
cared, did I really want it in the first
place?
Cigarettes and chocolate milk / these are just a couple of my cravings.Rufus Wainwright, 2001.
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I have no recollection of writing this poem but that's a good thing. It's often the way, when you've been writing songs and stories and scripts for 30 years. After a while you think 'Did I write that?'' With diary entries, you can visualise a place and time. Poems exist in the fourth dimension. They're a bridge between the subconscious and waking life.
Half-asleep genius.
Chocolate Milk is an outlier in my poetry shoebox. It's not like the other poems. Most of them tend to be quite angsty. Anyone who knows anything about my well-documented childhood might appreciate that I have a lifetime of processing to do. This verse is an ode to hanging out by yourself. It's about people watching and inner monologues and the gorgeousness and magic of flavoured milk.
Big M, Nippy's, Frosty Boy thickshakes – they were my jam. In 1998 there was a novelty brand called Gary. The labelling had 'Shake Gary well' and 'Open Gary other end'. The kids at Hellyer College thought it was funny.
I used to think it was a Tasmania-only thing but I was looking back through one of my old Juice magazines and noticed a full-page ad for Gary. It resembles a scene from the music video for Blur's Coffee and TV.
I stopped drinking chocolate milk when I moved to non-dairy in 2015. Chocolate Milk is dedicated to Paul's Just Natural Chocolate, Honey & Malt.
I really like this piece as it's playful and random, like me. I can see myself sitting there, wherever I was at the time.
Australian Poetry Month runs throughout August and includes festivals, events, workshops and a commissioned poem of the day brought to you by Red Room Poetry. Find out more here