Heather chapman

How to Break Up with Your Vampire Boyfriend

Go vegan. Go Catholic. Cut
the strings on his antique violin,
each yelping a truncated
protest. Set no more than one
cornfield majestically ablaze. Consider,
briefly, the lunging scarecrow,
dressed in his old clothes; the cape,
the boots, all curt and passionate
with fire. Remember, you are sick
of birds charred to a relic
under the porch. Shout
from a sensible distance:
‘Don’t say you love me.
Burn my image. Come on. Don’t go
all Strahd von Zarovich on me.’
He never made you kill anything,
not even the flies, fizzing stupidly
in the chapel. Not the wounded
raven, wing bared desperate
white. He’s no Nosferatu. Once he tried
to switch to paper straws, stirring
them to mush in glasses of O—
(forget this, too). Regret
having to look up the definition
of a flying buttress. Regret
the state of yourselves, each
the other’s blood oath. Wonder
what it’s like to eat only
when hungry. You used to sit
opposite him, like a propaganda
poster—a sensible steak, trim
with peas, and clean cutlery.
Renounce your flirtations.
You only had to do something once
to be scared you’d want to
do it forever. Research the regeneration
of skin; the history of the love
bite; the barefaced resilience
of the bones in his jaw. Roll
your sleeves back. Once you saw
him throw a man off a balcony.
Once you saw him set on fire.
Recall the gash you both once tore
into heaven. Together you drove
like outlaws down the silken
streets in an open-roofed wagon
led by a single mad horse,
one arm round his shoulders,
the other lifting a pistol, firing
holes into the pearlescent
roof.

---

Heather Chapman is a Durham University student. She was a 2023 Foyles Young Poet, and was shortlisted for the 2024 Tower Poetry competition, 2023 Wells Festival of Literature Young Poets prize, and the Shakespeare Schools Festival’s monologue competition.