Simon Armitage

I am very bothered when I think of the bad things I have done in my life. Not least that time in the chemistry lab when I held a pair of scissors by the blades and played the handles in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner; then called your name, and handed them over.

O the unrivalled stench of branded skin as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in, then couldn’t shake off the two burning rings. Marked, the doctor said, for eternity.

Don’t believe me, please, if I say that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen, of asking you if you would marry me.