Wednesday 19 October 2011

Grey Matters

Like a sketch cartoon.

Standing on a little hill. Black lines that curve white. Let's play pretend and colour it green and say there's grass blowing in the breeze. Hills are always a little windy. There's a grey figure there, holding an umbrella unsure if the sky will rain. How long is unsure. It's grey as everyday. No clouds, just bland expanse. So instead standing and waiting is the only option. Watch birds flying away, somewhere warm and exotic - South. What was left here was none of our business. Coming and going. Answering phones and taking messages. How do you fill your day?

There still. Waving a little white flag, 'see me, see me'. As the birds pass over. They seem to take no notice. 'Little bird why do you fly away, take me with you.' Grabbed by talon and floating in a moonlit sky. Feet dangle and there is no fear for life. Mr James' said it was like walking in the air, and was right. Just feel the cool on your face and it's like a long awaited breath. Opening eyes. Sun coming up. Trees filled with orange flowers and red fruits. White mountains and vineyards further than you can make out. Imagination gone wild and leaked into reality. 'Leave me here, where it's beautiful and the land can shine - life can now be so magical. I remember a life once like this in a photograph.'

Fallen from the sky and landed softly on heels. It was good for a time but it couldn't be sustained. Flowers have to die and seasons make the mountains grow old. The fruits fell and rotted in the ground that turned hard and cold. Rain falls and washes away all the colour, again. Water colours are so unreliable. The paint box was out of empathy. 'Everything I touch turns to ruin', sleep tonight and forget the taste of tragedy. Back to a line drawing of black curving white.

The figure awoke unawares. Climbed to the top of a hill and stood with an umbrella, was it going to rain today?




Bringing mess into the patterns of other lives, how do you apologise for that? How to repair the damage and continue on in making improvements for the future so it 'doesn't happen again'. The truth is, of course it will happen again. There's no time limit on disaster and no exact science that can explain chaos theory. Mathematics tries so hard. No determined explanations for the chemical imbalances that make things crazy, "chan eil mi gu math idir". We're living in a world that is not our own but there will always be mystery, cruelty, beauty and sorrow in that. Just left here to die in a dying place. If you're aiming too high they say you'll land among the stars but you still need oxygen to breathe. Without that where do you go to. Some people can speak with their eyes. Some with their lips and others by their actions. When none of these seem to work how do I say 'I'm so very deeply sorry'? Can you?

Wednesday 12 October 2011

So Tonight That I Might See

As gently as it came it went.
We lay staring at that ceiling for hours pretending we were both asleep and that the morning would never come.


You were drunk, I was maybe a little too.
Stumbling down the street, holding hands to and fro.
The street lamp outside intruded on the room, so we shut the curtains tight.
Even in the dark we knew the colour of each other's iris.
We could hear a car speed past outside and felt safe under the covers.
Then rain started to fall. It became our background music and we had to whisper a little louder just to be heard.
So cold at first, from the tips of our noses to touching toes.
I could smell your skin, indescribable to anyone from me.
You turned me round and wrapped me in your heat.
Close to your heart. Even closer to you.
We fell together as lips softly became one,
I stopped thinking, I'm pretty sure you did too.
It had been such a crazy time.
You knew this and when you got the chance whispered, "Everything's not lost" in gentle tones.
Over and over.
You covered my hands and together, we were.
Time was counted in breaths and grew heavy in the air.
You could taste the scent of candles filling the room.
In the morning you said 'good morning, love', and not in a secret whisper.
You wanted to wake me up to see you.
Messy bed hair and dozy smiles.
Rolled back to your side of the bed, kissed in dawn's light.
What a wonderful way to wake.

Then we snuck you out the front door.

As gently as it had come it had gone.
And I knew nothing in the world could change how this night had played out.






I'll never want to forget this.

Sunday 2 October 2011

Limbo, Panto


Heart palpitations. Shakes filling the space between the floor and tiles. You feel it in your hands first. The sensation of deprivation sinking in, lassoing the ropes around your arteries and double knot, pulled tight. Control taken. Pathetic fallacy impossible, so the imagination takes over. Thunderstorms and lightning. The combination that makes you do things once thought to be on the brink of something else. She makes me beg, forces flexibility, performance to be perfect. Screams and shrieking. You forget that you belong to anywhere, let alone to anyone. Wonder at the scale of everything. Selfish. Always wrong. You never know honesty, but it silently keeps punching. Constantly playing defence. One breath is different from the next, the change of pace is unbearable. Break the surface and let me into the world you're all in, it seems so much less confusing. Yet horribly real all the same. Tears pour but the sudden relief turns to burning, "you are pathetic, your weakness is disgusting." Over and over I listen to her. Feeling buried alive in the sanctuary that was sleep. They just keep on falling over and over. Hands make no combat. Can't fight the inevitable. The tracks are never straight, it is suddenly calm. Dizzy and sick.

Feeling insane. It's all over as quickly as it seemingly began, it's so temporary. No one believes you're being real. Are real. That's what makes the crazy, crazy. The irony personified shrieks with laughter, as they hurt and pain. Sick and dizzy.



We are so many tiny pieces.