I’ve lost everything when your footsteps abandon the room. When the door closes, and the shadows still and fade. Like pumpice; glittering concrete, seeping out as red-water. This heart has always been like stone in solitude; but now, I feel it cracking. It breathes. You’ve left your body as a scent in my sheets, and happiness, within dissipating syllables; I hold onto them, but I am still not with you. So, like temporary heart-break, like a half broken porcelain doll, as the glue dries ; I wait for your voice, across the other line - ‘Please don’t hurt me, like the rest. Nothing tires me more than worry' ; ‘You are a worrier,’ ‘I know. I am sorry.’
Just something I wrote on the train back home today. I'm currently taking poetry at uni- it seems to have pushed me to write more. Polyester high-beams, taste, something of fire-retardant, and feel as if dried-mucus, crackled like a jaundiced boil. Voices, jittering, political complaints, superficial critique of the economy- Monotonous, monotone, like a phone call. If only they were more like a mirror, shattered and twinkling brightly- that would capture my attention. Earphones nestled, close to eardrums, fingertips rolling, over and over, but I can still hear, the booming, of disenchanted single-mothers and the mutterings of the medicated. It seems, they only speak to themselves, their lips fumbling over syllables, hands opened with stressed-contractions- I know, I know, what you're saying is important, but I, do not want to listen.
If any positive has come out of my Mother's passing, it has been the realization that all the petty, contemptuous nonsense that goes on in my life is an utter waste of energy and should be completely disregarded. I remember before my Mum passed, she used to tell me quite often that the reason why she stayed inside, away from people, is that because they're so judgmental. They are seemingly sick with this constant need to feel superior to everyone they meet. She told me however, that instead of getting angry with them, and trying to put up a fight against their egotism, that I should just smile and be polite ; 'it's a waste of time fighting the tide', she'd say. I never quite understood that until now. I was always a very passive-aggressive person. I guess it's only when someone so incredibly invaluable is taken from you, that you realize what is truly important. After all, we're all in a pursuit of happiness so to speak, so why bother with all the interruption?
Dear Mum, I remember a few months ago when we were cleaning the house for inspection. You were attending the pot plants and I was wiping down the computer table. Due to an enormous amount of psychological stress you were under, your mood had reduced to something vicious that day, as you had been pretty short and stubborn with me for the latter of the afternoon. I was trying my best to not let your mood affect me, as I knew it was just a product of your mental state, however at the breath of one last short-tempered snap, scolding me on the quality of my cleaning, I couldn't help but let a few tears of frustration roll down my cheeks. I tried to hide them from you, but like any Mother, you were able to detect the sound of my sniffling with an electric-fast flash, and thus quickly responded with a soft, maternal, 'what's wrong?' You're being too mean, I replied. I could see you were as upset by this as I was, quickly gathering yourself by my side.. 'come, I want to show you something.' With your hand on my upper arm, you guided me to the photo stand. You picked up the photo of you and I on my first Christmas. 'Look', you said, 'This is my FAVOURITE photo of you and I. When you think I don't love you, you just look at this photo; I do love you. I love you more than you could realise'. Mum, at that moment, I felt so happy I could've floated away; not because I didn't know you loved me, I always knew you loved me, but because you said you loved me with such conviction and depth, that the very sound of your voice took hold and cradled me with a kind of nurturing warmth that, as I now realise, only you could provide me with. When I decided to write a eulogy I didn't know what I could say that could properly justify how much I love you, and what a beautiful person you are. There's just so many things I want to say to you, for you were such an incredible human being, and Mother.. but, unfortunately, as I stand here before you, amidst in the reality that you're gone, the torn, shredded sinew, all that is left of my once whole heart, twists and aches with such excruciating valour, that I can barely breathe out the words on this page. All I can really say is that I miss you terribly and that you are irreplaceable- and that all I want to do now is climb to the highest peak on Earth, so that when I scream out, 'I love you Mum', I might be close enough to heaven for you to hear it. Wish me luck. I love you, Zoe.
And the patch I sewed with a mechanical thread Of spun sinew from a fraying stone; Yet it’s not enough. A pail of red paint, curved the handle in my hand, in hope transparency falls to colour, whose light thickens to a mellow-dusk, that floods and softens your tongue; Perhaps then you’ll tell the sounds without sensation; how to distil the calcium from your head , and the cotton from your tail.
His skin was flushed with red chillis. He stood at the end of the road, the concrete sidewalks melted and bubbled cerulean spheres, flames blossomed out of the palm trees and the sky tied knots within its moisture-laden clouds. There she was in front of him, motionless. Her skin as porcelain under still water, the tier of her onyx dress floated in the wind and her slender, soft hands tucked under each other, delicately, as if she were holding something fragile. He threw his fingers up into the air and caught his escaping breath. He inhaled the breath back through his nostrils; its frost dried and cracked his beige lips. He flattened the creases from his crinkled white shirt and began to approach her. Her chest filled with fear, and her heart began palpitating. The ebony, lace of her dress unravelled from her sides, revealing her ribs. With every shallow, inhalation she took, her blinding pale skin pulled tort against her bones. She stumbled backwards and her eyes welled with transparent silver dew. They were the only ones left. Neither had seen another spirit since the sun swallowed heaven and hell. This meeting meant the possibility of fantasy translating the present into the future. Life after death. She didn’t know whether or not to open her hands. He didn’t know whether or not to back away.
He wore beige lips, pursed tightly together like a knot in a securely-woven rope. The papyrus paper lay beside him, denoting in a dark ink where the slumber men reside. ‘Dirty, rotten’, his teeth muttered as they forged together in a violent clench, ‘dirty, rotten slumber men, my beautiful, she’s there, dirty, rotten.’ His fingertips lit a moonlight phosphorus and his nails extended from their root, ‘they’re gone, they’re all gone’. He rose from the behind the cowering trees and softly waved his hand. The earth cracked like plastic under pressure, and shot a deafening thunder towards the neatly aligned slumber men. Defenceless against the unexpected spell, they could do nothing more than let out short, crackling scream before being engulfed by the erupting moss and earth. 'Yes’, he said to himself, 'yes’. He softly waved his hand once more and the fractured earth sealed and settled back into position. He moved with a mysterious grace, across the trees and towards the once guarded crystal coffin, picking up the sparkle left from the slumber mans remains and heaving it into his pockets; it would sell at a high price on the market. The crystal coffin was laid thick like black marble, it was frosted like glass, and was as cold as ice, he could barely see the outline of her face or the colour of her auburn locks through it. ‘Don’t worry, I know what do to.’ He took a small, jade scalpel from his belt pocket, and moved it across the palm of his hand, he did not bleed. He couldn’t. He lifted the skin made from his incision and pulled out a tiny, stone phial. Slowly, he unscrewed its delicate top and spilled the contents upon the head of the coffin. The crystal bubbled and smoothed, revealing a transparent, mirror-like layer, ‘I can see you now’, he smiled, brushing the back of his hand against the crystal. 'Next time, you shall be my love once more'.
Nails splintered before the cracked sky, adorned with scars and sunken eyes, shattered the sphere, only to find arteries paled with lead, skinned and spilling warmed honey among stained glass; how can I be lost, if you cannot be found? The flesh of teeth, hold back the words you gave me, but they’re not enough to stop the bleed; to swell the tongue with sweet syrup, to cease fleeting lashes.
So I sat there, with nothing to do, picking the lint out of my cotton-fingernails, wondering where the night went. I picked up the paper. Piece, of paper, I mean, although it wasn’t a piece of paper, it was a sheet of paper. The English language is so fatigued, why do we insist on referring a whole as a piece? It was then, I wanted to say, ‘my eyes heavied’, ‘my heart raced’, or something seemingly dramatic, however, I was, perhaps, at harmony; I did have a headache. Should I mention the rain? It’s pouring at the moment, sounds a bit clichéd though; there’s a certain magic about pouring rain. I want to write something profound, but originality has been strung from my fingertips. I wish I could get out of here, somewhere. Well, perhaps not, anywhere. I want to twirl rainbow protein-strands around my wrists, I want to hang near a pot of gold, I want to sing, but silently, so nobody else hears. Why are we so afraid of rejection when we seem so gratified to give it? It’s like, if someone suggests something that is not agreed upon, there’s this certain rush we feel from telling them they’re wrong- yet, when it’s our turn, we crumble. Even to those who claim not to care about their ideas, or their behaviour being rejected, who do not crumble- I ask, what is it then that fuels them to perform with such conviction? To stand up and say, ‘you’re wrong and I don’t care’. They care; they care more than those who crumble. They value opinions, that’s why. They care for them, they live off them. Without others opinions their rebellion would serve no purposes. It’d be like having a voice with no one to hear you. It’s a kind of snobbery. You like this, I don’t, mine is superior, you are wrong, you should change. I am above you. People who like that are indicative of people like those. Let me point the finger, let me make comparisons. It’s a grave assumption, though, but maybe it’s only I who finds a good old contradiction beautiful.
Behind sight, sleepless pale, The colour within me quickens, and muscles contract as if spun, the breath within me refuses to leave. For the opium doesn’t seem to be working; plasma dries a burnt-sienna; crumbles and shifts through, static nerves, that intertwine and twitch, in benevolent harmony. So the adrenaline fog, cradles me to a heavy insomnia, nestled, gently, as a porcelain womb, curved, in the palm-of-hand. I can’t stop thinking of you.
Whose kind words do I speak to? The whimsical air and the tired cold; they’re sick of hearing me claw at them, with devastating affection. And I don’t sleep because I don’t like waking up; I wander the night, imitating the day, with all the lights on, wasting power.. hoping you dream in bright colours. And whilst you’re away with whoever is easier to be with than me; I’m wasting away on toffee-water and television; watching a space I cannot fill, because I do not fit. So perhaps I’ll make myself a short skirt of confectionary wrappers, and used straws; And dance with my opened-chest cavity til important enough to return to; til you cough back up my half-digested heart, somewhere around my feet so I can scrap it up with a shovel, and hopefully remember what it does
Indigo barbs interweave, like many tiny petals competing for oxygen, like an exploding violet butterfly sparkling in the half-lit –daylight; morning, repeated-'mourning'. I stand there, my lips, red with scorn, yet pale from constricted circulation, holding separate hands in one, cold finger tips intertwined, their only company. I wait there; I take it- the plastic sounds that drown out floating ideal chatter and wandering eyes. I wish the train would melt upon arrival- boil and bubble like magical-pea soup from a witches cauldron. I’d drink it all down. My nostrils twitch and left-foot dance with the bitter, smoky air. My sclera’s coat drips sweet saline and soaks up my blush. My feet sense the ground til senseless. Then, as feeling leaves and the artificial fuzz dulls, a universal sound of exasperation is let out. It’s here, the train is finally here. Someone with a superior-uniform and neatly combed-back frills tells us all to move to the end. We all scuttle in unison, like confused insects, our curious antennas fondling at the nothingness, our glands expelling subtle-setting pheromones so that we know who is who, what is forward, what is back. I’m lodged between a sickeningly endearing couple and a teenager with a young, stretched body and elderly face. He smiles, I think, to me (least I’d like), but no one would smile at me; no one would even look up. He must know this. I look at him, I tell him and as our eyes meet and his head turns away.. I don’t blame him. Interest never ignites in bloodshot skin and obese necks. The train cries its mechanical woe; the environment applauds the hydrogen buses, the teenager turns around. We roll on.