-
The wheel turns.
Tables had become a necessity of any gathering a requirement to the ritual of remembrance. They still did what they always had but somewhere along the line the laughs were about days past instead of actions present. The past a polished pearl without imperfection the future once a scuff became a scratch upon its surface. A canyon full of hope and dreams that became deeper daily from the load lost inside it. Time had passed and they were powerless to prevent it. The nostalgia wore off with the night and in the gap between one remembered moment and the next they all sighed simultaneously knowing that their was nothing new left.
-
With arms strong and sure she held him hard hoping to impress an impression of herself that would mark him as hers. Each trip had become a menace and with all the tools marshaled to maintain contact they were a too poor substitute for touch and taste.
The steel began to sing its sorrows.
He stood there lank with one hand locked around the the brown handle of his battered travel trunk causing too taut skin to turn white. His other arm seemed lost limply wrapped around her waist he didn’t know where it should go anymore so it wandered across her back with a bumbling benevolence.
Waves of noise washed high & low crashing into one another filling an ocean of air.
The sound seemed to be tugging them apart, then she felt the fervour which fastened them together, latched till the last had gone. They were a broken lock that would never seal shut again on a trunk of travels to be discarded.
A poorly amplified announcement failed to cut through the cacophony.
He could see a fierce look in her eyes as a teardrop ran along ruddy cheeks. “It won’t be that long,” he lied as he let go of his case and held her as hard she held him. Her face buried in his breast he kept an eye on his approaching exit determined to be done. He looked her in the eyes wiped her cheek with care and kissed it thinking anything more would be in poor taste.
The sounds slowed and a whistle stabbed sharply.
Her cheek was hot where he had kissed her as if it had been a slap. At least let her taste him one last time, let her breathe as much of him in before he was gone for good. She brought an arm up to his chin and moved it towards her feeling the stiffening of second thoughts. “It’s okay,” said a second before pressing him into her kissing him hard and wholeheartedly, till her lips hurt, desperately hunting for his heart in his mouth not knowing it was now in his throat.
Mechanical doors press-ganged into service snapped open with a thud.
Looking at her as she let him go he picked up his trunk and a wane smile shamefully scurried across his face. He stepped onto his escape and sat down by the window not sure if he should look up. Searching in his coat pocket he found pen and paper and scribbled on it, I’ll call when I arrive, all in capitals. He pressed it against the window only to see her face slick with sorrow as it shook from side to side. She turned and began to walk away.
The doors retired to their resting positions as they were both shunted on.
-
Backdraft
Placing the bottle down its hollow sound echoed all the promises he had made to her. She had sobbed, sulked and cried till she was exhausted then exhausted every bottle in her grasp. Catching a glimpse of herself she laughed, she looked exactly how she felt exposed, drained and damaged.
Mascara had moved from her eyes down her cheeks and settled in half formed droplets that clung to her face like her unwilling to let go. There was no one to call now, no one to cry out for, no one to hold her, it was over.
Why was it she cared, it had only been two weeks but she was devastated like she had lost a love of a lifetime.
She breathed deeply trying to figure out what it was that she was so cut up about. In the short space that had passed they had seen seven sunrises and every sunset and travelled the length of the country.
They had talked about everything except the weather & how their day had been. He had dragged her from town to museum to building to coast round & round as if on a merry-go-round.
He had forced breathe into her life’s lungs that like so many others were just ticking along on life support. For a fortnight they had shouted, argued, fought, fucked and she felt herself fill with a frenzy that he offered. In two weeks she had lived more than she could remember.
Then this morning he had stood by the door turned to her smiled and said “I’m going, I’m not coming back, goodbye.” He kissed her on the cheek softly and walked out the door. She was so shocked she had stood there mute & motionless as he walked out her life. And then the opiate haze that his presence provided lifted, and that’s when she fell apart. -
Run
Asphalt stretched out filling his world till it slipped under the horizon and out of sight suddenly modest to the fact that it dominated the landscape. The pain had passed, the proof of it in hot hands turned raw as blood tried to escape from all the tiny avenues newly opened. He looked to see a river running down his knee broadening, pumping life into a tiny crimson ocean darkening as it gained depth.
“GET UP” words felt more than heard, his self pity interrupted, looking up the red sea was replaced by her silhouette framed by the sun. A hand thrust into his, her face a bowl of cream with a thousand strawberries thrown in. ”Get up, today we run in the streets and we will never get tired or grow old, and the sun will never set, come with me.”
He did and everything was perfect.
-
Determined discarded
All the loves I have left and lost are dead.
They walk and talk I see them in the streets.
Awkward glances exchanged with weak words.
If only they were as dead as in my heart.
I could walk down streets without having to stop and start. -
Better broken together
Sharp shoulders and brittle bones offered themselves, a scarf for his shoulders, a noose for his neck.
A heavy head lent down carrying with it fears, flaws and fatigue that had nowhere to go but weigh down on her collarbone.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” his words whispered.
“If it did I wouldn’t say a word I will suffer in silence with you,” spoken softly.
She lowered him down to his knees, his shoulders had sunk and his thick neck was limp as if his spine had suddenly become too thin.
She had loved the way he had held himself, it was one of the things you couldn’t teach, you were comfortable in your own skin or you weren’t.
His shoulders were broad and true not falling forwards or leaning lazily back.
She had initially thought him arrogant, the way he looked down at you had made her want to master him, make him hers.
She had mistaken abstinence of emotion for arrogance and ever since had wanted to know what had made him that way.
He was her beautiful broken thing and she realised along the way she may never know the why.
In this moment her heart was a hummingbirds hammering at her chest, trying to keep her afloat long enough to see if she would be witness to the one thing he held back from the world, from her.
“It’s okay,” his words newborn trying to find their footing.
He had already begun pulling back inside himself she could feel it, her trenchant tongue took over,
“It’s not okay, it’s not fucking fine, stop being so god damn strong! They brought you into this world kicking and screaming and you won’t do the same when they are gone. YOUR GODS HAVE DIED TONIGHT AND YOU WILL NOT SHED A TEAR!”
As the last sharpened syllable left her lips his body hardened, she was shocked that she had gone so far, she held on tight not wishing to lose him.
He convulsed and his body began to buck and heave, as he sobbed she pressed him into her, soaking up his suffering till her shirt was stuck to her shoulder.
As silence once more took over she held his head between her hands and brought it to face hers.
She kissed his face, salt had never tasted so sweet. -
The morose mariner
His tugboat trawls and turns all day.
Dragging a net full of holes finding nothing but broken dolls.
He knows he cannot fix them but he plays with them trying to plaster the cracks with platitudes.
Then sends them overboard with a band aid over one break and a new one from fresh heartache.He sieves the sea and sighs remembering he caught a mermaid once, but couldn’t keep her, she dried out in the sun.
-
Disrepair
He was a broken down home.
An old wreck full of fading charm
and tumbledown teeth behind the front door of his face.
Inside were threadbare carpets and bowed boards,
worn thin by years of wants and wishes walking round.
He was a broken down house.
The foundations faltered and subsided,
when all the broken bottles of gin seeped in.
The shutters hardly opened to let the light come in,
to fill the grand spaces contained within.
He is a broken down hovel.
And she knew it was too late to fix him. -
We carry on
He sat on the wooden pew with a patina that showed its years of service.
The wood was dark and black from countless hands rung around its surface absorbing the soiled sins of their skin. It was strange how churches always made his insides feel like laundry, tumbled. His mother had been so strong in her faith, tall from the truth of it, absolute. He had never been so sure and had stopped going to church as soon as he was able. In a lucid moment he was sixteen again and arguing with her why he should go to the service at school. It had been conducted in a chapel built on the grounds in a time when school, state and sacrament had been more closely intertwined. It was a beautiful building with huge windows depicting stained glass saints, a grand organ and solid stone floors that siphoned the heat from your soles
“It’s so dull and we don’t learn anything,” that was the entirety of his argument.
“It will teach you patience,” calmly stated “I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”
He had challenged her to come and sit in on a service, she did. After she had despaired that there was no joy in the worship, no one had clapped their hands or shouted out, it had gone on with all the flair of a train timetable.
He had felt victorious, the corners of his mouth creeping up in anticipation of acceptance, facts had bested faith and he would be set free.
“You’re still going though until your eighteen.”
Dumbstruck he had nothing to say but just sulked and slipped inside himself for the next week, as was the limit of his ability to bear a grudge.
His reverie broke as a priest came up to him with a face he didn’t care to remember and spoke words that were well worn in his mouth, “can I help you my child?”
Looking up light pouring in from the windows formed a halo with dust motes dancing within it around the priests head, his face was sunk in shadow.
“You’re too late I’m afraid, she is already dead.” was all he could manage. -
In vain
Scarlet lips and red hair punctuated by a black heart,
we sweated swapping parts of ourselves.
A little skin for spit,
some of my time for your tears.
Your dirty words like hooks,
a halter to goad my hips.
Through force and friction hoping to fuse,
knowing we would always be miles apart. -
Penguins have patience
There are penguins on my shelves standing in neat rows.
Queuing with quiet patience and the occasional glance,
as if to say, you know?
-
Clumsy words stumbled out of my mouth naked in to the acre of silence that preceded them.
Sky blue eyes seemed to turn ice white looking at me in a way I had never seen in six years, like she had been saving that expression somewhere safe.
The wait was excruciating as waves kept time on the fuse i had lit.
I flinched as she took one of the ice cream cones I bought whilst collecting the courage to tell her.
I had no idea what was going to happen, the sickness of uncertainty took a seat in my stomach ravenous for the next scene.
As I worked through possible possibilities I saw a blur approach me,
like a coward I leaned out the way and she slapped my cone from my hand.
Turning round the back of her head said “I hate you get the fuck off my beach.”
The waves washed up for a better view and my feet squirmed in the sand.
I muttered something about no one owning the beach, except maybe poseidon, although it might be outside his portfolio.
“You are an idiot,” I could hear a poorly suppressed smile in her voice.
“Yes… yes I am,” the show over the waves began to wash away and the sickness shuffled out of its seat.
Relieved I looked on the bright side, at least I won’t have to look after her fish. -
Spent
I feel a stone in my bed
it’s not under my sheets
nor in my heart or head
how i wish i could roll away from it
Uncomfortable
It lies betwixt duvet and sheet
preventing me from sleep
the more I ignore it the less it relents
leaving my stomach sickly
A sleepless night spent -
This is the story of my sleep
I was staying in a friends house who was recovering from life by spending the rest of it on acid, I was bored and wished away the hours till she came to visit.
She had an earth worn beauty, hands heavy with callouses, cracked feet and lines from laughing even though her life was hard.
She worked every day for a man who by all accounts was a bastard spitting on the floors she scrubbed on bent knee.
Her eyes pierced me and I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her which made me love her.
We walked through fields filled with corn that waved at our waists tickling outstretched hands with their ears taking in our conversations.
She wanted to die here away from everything she told me, as we sat outside the mud walls of my friends house warm against our backs, like the wine we had drunk from a glass carafe with weave around its base.
I convinced her to join me back in the city.
She drove and I spent the journey with my head hanging out the open door of the truck, documenting the change in roads from track to tarmac marveling at it like a compressed colour wheel.
We approached the outskirts of a home town I had never seen but knew in my heart was mine. Tall trees stood on either side of the road looming, live with colour, as their leaves were dying.
She stopped the truck climbed out knelt by a large puddle, that had formed on the grassy bank beside the road.
Washing herself, the water taking away with it more than just dirt, the lines on her face lifted, callouses calmed and the soles of her feet softened.
I looked at her and tears began to roll down my face.
I woke up wanting to take her back to that dusty desert where I found her. -
Unyielding
He held her and she lent her head against his chest, it was almost weightless.
“You should leave me before it’s too late, it’s only fair to give you a warning” he whispered whilst twirling her hair round his finger tightly till it became a tourniquet.
Laughter lifted out of her, “you say the stupidest things. I love you and you love me, I know you haven’t said it but I know you do.”
He continued playing with his improvised cord sighed and with deliberation spoke, “I haven’t said it because it isn’t a thing to be sought. My love is heavy, it will weigh you down like an anchor chained around your throat.”
Turning to look him in the eye she began to speak he placed his blood deprived finger on full lips.
“It will pull you screaming through oceans until it pulls you through the ground, till you can go no further and are worked by hot heat and handled with heavy hands, until you are lost in oblivion.”
She bit his finger then kissed it softly, “I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect.”
