Alice and the Gun

Alice dances with a gun in her hand.
She shoots and the white rabbit licks jam from its paws.

He draws lines on my neck.
The places where he will shave off little pieces of me.
Where I will turn to jam and rabbits.

I buy clothes wash. I pay a pound and the lady says it must be massive. The problem. You know. Not really.

He holds my arm. Turns it. Counts the thorns. He should let it go but he keeps a hold. Strokes me a little. And I feel foolish. Being touched.

Some people can lay hands. Not all. Not the man with no teeth or crazy neighbour lady. Not the man in the car that smiles. Until the door locks behind me.

The stoop water is so cool. I stroke it over my temple. Over the bruises. I relish the tiny moment of comfort. And safety. A little mercy in the middle of the day.

Well done you.

My head vibrates it’s so hot. The massive thing will never let go.
I am no longer the little shit. I am the little shit that wrote a letter. And the letter has more power than me. The reply will be posted and my name forgotten. All notes and pictures tidied away. For thirty years. A royal execution. My dust and paws lost to the Red Queen.

I know. Whatever trick. I have played it out first.

The priest turns the lights down. Takes away the water and the wine.
I am not sure if it is him or the policeman buying Golden Virginia and milk.
I really would like a cup of water.

He stands me in front of the mirror.
The man with the lines.

Where is J.

Here I am.
Licking my lips.
Hiding behind Alice and the gun.

Dirty Tricks

I give it due reverence. Pull the thorns out in front of the mirror.
The skin changes overnight. Red to brown. Delicious bruises that only I can feel.
A party trick with no balloons. No guests. No pop in a cracked glass. No gifts.
And for my next trick.
Well. There are too many to describe.

This is up. When I touch the shoulder of the man with no teeth and he tries to kiss me.
Down will be next week. When I exchange beans for powder at the supermarket.

Time muddled up with the next person’s shopping.
I find myself in the back of the car. The words ‘I am happy’ printed in the patterns of my bag. I have a lot of bags. He looks at my face. Face. Message. Message face. It doesn’t quite add up.

I try to jump out in order to answer his question.
The one driving says J don’t try my locks.
I stop trying for a while but still my hand keeps testing.

The thorns stop it all. The loss of time. The ride in the car. Crazy neighbour lady pissing outside the front door.

The thorns are all mine. They offer no redemption. But they do keep me safe.
They are markers. Of days lost. Time spent. I count them in. Count them out. Clean them. Kiss them. Wish that they were gone.

Fluid pushes fluid. Just so you know.
You still have to do the laundry. Clear the dishes. Open the front door.
The house is a scrubbed bunker.
The removal man said it’s a home for life.
That thorn bleeds in my side.

The little plan rests on the counter. The tricks worked out.
But my hands stay in my pockets.
The little girl downstairs. She knows my name. She said it when she saw me in the bookshop. Her little eyes see.

I cool the bruises. Keep the beans and not the powder.
I pour cement in my pockets then add my hands.
Blow up balloons and drink glasses of pop.

And for my next trick.
Maybe there will be no magic at all.
Do the laundry. Clear the dishes. Open the front door.
Scrub the thorns until they shine.

Magic Touch

The woman who lays hands on me in the high street touches my shoulder and says well done you.
I realise I haven’t been back to the bad place since she touched me on the bus.
I feel giddy.
I see a penny pick it up.
I lay it on the counter.
Next to the little plan and purse.
Next to the little paper mats I cut out from the shoe box.
The shoes hurt my feet.
But they are from you.
I knead need knee-ed you.
I like the little paper mats. I cut around the pictures of the dragonfly and butterfly. I imagine some people would use their new shoes to take them to the dragons and the butterflies. But I am happy to imagine from home.
My little mats absorb red so wonderfully.
Stop the watermark of dreams melting into the wood.
There is so much fantasy.
I find eleven numbers. Yours if I put them in a row. And dial.
A paper mat of rightness keeps me away from the phone.
Well done you.
Maybe you passed in a suit. In the sun. I don’t see faces any more. It’s all CCTV inside. Movement without noise. Actions people will rewind to find out where they lost me.
It shrieks in here. That last packet of toilet rolls. Can't you see.
Find. Magnify. Erase.
I walk down an alley to absorb the thoughts. The cobblestones mop up the overload.
I see one word on the wall.
I take a photo.
Really I want to cleanse it.
How can there be a little ghetto next to the pie shop.
Cleanse is such a mighty word. A smell of the shed you want to forget.
So many things disordered. Sometimes it leaks out of my lips. Or rubs the skin off my heels. The torn skin of a day that isn’t quite right.

Still I have the touch.

Choosing a Design

They have put purple cloths around them.
And the candles do not burn at their feet.
It is another coming.
I miss his face.
The baby in her arms.

There is talk of new places.
Places I should have been many years ago.
Before.
When I still had form.
After.
The one hundredth time.

I try to listen.
Try to nod in the right places.
But it is all so very late.
And there is no important date.
Just time.
Passing like the flame which eats the wax.

Fill it up with stories J.
Go to the supermarket and worship the beans.
Find things. Anything.
A gentle, gentle plastic dove with a light under its arse.
Glowing and winking every time I walk back to this place.
It guards the chairs.
The ones neatly set out in rows.
A picture of a casket sellotaped to each back.
They come in all sorts these days.

I think I would like the flowers now.

Perhaps if you make a basket time will stop falling out of you.

I think of the warehouse.
The one with twenty pound furniture and five pound suitcases.
The familiar dents in the handle which no other hand will fit.

The policeman stands in my hallway and says if you leave the chain on we will never be able to reach you. In my mind I vow never to take it off.

I throw the purple cloth over my head.
Blow out the candle.
Choose a design.

I am not sure these new places will be.

I settle on the floor and listen for the wind in the tree.
The tree in the car park. Where the lady next door screams. And tweaker guy hustles.

I think of a cradle of soft branches.
A warm kiss upon my head.

Tin Can Banner

It is evident something needs to change.
I can no longer pick the bandage from my pork and beans.
I can no longer eat the pork and beans or wear the bandage.
I cannot feel a thing.
I cannot find a mirror that casts even a shadow of me.

I cast reflections
Little flares from the ocean onto shop windows and glass doors.

Like I can catch it.
And if I can catch it. It. I. Become real.

My identity is an illusion which I understand perfectly but cannot swallow.

I create rules.

When the hospital pencil wears down.
When the red pen no longer takes me to the next page on the calendar.
When the jeans are clean and ironed.

When it happens for you. Then I can. That’s what I told him.
Back in that place. The place where tragic first claimed me.

You came for a while
We went to the shop.
The escalator had no steps and it was full of electronic voices and screams.
I tidy up the disappointment and realise there is no place left to go.
No bridge to cross.
No target destination.
No aisle nine or row full of fancy beans.

I pick the carpet with my fingers and find a piece of black thread in the shape of a heart. A little message. Keep it together. Remember. But a heart unfolds into a line if you pull it.

I thread the cotton through the edges. Size up the holes. Ready my bandage and wash away the stinking bowl.

In the chair I spill tears. I catch them on my fingers. They soak into the ragged edge of skin. Even my own fingers cannot reach me. Nothing can wrap me up or feed me.
This tiny world holds me by the fingertips and I tug against it. Embrace it. Hate it.

This is no illusion. It bites me like a broken tin.
It is evident that the only thing I need is not inside me.
There is a script. Written in pencil. Coloured over in red.
You can pull it out like a banner from a 250 gram tin of pork and beans.

100 Doses of Powder

The little girl holds her daddy’s hand.
She wears a black and white check dress.
They are going out for dinner.

I ate my way out of the purple dress.
And I didn’t have a daddy who held my hand and took me out for dinner.

We did not break bread.
I fill the hunger left behind with a hundred doses of powder.
Funny how I can stomach the swirl of powder but the spin cycle on the washing machine scares me. Leaves me spinning in confusion. Befuddled and lost.

I am no Dorothy.

My shoes turn red with blood. Not fancy plans.

The sun has come.
The boat with holes floats into the middle of the water.
I ask the man with no teeth why it is there.
He tells me the tide is strong even though there is no wind.
We smile at each other. He says be lucky. I say you too.
He shouts out wanker.
Not at me.
I guess you can’t trust words once you lose them.
Once conversations are only kept at the bottom of a Lidl bag. Exchanged with passers-by. Like receipt slips rotting under dog shit and fag ends. Evidence of that thing you really wanted but now forget.

The church is closed on Saturdays.
The thick door keeps me out.
I would like to put holy water on my neck.
I would like to look at his feet and watch the candles.
Red and blue.

I clutch my box of cereal and walk in circles.
It’s not so bad.
Just a day.
Just another year.
It will go.
And at any time I can reach in my bag

and and and

We all know what.

I walk until the blood seeps through the second layer of padding in my shoes.

I eat a bowl of cereal and my heart races.
I don’t believe I will ever stop eating.
I will never find a dinner that fills me up.

Of course it’s not in a box or a can or a supermarket.
It’s in a big, warm hand and a neatly ironed dress.
A dress they gave you because they thought you were pretty.
Not because it was the only thing left.

I lie on the floor and listen to the little girl and her daddy chitter-chatter.
I try to feel.
Like the little girl can give me her seven and I will forget mine.
It does not work.
They drive away in the shiny black car.
I roll up on the carpet.
Waiting for the sun to fall and hide the holes yawning in my teeth.

Shopping for an Invisible

The whole thing is to make sure you’re ok.
They say that to the pretty girl.
The girl who had something to lose.
I linger in the chiropody clinic.
The waiting room with no windows.
OK isn’t even a five.
Nothing creeps up that far.
Five days to get through.
Two to ignore.

Everything spins but doesn’t dance.
My eyes get closer to the ground.
Outlined in black.
Lost in the middle.
Hazy like the sun I dodge every time I leave the house.

I am disappeared but nobody knows.
There was no existence to begin with.
I am a fabrication.
Adamant to forget who I might be.

In my dreams I visit the new shop.
It is full of doors and the escalator doesn’t work.
You have to walk on it like a treadmill and you can’t find the beans.

The doors lead out onto landings.
From one I can see the sea.
The door is oak.
It is old and bruised.

Beside the sea is a white cottage. Maybe for a fisherman.
I miss the sea.
I cannot go home and feel it.
Although home on the map is only 20 minutes away.
The peculiar place from where I came.
The place which made me but does not want me.

I go through many doors.
Up and down.
I expect the new shop to be shiny and efficient.
But the one I visit is confused.
Each door a thought.
Each landing a decision.
I get stuck in the shop I have never visited.
There are many people there but I pass them like a counter sliding off a ‘snakes and ladders’ board.
Like the little snakes in the pet shop window.
Shoe laces with no shoes. No legs to run away.

I look for faces.
Hands.
I am shopping for an invisible.

The whole thing is to make sure you’re OK.
I cannot imagine a place. A time. When those words will be given to me.

Loud and Clear

Making life rich for the poor.
The lager lorry drives by.

I can’t help but think that it’s a lie.

That really it makes you sick.
Bites your heart out chunk by chunk.
Swills your life away.
Tastes bad.

Flavour means nothing when the world turns poor.
Light fails to shine.
Darkness fails to scare.

The emptiness a big lorry waiting to crash.

I pretend the emptiness is not there.
Wrap it up in story bows.

I create a world of puzzles and words when all I need is simplicity.

Stop.
I see you.
I know what you have done.

Instead there are sliding scales and comparative charts.
Things that have no meaning to a life disappearing chunk by chunk.

As if I demonstrate a perfect ten of disappear I will be sent from the chiropody clinic to a room full of flowers and cards. A big fluffy bed and a cup of tea when Felder and Alice leave me.

Of course it will never come.
Comfort cannot be delivered in a lorry or marked down on a chart.

I go back to the prayer board.
As if Jesus himself would pick up a pencil and write a reply.

The voices are loud today so I sit in the seat and drop my head.

Dear J.
Do not board the lager lorry.
Stop eating your veins and killing your heart.
Treasure your name and enjoy the candy.

The message is all so very simple.
All so loud and clear.