My back yard is twenty concrete slabs.
I count it out in paces.
In minutes.
A lap around the drain cover.
A circle around the dying tree.
don’t think don’t think
If you think you will die
The tiny fragments left of me shatter like dust crumble into the slabs disappear under the feet of the people who hold the keys. keys to doors with no handles.
I cannot remember home.
How it feels.
How it smells.
How it rested upon my skin.
I cannot remember.
How clean it was. How my body felt small. Mine.
Now I am swollen.
Full like a toxic balloon.
Full with a foulness that will never be removed.
Minute after minute.
Pace after pace.
It lingers on the phone.
The receiver dirty with other peoples breath. breath not words.
Nobody speaks the truth here.
They pat me down. Check for metal
idonotbelongidonotbelong
No chink of me is left to detect.
My heart is dead. It has no beat. No life left any more.
I am Alice. But there is no potion. No mirror.
I cannot find remember where I am. Or where I have to go.
I pace the concrete slabs.
Measure out my time.
The sky isn’t big enough to catch my loss.
It is torn up with planes and walls with the itchy head the bloated stomach the smell on my hands with every miserable minute and pitiful pace.
Inside I know the truth. The one that nobody speaks.
I will never be real again.
And I think.
There is no place to catch the sadness here.
There is no back yard.
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23 comments:
the weight of this image is haunting
This piece conveys a depth of sadness, despair in vivid multi-sensory images. My heart tightened, my stomach clenched as I read the well chosen lines. The cadence and flow added tension and release at just the right times. The writing is amazing, Jae. The message is so sad. Makes me want to hug, cuddle, rock-a-bye that girl back to real.
You have really written a depthful poem here, Jae, conveying your experience with such gut-level real writing. Intense images that make me feel. The telephone with other people's breath. idonotbelong. idonot belong. Everyone needs a place to catch sadness. I am sorry right now you have no backyard, but hope you find your way back to real very soon.
I love the idea of home resting on skin. So many haunting lines here. This one holds a lot of depression and no hope. When my son was born, a nurse told me it always gets worse before it gets better and that helped when things did get worse. I knew better times were coming. Sounds like you've hit that worse point. Hopefully, things will turn now for you.
powerful words.
wow.
But those people there don't know you have a secret do they? That you write and dream of things far beyond their imagining. You are achieving something so beautiful that all the hurt and dirt and hopelessness are just mere specks under your feet. You are going to succeed in that clean world of your creation. I hope I see you there.
Thank you so much to you all..your comments have cheered this morning..I will re-read them..take them to the concrete slabs..thankyouthankyou Jae
home is a place in our heart and head - it's hard to find sometimes...especially when you are physically in a place of concrete and strangers. Sometimes it seems like you are the farthest from home when things are darkest. I hope that the light finds you and and that YOU find you. When you are on the concrete - look up. The sky is still there for you and I will look up at it today and think - Jae is looking at this sky :)
Thank you Dee..Jae does look up..finds the clouds and lady-birds (bugs)..2 minutes an hour isn't enough to open up the sky here..I think Jae will win through..eventually..stinkily.. :)
Jae WILL win! A stunning piece of writing - I'm lost for words.
Ooh Jae the smell of home “how it rested upon my skin” is so nice!
“The smell of piss lingers on my shirt sleeves” is nice, too, but in a different way...
Free-ish amongst piss-stained trousers and crazy gin-breathed neighbor ladies or trapped, cramped tight in stripped-bare order, which is worse??? Oh dear, neither I should think. I will send you a rubber tommy water gun. It worked for Freddie Mercury.
Fascinating prison imagery here. Prison can be both mental and physical, though. The two don't always run together.
you are strong Jaerose, you won't slip away.
keep writing, hold on to this talent.
you have fresh air within you- walk out
and let it echo inside the goodness and
strength and hope still there-
Wow - JaeRose. This is immense on so many levels. Thank you for writing this.
peace,
deborah
Jae, wishing you a back yard with a tire swing and hummingbird feeder and butterfly garden. All beauty to make the bloated tic of self and the telephone breath a thing of the past.
Your writing continues to astound me, but it never brings me down. Somehow, you affirm life, with all its imperfections. Love, Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/theartofthequilter/
Thank you Keith..
Thank you Zanzinece ;) piss lingers..longer and more damaging than any gun shot..
Yes, thank you Ann..wish I had a bunbun to hug to make the inside of my noodle bigger..
Thank you Shauna..let's hope..
Thanks Deborah - peace back..
Hmm..that sounds nice Amy..I would love a tire swing..maybe we can meet up there..at some point..
Jae
i love the counting most of all... bringing rhyme to the darkness.... how full of hope i see in the last line... there is no backyard... did i misread...
I hadn't thought of it that way Miss Pie..thank you..Jae :)
I agree with old egg again. They don't know the real you. The you that writes so beautifully of the pain, the stink, the despair. They don't know the you who sees it, feels it, lives and breathes it and, the you who knows, there is something more to be had, and is working towards it with such stealth.
You'll get to where you wish to be because, you will make it so.
Amazing write again. Such a gift.
Thanks Daydreamer..I'm not entirely sure..but I saw the little black kitty again..Jae
Nice images...
"The sky isn’t big enough to catch my loss"
love that line...
i went to a place once
a cage across the window
a small room
a corridor with people pacing
sometimes people shouting
one time there was a fight
and i thought it was my fault
i washed myself crying
a man took my hand
and said it would be ok
people queued for medicine
looking for oblivion
and there was a yard
lawn, cigarette butts and bars
but ducks could break in
through the bars and so we fed them
and there were trees beyond
and magpies
eventually i was allowed outside
and i found an injured possum
it bit me, but we saved it
and it was taken to an animal hospital
and eventually came back all recovered
i could draw and so i did
i gave pictures to people
mostly they wanted pictures of cats
another time i went to a different place
it was locked down
and the yard was small with walls and paved
the doors were locked
people paced and counted
time was distorted and tangible
eventually i was allowed outside
and i walked through the hospital
and found the courtyard
with turtles and ducks
i think every hospital needs ducks
and water, and trees, birds
and animals, ecological hope.
living habitat. i think it was pivotal for me.
i could draw and so i did
pictures of turtles and colour
so perhaps jae
you can think of us as your ducks
and the poems are bits of bread
and we hope to be pieces of habitat for you
i am at home now
i live across from a park
trees, birds, dogs and a garden
full of green mayhem
i appreciate them more now
so perhaps there is that about these journeys
a lesson about life and landscape.
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