I hope there will be a moment when
When the circles fall from my eyes
To the floor
Get mopped away with sweet yellow lemon and a hearty wet
cloth
Mops which wipe the brow of those who expect
And deliver
I wait
In the bed
Nothing moves
Not arm
Not leg
Just a head tilted painfully stuck to the side
Where the spit collects
And cracks my lips
No one mops that up
The spit
The clock measures
Time backwards
As it always does in this place
Ten minutes an hour
All too much
Not enough
Every minute must be held and blown like a little chicklet
flame
Once the number is dialled the flame is given up
The shouts made
The hot drinks passed to useless hands
Spillages
No need to mop up
only me only me
I take the tape off my foot
My body peppered in welts and bruises
Lines tapped in thumbs and drilled in thighs
I hope they never find me
Just my blood
That is the currency here
I switch on at 3am
Like I always do
But I am held by wires and beeps
I try to edge to the edge
They spring from behind curtains quick as catching a fresh cup
of tea
They move my green bag further away
The little piece of being I try to reach
The watch that tells the right time
Not the Rabbit’s time which sits on the wall waiting to
trick and to fool
My sixty hours will fade away like bruises
I stand in the kitchen and measure
What they took
What they didn’t
What made them laugh
I sweep the grit from their boots now that I am back
Sweeping up chaos does not capture what I seek
What I have not found
That place which I can call home.
oh my oh my...so much..to think about...to ponder...to rattle in my mind...will it ever find it's way out or wisp in an empty world forever...
ReplyDeleteYour write reveal and hides... filled with mystery, and maybe "home" is always a mystery? And finding it is hard, like granite? And who are they? And why do they laugh when they have grit on their boots? I like what you are doing with time, it is malleable isn't it? Hard to know it's shape or direction? I like how Alice appears and the rabbit, like a game, a child might play. Wonderful! And just like the rabbit, you are always just a little ahead of me.
ReplyDeleteFinding home can take a lifetime. Homes often aren't as homey as I'd imagined they'd be and the chaos reappears just as fast as I clean it up.
ReplyDeleteNice to find you home at your blog today. I worried when I didn't see your name in the Sunday Scribbling lineup earlier.
Sweeping up the chaos is a never ending job! This provides food for thought, Jae!
ReplyDeleteI wonder so many things. Where is this set? What caused the welts and bruises? And 60 hours seems like a long, long time. Why that long? Indeed, so many mysteries here.
ReplyDeleteUtterly mesmerizing, the expressions you use are magnetic like "the little chicklet flame" and "a hearty wet cloth". Yes, the time does almost go backwards when you are where you don't want to be. How well you can express the worst fears of our lives and we in reading also relive the nightmares you write about so graphically.
ReplyDeleteHome is where we are safe. It is our base camp in our efforts to scale the summit. When you aren't sure what will make your heart feel safe, no place feels like home.
ReplyDeleteYou write so many things that make me wonder. I read of outer chaos and inner struggle - a life lived backwards like the clock you describe.
My own experience is that even in a chaotic backwards life a day comes when you find the toggle switch that turns it all 180 and everything is right and easy after that. Keeping sane and healthy until one finds that switch is the hard part.
Thank you all so very much for your comments..apologies if I can't get around to your own pieces or leave individual replies..j is not altogether together..but will soon be up and commenting I am sure..thank you all.. Jae
ReplyDeleteThe sixty hours did pass. You are home. I am glad. So revealing, dear one. Heartbreaking, too.
ReplyDeleteI wish you could know what I know. I wish you could feel what I feel. Perhaps I should use those lines in a poem or song lyrics.
I once wrote in a poem of my own "Why isn't hope injectable?" I still wonder.
The line, "mops which wipe the brow of those who expect and deliver," the laboring mother, as though her brow is more deserving than yours. Now I see some green in the bag and wonder if that's tied to a prosperity you lack... ever enigmatic and cool to the max, that's our Jae. Loved it. Amy
ReplyDeletehttp://sharplittlepencil.com/2012/06/25/youre-eeeeek-uh/
These thoughts leave me with little hope, I'm just glad that you have returned from that place that measures time in such a twisted way. I don't like the attachments that they use nor the dirt they leave behind. I hope that you won't have to go there again. "The little piece of being" breaks my heart.
ReplyDeleteI don't want you to give your blood away.
Ms. Jaerose, keep writing, we worry unless we hear..
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as if you spent some time in hospital Jae. I hope you are doing your best to stay well. There are people who care about you that you maybe don't even know care. This is very graphic, I saw a hospital bed and you hooked up to monitors.
ReplyDeleteThank you Kim..maybe no feeling is injectable..that's the fly in the ointment..no one can prescribe what you have lost..or need..
ReplyDeleteYes, labouring mother was in there Amy..though have never experienced that..glad you think I'm cool to the max! means a lot..
I will hold it tight..thank you Archna..
Still here Glenn..no fear..thank you
Thank you Daydreamer..yes..and yes..i do know people 'out there' care..