The Teller

I hang myself with a string of red liquorice. It tastes nice. A real pleasure. Like my red finger nail which I chew. And scrape along the bath. The words from that book. The one I won’t leave. I take it to the church. Where they show their patchwork and quilts. Big ladies who won’t disintegrate into candy splinters or threads of red words. I see no rings of sticky sweets hanging around their necks. Maybe they wash it off. Cover it with busy hands and prayer-filled hearts. Like the Queen, full of tarts. Busy playing. I am not a player. I am a teller. Forged out of stitches and glue. They gave me back breath. To keep talking. But they left me with nothing else. I shout with the red pen and the red tin but the breath I was given is not to be spilled in the church. It is not to be heard in this story. I am the teller. I have breath but no voice. I lost my voice when the red liquorice turned to wire. I lost my voice when I told you; ‘I cannot make myself worth being murdered.’

(Beautiful, borrowed words from Camilla Gibb – ‘Mouthing the Words’)