Winter

She stirs the letters in the jar

Face a frown

Coming down

Trying to find patterns

An anatomy on file

My teeth chatter 

Longing

Loss

Autumn and winter

Sneaking in the back door

Knocking around inside  

Leaving outlines of bruises

Heaving and screeching

Like death on our back

It really is curious

How you have to sign a form to say 

You no longer wish to be

I come to 

On the kitchen floor

They signed me off a long time ago

She tips the jar

Turns the letters upside down

It’s perfectly silly

What more must you write

To say you have suffered enough

I trace the outline of my face

In the half light

Feel the distance between inside and out

It’s far from exceptional

Hints of time reloaded in skin

She nestles into me

Her body warm

Languid

Like honey dripping in my lap

We need more of this and less of that 

She gathers the letters 

Skipping like jelly beans in a butterfly net

I think the problem is you don’t want to die

But you have forgotten how to live

My teeth chatter 

Winter blows through

Testing the candles

Defining the light.

Fit

I turn our days to the wind

They hang down like leaves

Heavy 

Shameful

A stitched up face

No way to stop 

We can buy time

But we cannot change the minutes

Days or hours

She sings to herself

Two bottles of sugar please

All fall down

The reservation slip lies on the floor

Along with the heart trace and stains

It crystallised she says

Hopping down

It was never going to work

She is right of course

Quintessentially I always am

She says

Turning on the taps

Rinsing her fingers

She is more

Than me

I am the blank page

Upon which you can draw me

Anywhere on the spectrum 

From baby bird to rabid dog 

Their wings touch the curtains

Trying to get in

As if it is warmer in here

Or home

She munches bread and jam

It falls like blood from her wrists

Onto her pinafore

White like paper 

I catch her eyes

They are pin pricks

Size me 

Measure me

Fill me up

I turn our days to the wind

They hang down like leaves

Heavy 

Shameful

A stitched up face

That will never fit in.

Madness

She sits on the window 

Swinging her legs

Dabbing her head

With the scissors

Singing

I keep scrubbing

Spray

Sit

Vent

The smell will never go away

My cough rumbles through the room

Like church valves 

She says

Hopping down

A liturgy and mess

We crawl to the kitchen

Hide behind the door

Close our eyes

It’s weird 

How time bends spoons like moons 

How we keep going

But are stopped

Like a film on pause

Black

White

Grainy and dull

I think of the pictures 

The ones in the garden 

Where he stole my clothes

Curious really

How things that are not real linger and stay

She rattles the tea pot on the tea tray

You be mother

I be Queen

Which one of us is the child

We both are

Two little travellers in a fairy tale sky

Her fingers shake around the handle

We are driving ourselves crazy

There’s no law against that 

She inhales

It would be deceptive and furtive to think otherwise

Which side of me is real Alice

Both she says confidently

Remember what he taught us

One voice to pacify

One to scare away.

Keys

I don't like it she cries

Tearing at the stitches and pins

It's not our face any more

I hold her hands

They are shaking 

Like mine

It's the same face Alice

Just a few more lies underneath 

But it’s somebody else’s pattern

I can see their work

Little blue stitches

All stuck in

We sink down flat to the ground

The noise trills inside 

Primal

Plaintive

A song without joy 

Struck dumb falling down

I wonder if we will ever find 

The means to change

Or finally reach our apple tree end 

I drop the keys in the sink

Keep the door open 

Stop the call

Sick of the banal easy answers they feed us

I suppose sometimes we have to be quiet

And wait for the right words to find us

We stand at the window 

Breathe in our fable

I hold her hand

It is steady

Like mine 

My little story teller

My voice

Keeper of keys.

Lines

It is peculiar 

Most odd

She says

How you make yourself visible

But disappear

Really quite clever

Like a magician

She is eating jellybeans on the shelf

I wash the anaesthetic from my hair

Feel the lines of stitches and pins

No one gets to come in

It’s quite a harebrained scheme 

She declares

Brushing out the antiseptic

I disappeared but I never lost myself 

You trip and skip between

Lackadaisical and spinning plates 

What an idiot I am 

Forgetting the sugar

Searching for cans

I run my fingers over this

Same (old) new face

The glue is thick and sticky

Like honey

Not half as pretty as our glue  

Most peculiar 

She says

How you can be stuck together

And fall apart

We sit on the floor

Holding hands and sugared hearts.

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Apologies for being scarce on the trail.. we will get back...eventually and hopefully

Wolf

We are living underground

Daubs of reality streaking down

Decorated blue like carnival clowns

Eyes glazed

Looking back

Sick as white sheets

Chopped up

Bullied 

Drowning me out

She smudges colour like post-it notes

Remembrances

Wonder

Rolls of hope

Modelled in flowers of fear

I wake to the smell of hot butter

Dropping off the corners of warm toast

For one second we are alright

There is no comfort 

I must shift

Team up

Face myself down

I know what they say about the wolf

And yet the fear that makes me want to run 

Also holds me down.

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Apologies we are very behind on the trail - thank you as ever for your visits..

Isobar

We are a bowl of jelly bean stars

Riding high like isobars

Our reality is far fetched

She says

Coughing up nutmeg

Hugging the bed

At least we have trees

High

Slow

Far too low

The door is open 

I am firmly shut

Roll the dice

Shuffle the cards

We worked it out

The game

Trace the stains backwards

Like a path

Bump your head

Know the word

The place

The change 

The moment that brings a halt

To what you want the most

I wonder where it ends

At the message you are forced to leave

It plays over and over  

Shadows falling off the wall

You know it’s not too late

To bury the powder

Change the path

I hold her as if I believe

The door is open

I can't let myself in.