Picking The Walls of The Rich

I pick up a tile
Part of a picture
A pattern
Outside the house
One of the houses with lights in
And soft seats
I am back on the bench
The knots remained tied
The powder chewed but not eaten
I am back on the bench
The dull scrape of time against my skin
Inside my pockets
Where there is nothing left to demolish
I make marks with my pen
Leave a note on the statue
Children playing
I will not pass them the rough edges
The margins
Real sound has left me
I have no desire to catch it up
To have it find me
The rec is tested as dead
It says on the sign
A signature
I will follow the clues
Transform the marks into candy
Find a way back to the path
Or walk a new one.
I pick at the walls of the rich
And the tile feels like a resolution in my hand.

At Her Feet

I go to her
Her feet
The light at her feet
I see the numbers
Seven
Eleven
Nineteen
Nine
Maybe it is a grid reference.
A place to find words to believe in.
I imagine her
I see her
Sitting quietly in pale blue
Waiting
Wanting
I imagine my fingers rumpling his curly hair
Soft
Like no life has touched it
Pure
I run my fingers over the dimples of his cheeks
Soft
Like no life has touched it
I hold on tight to Alice
Take enough from the bag that I need
But not too much
Just enough to dampen down the festival inside
The place of burst balloons
Sour cake
And candles
Ones you can blow out
Or make larger
I quietly count
I quietly whisper
I believe
I believe
I believe.

Tying Knots In The Rain

It is hard to tying knots in the dark
In the rain
When my hands are cold
When my words are drenched
Left under the bush
For safe keeping
Good health
It is one thing to come back to
The place where the bag is safe
Where the thorns pierce my head
But leave no blood
I stumble
Trying to say

I saw a plastic face
A false eye
Skin rebuilt
Behind glass
Untouchable
The power of making

I see all the stops on the line
I must take the red then the blue

It is simple

I am having trouble putting my trousers on
I am having trouble holding the pen
I am having trouble

The words on the barrier say seek assistance
But it is hard to untie knots in the dark.
In the rain.

Rose

Rose
I scribble on the paper
A flower
Whose edges are sharp
Whose colour has eroded
Whose texture has turned into brown mulch
All but disappeared in the wind and rain
Immobile
No longer looking up
The proximity of bodies
Grows closer
The closeness to my head recedes
Lost in pockets and benches
Lost in me
Taken up by the potion
Drink me Drink me
Living well is the best revenge
I write it on the paper
Next to the flower
The rose
A scribble
The ink around its petals dry up like congealed blood
Wasted time like rings on the bottom of a tree which falls
Unheard
No way through the tunnels
No way to retribution
For the sun that failed to shine on the rose
For the water which was meant to fill her heart
For the hand that was meant to stretch her upwards
Retribution has forced my hands to dig
To bury
A body which no longer exists
A head which is lost
This is the edge of existence
There are no soft round hopes of sun or warmth
These are the edges of rose
I feel them every time my hand reaches into the bush
Bone cold fingers on the grains that keep me warm.

Security Tower

The silver threads hang from the camera
Security
Cold
Hard
There
I look up
At myself in the mirror
It is not my mirror
Not like Alice
Alice chases me through the tunnels
Past the box
Where there is a machine to start your heart
My heart
I think
My heart has gone
There are no vital signs
Yet every sign is vital
Like the dog shit on the don’t dog shit sign
Like my old name on the painting
I receive a call
Back from the beige place
Two people jumped
One broken leg
One spilt bag of pills
My home
The one that slipped away
Cold
Hard
The fairy tale
In the back of my head
No powder or bench brings it back to me
I keep home
Wrapped up
The blue coat
The scarf
The smell of me
Tied up in a shopping bag
It is a flimsy defence
Like the camera
The one which does not see inside of me
The camera which captures me
Cold
Hard
Security
The silver threads my hair dangling from the tower
A tower which I cannot jump from.

Cryptic

I stopped and looked at the stars
The vapour trails cutting the moon
A white crescent
A flag of night resting in the morning sky
A final misplaced shine
I am cryptic
Like the moon in the morning
Like the welcome wreath on the security gate.
We are not at home.
It is windy now
On the bench
My hands shake around the little box of apple juice
I tie knots in the bags
Tight knots
I smile and think of the man emptying his bag on the horse
The statue that leads to the blue floor
The place that leads to the library
The time it takes to count and measure
By the side of his wallet rested a book
A Book of Knots
I wonder what secrets he ties up too
There is an unsteady calm
The powder balancing the paper charts
The letters and signs in room 23
A little hurt
A little help
Chasing the rabbit but not touching his tail
He might be cryptic too
But I understand him perfectly
As every jump lifts my head towards the moon.

Time To Go Home

The old man brushes the dog
Outside the Pitch and Putt
Carefully
Tenderly
They sit together waiting for people to play
I go back to the bench
The one where I fumbled with the candy box and powder
I pick around the grass like the man picks for fleas
A little joy in rooting around for that thing which keeps you upright
Alright
I have a new box
From a new place
There are many more places here
neversayitrustyou
I find a place where the candles burn and she sits
The stations around me
The same as back in the beige place
But not the same
I hug the box wishing to be back there
If she sits and waits for me that will be enough
I wonder where Alice has gone
I can’t find her in my pocket
Maybe she will come back. When my heart slows down.
I think of her as my feet sink into the leaves
Like drowning in the other side of the mirror
It makes me tired
I ask for water
At the library
I keep a little and carry on
It is four o’clock
Time to be home
The orange lights shine behind the windows like needles and pins
I keep my head down and walk and walk
never stop never stop or the house will fall down
The white rabbit chases past me
I see him
A little dust on his nose
I wish I could catch him
If I could catch him
I would brush his coat and wait
I will love him like the old man loves
We will tumble in the thick leaves
Me and Alice and Rabbit
leaves and fur and powder
All together inside.

The Behaviour of j

There are twelve left
Jettisoned in the bush
The one with prickles that nips my fingers
I feel safe
Plunging my hand back into this world
Of powder loose and shaken
Hollowed out candy dispensers
Moisture on my fingers
I go to the library and wipe my hands
I walk past the children’s books
whatyouaredoingiswrongyoulittleshit
The voice drowns out of me
Disappears as soon as my fingers start moving quickly mopping up what I need from the toilet floor
That ringing urgency in my ears
The essence of who I am
The me that took hold in that first blue toilet
The one when there were sixty
In a little velvet bag and one small bottle
How long and how suddenly
How cleverly this powder has mobbed me
Taken me down
Given me an existence bare but comfortable
Comfortable as thorns
I nod and smile
Wear an apology I need not make
This is who I am
I hold my hands together to stop them twitching to stop them pointing to the place the one where no one looks
This is how it will always be
This is the behaviour of j

Investigation

I have stopped looking
For this thing they call j
I lost her
On the bench
In the words
In the bed that smells like Borax.
I hug the powder snuggle the powder praise in finding it in my little red bush
i am so clever
the prickles nick the back of my hands the knuckles which belong to j the knuckles run along bumpy walls for so many years for so many years
I lick the red dribbles the moisture from the bag the little bag which keeps the powder safe for me how easy to hide how easy to disappear how easy to lose j
Everything leaves when nobody looks any more
My feet make no noise as I hustle through the leaves to the spot
where i am me and me and me
Tomorrow I will sit in the chair smile and nod
I will not hear the words thrown at me like Borax
I will not tell them that this case is closed
That I have stopped looking
For this thing that they call j.

Tissues. powder and white petals

I think my pocket is ringing
Apart from that I am coping admirably
Silently
My little catastrophe bags kept safe under bushes
Under fences
I try to say
That the misery is killing me
They say be thankful
I touch my face
My fingers shake
I still stand
I still stand
In the bathroom afterwards
So everything is fine
I am always fine fuckingfine
The advert on the television flies
They think I am smiling
Because I am coping
Admirably
In every place there is a bench
In every place there is a new low
I plunge my hand in the bin
Fish out the box
The napkin a thin defence from the dog shit
The vomit around the rim of the cheap vodka bottles
Drained dry
Hollow
Like the men on the bench
All of us finding some comfort in hitting a new low
Not much more left to lose
Not much more
I am full to the head
How lucky I am how fucking lucky
It only took thirty years to become nothing
I am so clever so fucking clever
My legs hold me up but I am not standing
I will answer the call in my pocket.
I smile.
The answer always rests there.
Tissues. powder and white petals.

Ten Birds

Ten is a bird you must not miss
I see them
On the grass
The cherry popping in my shoe ridges
Like blood exploding
This time will never end
But I say to the little girl
Do not lose tomorrow
She popped her balloons and ripped down the banner
This is no place to be 21
She left her name dangling from the ceiling
The colours are not as fine as the white rose
The candy floss time and plane bruises
They flap like old skin
Unscrubbed
Forgotten
Misplaced
I wonder who she thinks she is too
I
I
I am lost
A bird missed
A vote misled
Trapped in the mud of other people’s noise
Not quite wading
Not quite drowning
Not quite.
Ten is a bird you must not miss.
My story was long forgotten at seven.

Catastrophe Bag

I have my little bag
My quiet catastrophe
Time is slowing down
Watching me decide
Just take a couple
Like you always do
fuckupyoufuckup
Like he didn’t know
The apple juice and the little blue box
The smile
My own quiet solace
The comfort
Of cold benches damp skies little bags
Two won’t hurt
Five is a breeze
They slip down like vindication bitter and mine
I walk back
nobodyknowsnobodyknowsnobodyknows
My feet own an impetus to return that my head has yet to find
I write stay awake
And my eyes don’t shut
I have my little bag
My quiet catastrophe
I own it
I carry it
It is beautifully full of me.

Next Day

The white rose is hunched
Its petals dry and sore
Like cracked lips
Over licked
Nervously caressed by hungry tongues and bodies lost of warmth
I touch it gently
See the little bruises on its skin.
We are in the white place.
I walk the roads that lead to it.
I bring back light for the flower.
Space
Quiet
All that it needs to be.
I sit on the bench
Rest after I have tried these new roads.
The sky is bruised. gently.
Pink and orange.
Sliced up by the noses of planes.
Like birthday cakes and balloons.
A light swirl. movement.
Time mixed in a drum like candy floss.
The light is fading on the hill
I ring the bell
To go back into the building where I am.
Sixty days have passed in room twenty three
I fade and fall.
I am hunched like the white flower
Catching light
Watching the red marks fade on me.
It is not good
It is not bad
It is just the next day coming.

the little girl and the flower

The little girl found the white flower too
She touched it and it gifted her with a petal soft and warm
She held it next to her cigarette
Drank it in
For a moment it quelled the red pen the black eyes
Lines of emptiness.
We are not filled up
Not like the little girls downstairs
They are touched softly
like children
arms soothed shoulders rubbed hands held
warm soft petals of care of helping.
Nobody touches us.
We reach out in screams and bangs
We throw out edges hoping for a gentle return.
But no one can be mustered to smooth us
weknowweknow we have always known.
We are the ward where nobody visits
Where we calcify and rust.
We are thorns.
The rough soil that strangles the flower.
I am so thirsty.
Empty.
I hitch my jeans.
I am losing.
I am losing everything.
Soon the white flower will be empty too
All the petals spent.
Our hands will stay empty.
And the cold will be etched on us forever.

Omen

The white flower is dying.
Eaten up by the white rabbit.
I go onto the street.
There are people at my heels. At my head.
The lights don’t make me smile I never smile I can’t smile.
I take out my blue coat. The one with brown buttons.
Like the coat you wore. With blue buttons.
I hold it to my face. It is soft. It still smells of me.
Of pink skies and marshmallow clouds.
It smells of home.
When the lights turn to dust I walk back.
Not to the doors. To the lift that takes us up and down.
Which crushes us.
I want to wrap up my blue coat.
Fold it gently.
Place it back in my bag.
But the bag stays behind the locked door. Two locked doors.
Consumed by the smell of dirty clothes open and spewing.
Stories rubbing off. Infecting me.
I want to seal my coat up.
Wrap it in the smell of home.
But I cannot get past the keys.
So I fold it. Hug it. Long for it to stay mine.
The white flower is dying.
My hands can’t catch the petals.
They turn brown.
Like crushed flowers we used to churn to perfume
When we were little girls.
The perfume has turned to poison.
Time is falling down.
The white rabbit plays the hand on the pocket watch.
Back one minute. forward. back.
The white flower is dying.
The white rabbit licks his lips.

Puncture in the Carnage

The skin around my neck pops like bubble wrap.
Little punctures. In time. In place.
The carnage marked out under my nails. Under my breath.
I sup it up
The knee jerks The barking The tics
All wrapping up the fury inside.
I bounce them off the bubble wrap of my skull.
Pop the criteria under my nails.
Fuck You.
My skin will tell you who I am. Where I belong.
It goes back to a time when there was no name for me
idonotbelongidonotbelong
I feel sick in the park.
The sky too bright. A body moving in the wrong place. The wrong time.
Noise accelerated. Place lost. Time forgotten.
I brush the rose. Her petals fall into my hand.
One by one. Markers of time.
Forty nine days in room twenty three.
I unwrap myself.
My neck
My time
My place
idonotbelongidonotbelong
All I need. All I am. Gathers under my nails.
I sup it up.
In the bathroom. Alone.
That is where I am.
Who I am.
Where I belong.
Little cherry pops of j oozing on my hands.
Wiped upon my lips.
I smile.
Fuck you.

Seven

It is not an easy operation.
Removing myself from me.
I lie in the bed.
Bleached and dirty.
Sheets aching upon my skin.
I look at the clock.
Counting down.
Twenty three.
Six.
One hour. Two.
Seven jumps out of line. Punches me.
A story never to be told.
That I will never tell.
I lie awake.
Look at the clock.
Wish that the numbers would stop.
That home would become again.
At 2 am I follow the green.
In the back of my eyes. Shiny.
An Emerald City.
The sadness echoes in my stomach.
Time is falling back.
Moving on.
Every second drags me further away.
From home.
From me.
My time will remain ahead of me.
iamlosingeverytingiamlosingeverything.
I look at my foot.
The purple and black line that rests there so persistently.
So easily.
A track. A trace.
A certain line back to me.
A road that never fades from me.

Tea Cup

The rain falls in my tea.
In the special cup with red leaves.
Plastic.
Unbreakable.
I hold it tight in my hands.
As I pace back and forth.
Grasping on tight to the white rose.
Vulnerable.
Wet behind its petals.
I stroke it good morning. A soft whisper.
I lean forward. Incline my head.
Trying to hear. Tell me what is left inside what is left.
The mirror does not answer.
I snap the camera in the single hour of darkness I am allowed.
Hold my finger to my lips. Lick.
I find it in the morning. When another day is gone. When last night is nothing but a figment. Shattering like the mirror spilling out of room 23.
The rain falls in my tea
It hides me. What I feel.
My little red leaves like the candles around the stoup.
Back in the place I cannot remember. Don’t remember.
My plastic unbreakable stoup.
I wipe the water on my temples in the dark in the window with no curtains with blood on the walls.
I wish my cup was empty.
I wish it could be more.

My Back Yard

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.

Yellow Letter

I see the single white rose in the garden.
It struggles in the concrete
But looks strong
Like a breach in the fury
Tentatively holding onto air
My back aches
My letters ache
My being aches
I fall off the pillows
They wake me
Put my head straight
Moving my head knocks away the embers of my dreams
I apologise
For sleeping dangerously
I awake to hard feet
Yellow letters dropping through the doors of a home I no longer inhabit
That has gone
i am losing everything i am losing everything
A cascade of shit writing itself in the dark.
idonotbelongidonotbelongidonotbelong
I smell of bodies eating themselves up yesterday’s stir fry and shit
It filters up the drains
gathers on my skin and hair
impossible to shake off
I see their soda bottles behind the wall
They think that nobody knows
I see
Soon I will know
I keep the white rose a secret
A little marker
A little soda bottle
In which to cast away the yellow letters
In which to force myself up for air.

Visiting Time

We are the people that nobody visits.
Our bodies bloated. Eyes glaring. Bananas named.
We are difficult.
Not easy to hold. Not like the girls downstairs with soft hair. On their arms and faces.
Little girls with pink wigs and teddy bears.
We are not easy to love.
To witness.
So we sit beside each other.
Against each other.
Eyes locked.
In fury.
We hate. Resent. Provoke.
Pace. Hug knees.
Mirror every single movement.
Mirror every single non movement designed to hide ourselves.
Our real selves.
The ones we checked in at the door.
Bananas. Crackers. Nuts.
Fuck ups.
Waging war in ballet shoes and pyjamas.
Whispering like little girls. Fighting like soldiers.
We are difficult.
We are difficult.
We can no longer recall why.
We cannot see the door.
The door where mothers and fathers come in and out.
Arms full of flowers and cards.
Our rooms smell like antiseptic and smoke.
There is little colour.
There is little comfort.

I take a photo of my face.
My scrumpled up eye and frown.

I look at myself.
I can still love.
I still love.
I wait for you.
The time you will come through the door.

We are in the place that nobody visits.
I will wait. Until you come.
Until you are here.

Book

I am reading but the pages aren’t moving forward.
The story is stuck.
The pieces muddled up.
No plot to follow.
No path to take.
Filing in lines to the same conclusions.
Different endings.
My head spins but is still
My body warming
Pulse speeding and falling with every step
I admire.
The woman who can lie on her bed.
Who can still see the clouds.
I flick the pages to cool myself.
My eyes see the room
bed mirror sink desk cupboard
dirty blue and white
no clouds.
I flick the book.
Like I am not sure what it is.
As the pages move
The words disappear.
The paper is deliciously empty.
Maybe. Maybe.
I can begin to write my self.

Verb Confusion

The banana sits in the fridge.
The name on the side of it in black felt tipped pen.
Everything is owned.
Marked.
Scored.
Ruined.
Every second.
Every movement.
Marked.
Scored.
Ruined.
My words fall away.
Like the end of a call.
I am far away. I am
At the end of the line.
At the end of my being.
Not sure what
idonotwantthisanymoreidonotwantthisanymore
I will make the words.
Carefully place the words.
Reclaim my words. Call.
Become. Be.Come.
The banana sits in the fridge
marked scored ruined
I sit in this room
marked scored ruined
I await the call
I get ready with my black lines my sweeping hand my time.
The call to be me again.

Rendered

I am rendered speechless.
By my need to speak.
By my need to be.
By my need to exist.
By my need to say nothing.
There really is nothing left to be said.
I would pull the cord eject my body like my mind is outside of my head like the room is outside of my being like this place is not my place like these people are not like me like I want to turn in circles gather myself up in the tornado blanket clickety clicking my red shoes my red running shoes runrunrun nowhere to go no end of the rainbow stones heavy in my heart in my stomach in my head no place to find you to sit with you quiet on the old wood candle gently burning warmth of time and peace sinking into me my place is the place I never knew I had so very tired
By my need to speak
By my need to be
By my need to exist
By my will to say nothing
Like words hit my head fill my fingers punch out like a storm an impact on me that I cannot name that renders me speechless self less.

Present

There is an order.
In which we enter the lift.
In which we walk to the table.
The chairs that we sit in.
The beakers that we drink from.
It is an order of disorder.
Of lives squashed in.
Dirtied up.
Misused.
Controlled.
Kicked to the ground like nothing.
Nothing.
I watch.
I know.
From both sides.
idonotbelongidonotbelongidonotbelong
But there is no exit.
The only light
The metal box on the wall they spark their cigarettes on
One at a time
One at a time
Every hour
Every thought
Burning away every part of my being
Burning away in this place
This place of safety is killing me killing me don’t think don’t think
One cigarette
Push the button
Suck up the heat
Inhale
Sit
Hit the concrete
Back and forth
Back and forth
They say to move forward you must reclaim now
It is a trick
A double hand
They hold the keys so I can take a piss brush my teeth
They superglue me to every dirty little second of the present
There is no room to imagine anything more
Anything better
Anything left of who I am.

Minutes

The nausea rises up in me.
Like the lift.
Every ten minutes.
Up and down.
Sickness comes and goes.
In my throat.
In my guts.
I try and swallow.
Hold my face.
Don’t come in. Don’t come in.
But every line.
Around my mouth.
Around my head.
Is noted observed contained measured.
I go out.
For forty minutes.
They walk by my side.
I pull up my shades.
Put down my head.
Cherish the beach inside.
Let my toes fall into the sea.
Not the rancid puddle around the bath.
The one which makes me smell strange.
Not me.
Eight people collecting on my skin.
Not able to wash up.
Wash off.
Sinking in.
Absorbing into me.
I prickle with every minute.
Every minute of discomfort.
Forty.
Ten.
Twenty three.
Six.
I swallow water.
Like thoughts.
These are the minutes of my meeting.
There is no guarantee I will leave room 23.
There is no guarantee that it will leave me.

Plan B

We flop around on the gym mats like psychotic kippers. The mats are the same colour as the plastic beakers. Blue and yellow. From a shop that doesn’t sell edges. I roll my body left and right. My body. Rolling. Moving. Turning. Against the tide of my head runrunrun There is a piece of metal on the concrete yard. I pace. It is a test. Like the window. The one they said I couldn’t open. The one I pushed and sucked in air from. Not so secure. Secured. The lift takes us up and down. Up and down. Bodies up and down. Every ten minutes. Minds left behind. Mine is floating somewhere around the window of room 23. Some parts still roam the beige place. I can’t catch it. My mind. I can’t pin it down. Minutes pass in groups of ten. Plans forgotten between floors. Pull the wires from the magnets. Climb up the tree. Bestride the fence. Wait for the click click on the doors push run run. Room 23 is breaking me down. Crumbling me up. I am constituent parts. Legs. Arms. Head. My body flops around on the mat. Not quite connected. The yellow and blue sponge cushions the blow of my landing. My name remains absent from the board. I am not allocated. Located. I am flopping around like a kipper. Barely able to hold onto a plan. Rolling back and forth. Between A and B. And nothing.

Room 23

I live in room 23.
I exist in room 23.
I am in room 23.
Room 23 is occupied.
Room 23 is where I am.
Room 23 is empty of me.
Each minute yawns around room 23.
My self dulls every minute spent in room 23.
Room 23 consumes me.
Room 23 is devouring my mind.
Room 23 has nothing to do with me.
J races from room 23.
She runs and runs
In tiny tiny circles
Think carefully
Get out
Don’t get stuck in room 23.
J will not let room 23 destroy her.
J will unlock herself from room 23.
J will not look back when she reclaims herself as Jae
When she runs and runs from room 23.

Secure

The smell of piss lingers on my shirt sleeves. The last doses of powder seeping out. Measured. Observed. Contained. I look around. At the tattoo messages. Nestled in troubled flesh. All these careful years spent twisting myself up in knots. In nets. A cryptic implosion. Perhaps I could have spoken more softly upon myself. To say. To tell. Here. Here. The stories are neatly written in ink. Spaced out in time lines. On skin. In noises. In heads held in hands. In blood left on curtains. Curtains that don’t cover the window. In a place that never gets dark. But is so dark. There are houses. Outside the windows. I can see people inside. Eating. Sitting. Being. And I would like to have a minute back. A breath to locate who I was. Where I was. What I was. I would like to stretch and trace my fingers over the maps. The papers. Just to see. Just to have a little view. To find. To secure. My location securesecuresecure I am lost without my nets. I cannot anchor my feet on the dirty blue carpet. I cannot see my blue bag or the hundred little bags. All the bags are gone. Out of sight. Not in my hands. I sit. In a room where it will never be quiet. In a room where electricity is drowned by the sound of existence. An uneasy place of being. Perhaps there is nothing I can do but look. Today I can wash my shirt. At six pm. I will pull it from the water. Dry it and hold it. Smell the clean cotton on my skin. I will try another day.

A Note From Jae

Just a line to say that Jae is off to the sanatorium for a short while.

Thank you to all who take the time to visit. For all your support and comments and continued readership.

I hope to have some internet access but I may not be able to post..or reply to comments..or read your own postings..quite as often as I do..or would like to..

I will be thinking of you..and hope to be lurking around on the blogosphere..somewhere..somehow..

Thank you..

Jae

Hole In My Head

There is a hole in the back of my head. I try to brush it out. But it won’t go. It reminds me of my mother. I look in the mirror. I am not them. Her. Her sin of omission. My hands fumble. Try and match packet to powder. Stain to incident. I have this feeling. I can’t name it. It won’t go. To try and pack it up. Throw it away. Is futile. It will follow me. And follow me. Until time is up. Time is up. My head jerks. Down. To my chin. So heavy I can’t keep looking straight. To line up the scissors. To cover up. To forget. But it won’t forget. The clocks I tried to stop. They are tripping and falling. Going backwards and forwards. Tricking me. Tripping me. Testing me. I put on the little denim jacket. The one with lots of pockets. For things. Deposits. Reminders. Me. A trail of blood spots from pocket to pocket. Sleeve to cuff. Neck to chest. I wipe my fingers over them. Trying to do the jigsaw. Match the pieces. Come up with a picture. It hurts. The dark glasses ease it. Things. I slip them on. Whenever she comes back. Whenever there is a mirror. Whenever I find a hole in my head that won’t brush away.

Calling Time

I will turn off the clocks. Call time on this world. I line up a hundred clear bags. Little bags that will go inside the big blue bag. Particles. Pieces of time here. Trapped. dustpowderwords.you. They lie like a broken jigsaw on the floor. A puzzle. I am not sure what the picture will be when all is done. When all the little bags fit inside the big bag and they. I. Am removed. Recovered. 400 days in this place and I finally make noise. I can only say. I am here. When I know I am going. Moving. A little move. A shift. I gently fight the feet on my head. The static below. With the sound of me. A choking noise of what is left. I do not want to return to this place. I do not want to return. I will pack the ruby slippers. They will take me some place good. When the time is right. When I am right. I try not to feel. I try to measure my movement. Slow down time. Speed it up. Anything just to keep the bags open. Keep my hands filling them. It is strange inside. A sensation that I cannot name. A feeling I vaguely recall from when I was. There are tiny moments. Clicks of the second hand. When I see the nets I have caught myself up in. When I smell them. Tomorrow the thread of nets will pulled from me. Untangled and disposed. I will sit. I will keep my face still. I will apologise. For the smell. For me. Maybe the purple will fade. The red and yellow flow away like water. In a few days days. I will turn off the clocks. They will rest. I will call time on this world.

White and Gold

The white and gold sing. The light behind them spilling onto my knees as I observe a silence. Watch the water pour upon your head. Watch your lips change. Not smile. Just change. It is funny. How my heart is still. How it catches me up at 3am then leaves me in peace. To gather the pieces. To gather the pieces. To dull the purple in my foot. The red and yellow. So much time gone. I disappeared amidst it. Not quite eroded. Not quite gone. And I am tired. So very tired. But soon. Very soon. Maybe the white and gold will be in my fingers. Fingers bent and crooked from rust. St Peter will come. Take my hand and pour cool water over my hair. My temples. And the familiar smell. The familiar ooze. The dust. The powder. Will be left aside. For a short time. For a moment. I fill myself up with white and gold. Gather as much light as I can to move me from this seat. I will trust myself. I will trust myself. Like Simon Peter. I will fish inside. For the pieces left. The pieces left. Are they the light that fall upon my knees. White and Gold. Quietly singing. Remembering my voice.

Do Not Disturb

The phone hurts. More than the purple on my foot. More than the red and yellow. I would like to pull the wires. But if I pull the wires the door shakes. And the door hurts more than the phone. Funny. How you can be nothing. But pursued. Like there’s no tomorrow. So I will answer. I will put on the clean trousers. The ironed shirt. I will answer. The questions. I will be everything you need to me to be. Then I will close the door. Kiss the wedge. Breathe in the silence. The wonder of being nothing. Sink into Alice. Love her (no one believes I can love). I thought I had covered all bases. Doused my body. Do not disturb. But still people. Strangers. Knock. Ring. Disturb. And I want nothing. And I am nothing. And I want to finish breaking the phone. Crumble the plastic. Eat it. It is only a matter of days now. When Alice will be taken from me. When you will be taken away with her. When the gun and the cupboard becomes a smile. And a thank you for your help. You knew. Didn’t you. When you carried my bags. You knew. And I can’t swallow at that thought. That you knew. I have the same bags. There is more dust on them now. They are more worn from the powder. And I can’t carry them because I am worn from the powder. I am more worn from the powder. The powder you gave me like birthday cakes. And I wish you were here. And I wish you weren’t in Alice. I wish we were still pulling each other’s skin in the cupboard. Leaving bruises. Hurt. Like cold feet. Hurt. Like hunger. Hurt. We love and chase. Like rabbit. And I wish more than anything that I could be left alone with you. That I will no longer be disturbed. Like there’s no tomorrow.

Daily Bread

I eat my bread on the floor. Below the window. I am taking no chances. There are no pauses in this sentence. No mumbles. I cannot out run the holocaust in my shoes. I walk quite comfortably on its thorns. I am back in these towers. These blocks. Places built around corners. Over pipes. Between ditches. Places where no one has to see you exist. It must be lucky. To live in a house where you can’t hear your neighbour scream. Here even the softest cry from next door penetrates your ears. The part inside. The human part. Wants to put a hand through the wall. Give it to them straight. No one is ever coming. No one will ever come. But you have to block it out. I have to block it out. One of the new ones stands. At the window. On the frame. I fucking love you honey. I pull up the glasses. Put down my head. In three hours he will adjust. It’s not the ones who dabble their toes in the sky that will jump. It’s the ones that strategise. Make it as every day as cornflakes. Until the right time. The right time. Casually stepping off the pavement. They don’t need a push. They don’t need noise to help them fall. I don’t need a push. I don’t need noise to help me fall. Funny how the phone still rings. No known number. I drag it out of my pocket. Little pieces of grey plastic crumble off the edges. I can’t explain why I still carry it. Maybe because I once was. I once was. The bread is rough on my tongue. My throat is sore from the coughing. My nose still bleeds. I don’t have much paper. I fill it with geometrical blood stains and a few words. When it can carry no more I add it to the tip outside. A thousand pieces of me must be piled up out there. I keep my floor tidy. I tidy up my floor. I am taking no chances. I am taking nothing at all.

Alice

I started the book. The one which weighed so heavy. The one I thought would mean everything. I un-pulled the stitches. Peeled off the glue. Licked up the red and began. By the second page I breathed and I saw that letters are only shapes. Black marks. You can turn them upside down and this way and that but that’s all letters are. Shapes. Some days the black marks eat you. Some days they feed you. Some days they hold you so tight you can’t breathe and the blood inside you turns to acid. Acid and rust. All the seconds inside acidify into nothing. A poison you can’t hold. Or swallow. You want to capture everything. Turn the shapes into symbols. Turn nothing into meaning. But letters are the holes in the net. Not the string. It is in between the letters that the story can be found. If you dare to look. I am not sure I want this book now. The weight tires my hands. A stone carried too long in my head. I don’t care what signs are left on my wrists. On my heart. I will catch them as they fall past me on the way back up the rabbit hole. I smile. It is all such nonsense. There is no beginning middle or end. The Cheshire Cat comes together licks his paws savours the jam Alice dances with the candle. Her little letter feet inside her little letter shoes. Weightless. And I dream a thousand dreams knowing she is inside of me. That she never left. Alice is always there.

The Truth of Old Man Joe

I could tell you a thousand lies. I could tell you a thousand truths. There is no difference. I could tell you I threw the pills out the window. To test the trajectory. I could tell you I pulled the wires because I don’t want you to see my heart. There is no line to say. No alarm to signal. That I am not the body which lies in front of you. I am nothing. No sound. No mark. I have been walking for a thousand years but haven’t moved an inch. I believe what I let you see. I exist between the green. Adapting. I can be anything you want. I prostitute my body and mind for the penny that opens the door. It is more than disappearance. More than nothing. More than absence. More than ever and ever. I am old man Joe. I live in old man Joe’s toilet. I will never leave. The smell of ammonia and dirt in my hair will never move my feet. I already walk in a thousand dreams. I glide in a world you cannot touch or measure. Rip from me. The blood red is in my hand and I lick it up like milk. I am wedged sleeping dreaming cradled in these tiles savouring the smell of every morning disappeared.

The Dolly's Head

The dolly’s head lies under the car. A red flower by its crown. There are no signs of viable life. I check. That is what I used to do. Check for life. I think all that checking left tyre marks on my head. My face. Like the dolly. Squashed. No longer a loveable little thing for you to hold. They are working on something. I can feel. I pass by. Mute. Without consequence. They are not working on me. It is harder than you think. To become lost. It requires motivation. Co-ordination. Execution. When they keep knocking on your door there is still a chance. I set my eyes high up in my dolly’s skull and pretend I am no longer waiting. Put my body back into filthy clothes. Hang the outside clothes up for tomorrow. Baby’s best. Line up the metal flowers. Plant them. Try to ignore the day running out. Knowing I will be at the window again. Choking. Gasping for breath I don’t even want to own. Breathing makes your heart beat and when your heart beats your head thinks and when your head thinks you understand that you will be tidied up in minutes. And my head is so full it is empty. And I long to be that dolly. Separate from its body. Rolling in the road. A little flower by my temple. A little hand for me to hold.

Time Spent In Green

The woman in green sits on the wall and watches me. I am standing at the railing. The bag on one side. My feet and legs on the other. Anchored like jelly. Maybe she is the bell. Not real. But an alarm in my head. Yes. I decide that’s what she is. I want her to be. But people are just colours. Today it has been all green. Apart from the water. In the aisle. Standing with stitches and pins. The green trouser man attends to someone else. Time falls around the shampoo. The bottle I hide the packet behind. In. For a moment it is me at the back of the shop. I am on the floor catching myself up. The carpet ripped open. The powder sticky on my hands. The cherry red ink betraying me. But that was another time. It is hard to keep up remembering. Colours are much simpler than memories. Than people. There is always green. When I am ready. At night - in between thinking and doing - it is yellow and I feel someone on my chest. Sometimes I speak to them. My hands are folding up the blanket and I am sharing a joke. When my eyes catch up I see am stuck to the bed with glue. No going forward. No going back. The thump of a hand gives me breath. I remember my life today. It lasted one minute and thirty-nine seconds. I dig my feet deep into the only dreams I can muster. Raw. Dirty sand. The dry fuck of time passing.

That Time

The smell from my elbow radiates through my sleeve. It is that time again. I watch her. From a different seat. Through different arches. I rub my hand over my stomach. The black fabric snagging on the ulcers. The holes nobody sees. Oozing quietly. Hurting me every time I fold or bend. I wonder if my card is lost or if it has been stored in a catalogue of unsolved prayers the father reads on a Saturday night. Everybody asks the same. Help. Remember. Help. Her tiny shoulders must ache. I hope the father holds the baby for a while. It is hard. Holding two worlds. One outside. One in. Maybe it rubs her stomach too. An unholy collision of prayer and need. I worry the nail polish off my finger. Nobody is immune from me. From the smell that leaks out and doesn’t wash off. Red goes dark the longer it is exposed to air. I keep myself under. Gather up the rust on pieces of lint. Collect the drench of time. Sniff at it like prayers on a Saturday night. But that time becomes one time. Stuck together unsolved in a box. In a drawer. Under me.

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’)

That Girl

That girl’s a walking holocaust the man says in the dream. And I laugh and put the pierced body in my pocket because he is right. I make a note of him. One am. When I am not sure where the beeping sound is coming from. If it is the pulse of my heart. Or the stalling of a truck. Waiting by the door is a black bag full of things. Things that were too nice to use. That I saved up for so long they lost all their meaning. The white fluffy kitty pencil case. Worn. But not from my fingers. From the scrape of time passing over it in the drawer. Funny. How my things will become your things. That once again I will lose my story. Time has scraped over me too. I am turning to junk. Rising into the clouds like ether. I lie down. Trace the words on the side of the bath. Meaningless words that have no ink to appear. The sky is full of nests and pink ink. Marshmallows and forgotten treasures. I want to swallow it. Like my final dose. I imagine the softness passing through my skin. A tender bandage applied to the emptiness of war. My hand rests on the cool bath. The man is still there. I try to change his words, but I only have time to say - that girl’s walking.

Anchor. Cherry. Bell

One of them falls out. In the library. Reaching for the train timetable. I pick it up. Place it in my wallet. Think of the time on the stairs. How the plan hasn’t shifted but my hands are more still. Less steady on the reach. Not feigning an applause. Awaiting an ovation. Funny. How nobody sees. Little shivers of rust falling out of me. Nervous. I sit in one of the blue chairs. Pick a day. Write it down in the little book. As if it has meaning. Weight. The balance of an equation. Wednesday the fulcrum. Friday too far. Thursday just right. Monday, Tuesday that’s when I should be on the train. Going to the place where I got lost. But it doesn’t figure. The chink of rust falling tells me I am stuck. Dreaming over numbers. Places. I worry about the space left behind. From the one that fell away. I could sew it in place. Anchor myself. Ring the bell of my arrival. Stroke the cherry colour on my flesh. Suck it off. Lick at it. Taste what I have become. All idle plans. Nervous scribbles on the blue chair. Foolish. Stupid. Dumb. I turn the china bones as the boy below turns three. This is where I am.

Scratch Card

The man scratches the card outside the bus station. Anchor. Bell. Cherry. I am back inside. So seemless. How it started in the bathroom. Sat on the side. Measuring up. Slipped into watching you leave. 6am. Not quite sure if it was real. If I was real again. This could always be. You know. I know. We never say. I am holding everyone up. The fumble of company drains from me. It is so clear. Back inside. Locked in curtains. Wrapped in doors. Don’t lift your eyes. Don’t glance. You know better. Armed with a hundred questions. Fighting off an answer. My hand leaves the foil on the side. I touch the empty creases in the morning. My little banter. My game. Anchor. Bell. Cherry. How fucking clever. I am so good at losing I look like I want to win. Inside I strike a row of three. Little pieces of black scratchings fall to the ground. Gather around me. Comfortable as nothing. All that I need.

Screen Face

My eyes go wide. Do you see. The silent woman. On the screen. Hushing me. Don’t tell. Don’t tell. I go home. Sit in the bath. My chin on my knees. There is nobody to see. The skin hangs off. But doesn’t fall. Everywhere there are words. On the T-shirt. The man from the church. It starts with you. She really scared me. This really scares me. There is no one to tell. No T-shirt to wear. The woman stays here. In the corner of the room. All night. There is no plan B. I cut it out. From the paper I don’t read. Which tells me the day. Stick it in my book. The book with numbers. Numbers I collect. As if they will solidify my existence. Give me a grid reference upon which to hang myself. I went to the phone box. In the park. At lunch time. My work was impeccable. My lunch was me. I find red words again. In the morning killmethefacesaysdie It has rubbed onto my stomach. I go back to the cold bath. Try to wash it off. Rest my chin back on my knees. I am in a house so quiet the electricity makes more noise than me. It catches me. Captivates me. In a trance. I am gone. Do you see the silent woman. On the screen. I think it was me.

Chocolate Milk

I buy single cartons of chocolate milk. They come with a straw. The ladies behind the counter think I’m nice. I give perfect change. Sometimes they help. My indecisive fingers reaching for pennies. Fifty-two pence. Monday. Wednesday. Friday. When I buy three. For the weekend. Half a carton of chocolate milk sits open in the fridge. Awaiting its fate. A sweet conduit for what I need. The straw lasts two days. Maybe three. Depending on the blood. Sometimes I shake at the counter. Like the milk not properly stirred. I think they can see me in the afternoon. When I am not nice. When I lie on the floor and the beige ceiling falls to my toes. A pump of breath. My hypnic jerk. Raises the concrete off me. Like the listening woman 423 days ago whose eyes rolled in her head. Like she was hitting the wall of a Q-wave. Bouncing back. My walls don’t give me the option of bouncing back. A penny rolling round the glass edges of a jar. A folly he said. To try and pull it out. Me. I don’t tell them. Never tell them. About the book. The book that’s so important I can’t begin to read it. If I begin to read I will find the last words. A moth crushed in my fingers. Sprinkled in the milk. Leaves no trace at all.

Out of The Woods

I will never leave the woods. Not the ones inside. I live in this house with big windows. Windows which might as well be walls. They creak. Not like branches. Like trees. Unshiftable. I strip back the bark of my skin. Day by day trapped up here in the canopy. Nothing brings me down. The static crackles like leaves. In the night. Inside me. When the police come and the radio signal fails. They step outside. Doors which might as well be walls. I try to come down. I see the penny. In the shop. I ask is that yours. But the words are crumpled. Mixed up with ash churches stories and supermarkets. I don’t make sense outside. The woman picks the penny up and hands it to me. Keep away. I put the penny in my bag. In my dreams it rolls from her hand to mine. An endless loop. A slot machine gone crazy. Spilling out pennies I will never count up and use. This is not sleep. It is darkness. Stuck in the roots branches and leaves. Messed up and sticky. Every penny is a day lost. A friend lost. A word lost. Hour by hour it crushes me. Like a mechanical jaw. I will never be out of the woods.

Artificial Tears

The artificial tears come in a small white pot. I am to apply them twice a day. I put the small white pot on the counter. Next to the pestle. The chopper. The packets and bags. It was kind of him to try. To try and make me comfortable. To try and give me something to unwrap the puzzle of my face. The heat makes me sweat. Sat on the kitchen floor. Looking at my row of possibilities. Thinking how I could use the tears to become like those sobbing ladies who lower their heads and weep into a plastic cup of water. They cry tears that aren’t real. But everybody believes. They hold their hand. Rub their shoulder. Nothing much to figure out. No puzzle. No sloping eye or silence. I look at the small white pot. Read the ingredients. Could cause irritation. I know the tears could turn nasty. Like everything turns nasty. I lie on the tiles. Feel the pressure in my chest. Pass hands over flesh. Knead what skin is left. There is salt and water in there. I can feel it. I want to pour it from my eyes. My mouth. Collect it in a cup and show you. Look. Look. I can cry too. But it scares me. If these tears escape their little pot I will never cease.

Without a Hitch

It goes without a hitch. Peeling the lid off the fifth vanilla yoghurt. Until it makes you gag. Buy two more tomorrow. Fold the laundry until the crying stops. Lift the toothbrush to your mouth. The two handed brush because it’s too heavy for one hand. You know. When you look at yourself. There can’t be many more days. But it’s seamless. The seven day shuffle. The thirty year pause. I suck the neckline of my shirt. Taste the wastage. The wreckage. Get dressed. Sit in the waiting room. Look at the poster. Care fit enough for my family. Hold the water bottle in my hand. Maybe this afternoon. The plastic tub by the three boxes of cereal. The waffle squares that come up quicker than they go down. I think about belonging. Belonging to a house. A home. I smile at the rocking man. It’s always the same faces. We are the beige walls. The poster ink has more shine than us. We know. We always know. Nobody would take us home. Yoghurt by yoghurt. There is no place left to find. I think about this. In the toilet with the window in the roof. The place where I think it would be nice to deploy the black bag. It sinks in. With every inhalation of stale piss and dirty floors. With every door not closed properly. That nobody sees me any more. And I go on. Without a hitch.

The Story at Her Feet

It is this place inside. The one with the candles. That pins the prayer card to the wall. Crust of blood by crust of blood I am glued together. The milk in the grocery bag bumps my leg. I sit and watch her. The flame is not safe by her feet. It may catch the flowers alight. But it is not a place where you can change the order of divinity. You must sit if not transfixed inert. You must not question the order of silence. There is so much that I don’t remember and too much that I do. Missing chunks of time that I no longer own but which possess me. Walking from the garage to the house with a little radio. Rubbing my knuckles on the wall. Wishing I could live in the tyres and the smell of petrol. There has always been fire in this story. Crust of blood by crust of blood I am glued together. The flesh of my time sits in a file of letters waiting to be turned to ash. Ash that I will mix with stoup water and pass over my head. A new powder to drip through my hair fall on the page mix with ink become the story at her feet.

To Give. To Catch

Sound travels behind me. Not in waves. That is too soft. In pebbles. In baskets. They knock me on the back of the head when I stop. The man with no teeth tells me to wipe the hair from my face and I do. He tries to give me seven pence. To help me. I say no. I’m fine. The seven pennies held in his hand jingle like medals. Full of sunshine. It is strange having this guard of misfits watching over me. Speedy Guy keeping crazy neighbour lady off my doorstep. Cashier lady suggesting juice instead. Because it’s hot. Behind the counter man saying haven’t you been here before. I think. I never left. But smile and say have a good day too. I listen for feet at the door. Lay still. In the dark. They are coming. I know. In the kitchen cupboard lays the more certain ways. In the bag at the end of the bed a plan. An act of conjuring. Get back the face. The arm. The people with stunning teeth who used to say I will take you home. Their words come to me. Crossing the door frame. Running from crazy neighbour lady. Standing in line buying the same things that I am running from. And it hits me. In the back of the head. In the back of my heart. In baskets. Pebbles. Not soft. Like waves. Sound catches up with me from behind.

Cardboard Letters

I stole the little cardboard letters from the small person school. Hid them in my socks took them home to the room where everything special was hidden in a small box from a new pair of shoes. £3. Two sizes too small. But they shone and made me smile. I am still small. I stand in the kitchen and gag. Hard to stomach this big person world. The truck I need is outside. My door has a wedge underneath. I don’t make enough noise for the people in green trousers to hear me. Seems I always just miss salvation or something close. It is stuck under the bed in the shoe box and eroded like my feet. Keep quiet. Maintain your breath. Cause us no trouble and we will brush you away like cardboard dust. Long forgotten. Much easier for us. And for you. Thank you. I hate you. It is so quiet behind this door. Under this bed. Feet tucked into calculations and ink. The blood from my nose drips onto my toast. There is no one to tell. No one to believe. I wish it would happen quicker. I wish I could be sure. I wish I could stand at the top of the stairs and scream like her. Like the person who shows the erosion inside. She knows. She knows. No one can see you going if you put a wedge in your mouth and then scream. I wish. I wish I wasn’t stupid enough to make a list for the next day. There is a bilious consistency to my omissions. I am keeping the letters under the bed. Hiding the words and the pictures. Keeping small like Alice in the chequered hall. Should I swallow or bite. I scatter the cardboard letters and it keeps my heart alive. My head. I don’t think it left the small person school.

I Miss Yesterday

I miss yesterday. Any day is better than this day.
This moment will never happen again. It will never move forward. Or back.
I trawl the pavements for empty packets. As if somebody else’s trash dust is deadlier than mine. There is no end for people like me. We demise. We fall. We never recover. Heads so wet there are no memories of when. What was that question. That trouble. There is no recollection of why you are hunting for an end at all.
Not waving. Not drowning. People tired of watching you do neither. Calling out for something. Something you can’t put your finger on. Can’t name. The thing that holds you by the throat and then forces you to breathe. Cry silently. Hold your head. Just stop stop stop. It seems so simple. Somebody make me stop. All this waving. This drowning. It tires me out too. Behind the curtains. Over the noise of the TV. Such a simple request but when you lose the words, you lose the right to ask.
Morning comes. Always a surprise. It feels so unnecessary. So undeserved. So pitifully filthy. The next day should be the treasure. The opportunity. The thing you seek. But around my mouth is the trail of yesterdays hunt. Around my bed the filthy plastic. And tumbling from my throat are the words – I miss yesterday. Any day is better than this day.

My Little Red Box

I am a strange room of soft toys, spoons and splitters.
A little temple of doom with soft linings - linings which don’t quite catch my fall however hard I grip them.
I look around. Try to follow the thread of myself. Find the story which lies dormant.
Try to think of what another pair of eyes will see.
Uncle Bill on the fridge. A duck. A rodent. A few words.
The face of the only person left who still loves me.
My stomach falls. At the pestle. At the little red box.
To prepare and to prepare and to prepare.
My hand gives over the money to the woman who calls me love.
Everybody knows and nobody knows.
I see the people who pray in red T-shirts. They make me think of my little red box and what I will put inside it. I watch them from up above in the coffee shop window. I prefer to sit upstairs now. I look down and see them take the hand of a man. And I so ache. I so want it to be my hand. My hand sits charred around a cold cup of coffee. Idle on a pile of words. Today’s news.
The man laughs when they leave. Maybe he wasted their prayer.
I go back to my room.
The boxes.
Red box. Key in red socks.
Blue box. Key in blue socks.
You have to have a system.
As I turn each lock I know the system of this strange room whittles me away. A key which makes no noise as it falls onto thick beige carpet.
A story locked in boxes. Wasted words. Forgotten ideas.
But you do not need to keep the pages to remember the book.
It rests in you. Larger than the toys. The spoons and the splitters.
It will never get lost in a little red tin.

'There's Opulence Basie'

In the end all the opulence will be floating in the scum. I can’t swallow at the thought of you in one of the suitcases floating by. I catch the tears in the tissue. Hear the end of time. It is deafening. I never thought I would be the one left in the golf shoes. The one who walks on blood. I wait for the knock. The car. The man in my room. I wait for you and know I am only half alive. Try not to think too much. I rode the bike in the empty house too. I sucked peaches waiting for a grown up to come. As you wait you lose the need. Lose being little. Lose the chance to be grown. Life is empty swimming pools. Dirt you wade through. Lines you say but don’t believe. I will always wait. I will always walk. This war will never see me close my eyes.

My Greatest Weapon

The porcelain is cool against my belly
I see him in my eyes
I see all of you in there
You all claimed a piece of me
But whilst you believe you have stolen me
I have been collecting
In the darkness over the sink pieces of me drip drip dripping away into a bath of tranquillity into a bath of creation and evolution
A place where I can alter theft from taking into receiving
A place where I can embroider every pair of eyes onto my flesh
Quietly stitching myself together until I become strong
Until my lungs are full enough to whisper
This is what I am
My proud flesh
You who destroyed me murdered me have given me the greatest weapon
And I use it drip drip drip whilst you think I am gone
Kind strangers builders believers they make me real
They give me feeling
And the fondness in their eyes cools my head settles my belly
And one day one day soon my flesh will release you all
I will smooth the stitches from my eyes
And in the mirror the only thing left will be me.

The Scrolls At My Feet

The scrolls fall at my feet
I trace them with the edge of my shoe
The line is too fine so I crouch and touch the patterns with my fingers
I smile as the loops take me back to the start over and over again
so clear so definite so sweet
The sun plays out a path of where I need to be
Where I need to go
I stand up
Lose my footing a little
Dust the stones from my shoe and walk on
Back to the beige place
Back to the place where all lines are lost
Back to the blue bed were nothing switches off
Where circles become triangles which poke you in the back
Squares which kick you into remembering
Nets which steal your dreams and tie up the scrolls so in the morning you don’t remember the pattern you need to follow
But six o’clock comes and the sun shines again
There are new scrolls to be found with your feet
So I knock the dust from my eyes smooth down my face wipe up my hair and go hunting
hunting for the patterns the keys the right path at my feet.

Erratic and Unpredictable

Erratic and unpredictable
I kept the page
Took a picture
The chaos patterns are clear as spiders chasing me never stopping never shaking off fingers sticky and relentless like a eucharist every day at 10 but no amen.
Ringing up in my head the till a total a calculation
My shopping does not register an omen of sorts bananas crackers nuts
I shake the hand of another man
I know in three days I will regret it but the days empty out like disposable names I have to catch them in somebody’s hands I keep his handshake don’t wash it off let it carry on my food my coffee my face I try to find the words in my shoes like the holes will heal the light stop shining through me luminous terrifying as the 3am gunshots
The people who summed me up are gone now I fracture myself rip myself into tiny pieces and glue me to a page no name fits as it should no letter illuminates the picture
You can make anything a reality
But I am always the missed phone call the missed doorbell the missed opportunity
I would like to lick up the webs pin myself down
Erratic and unpredictable
But I know it was not true
All I am is plans accomplished liar consummate cheat a calculation of letters and words carefully balanced so the calls don’t get through and the doors stay unanswered. I am invisible like my shopping. An empty bag paid for not with money or kind. I would trade it all for Amen. Four letters. One word. A hand to shake the light and keep me from the dirt.

Porridge and Bones

He holds me
As much as bones can hold you
As much as nothing can fulfil you
It is the first touch the last touch the only touch left
I ask the little girl if they are going to do it now
She turns in her chair and says yes
The bullet comes and my head turns black.
I delete all my names
Finish the story. Cut up the trail.
Put my hands through blonde curls. Girl hair.
The sickness fades when you top it up with sickness
It keeps the bullet from the gun
It keeps you in the chair in the mirror in your eyes where you can see hills things lost places receding little girl dying but breathing in the darkness
regretfully necessarily
powder dust and rotting onions
Alice mixed with Felder in the stoup
No fingers to wipe the ashes on my head.
I thank the man of bones
I know my place in this tower of fools
I pull my hair up close the window draw the bridge
Petals of J falling
Flocking the ground like porridge and jam
Not an ending but a falling
not hard not soft just right.

Mr Orinda

It touches my lips
I grin
I believe I believe I believe
This is evolution
This is the eight of diamonds
This is Mr Orinda
His mountain top cabin
The place where I stayed
Where I live
Where I am
Where he took me
Naked as J
Falling through a pack of cards
Watch the house come down
Find a wall take a seat hold onto the jumble thoughts a prize a curse a death squeeze it in your hands. Make a fist (if you can) cut up the punch and throw it
believe believe believe
Watch me do it again and again
trick after trick punch after punch nothing after nothing
ascend evolve adapt try
The more I do the less you see
You don’t hear time eat through me
Cover the holes with powder and dust wash it away with water
busy busy no eyes left for me
Move along sir there is nothing left to be.

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(Thank you for visiting..am having trouble logging into blogger (blogging hell!) and leaving comments/replies..should I not get back to you..it's not personal..Jae appreciates you stopping by..)

Keep The Dust Away

A deal of some kind
Shared at the railings
Traded on the path
I don’t know you
Here you are every week paying a trip through my mind
Plasters in the strawberry bowl
Chocolate milk on the wall
Your dirty jeans asking me what happened
Nothing. Nothing at all.
I’m fine don’t worry don’t worry
Watch the sugar fall through me like sand through a needle
Watch the question plummet past my sides
Watch me dilute alive
I sit in the corner of the bathroom and look at you
How many years we have collected dust together
I gave you water and it stuck
How many years to see
Water alone does not clean
I take the cloth and wipe you. Finish the deal
That is how we will answer the question
That is how we will keep the dust away.

Soul Auction

I try to force breath into this cadaver
The air skids off my tongue
Gets to my lips and halts
Gets stuck there right on the tip
Bubbling little specks of drool
What is the word
What word brings back life
I look for it in other bodies
Drag dead muscles around shops with bright lights
Search eyes for any morsel of care
Of love
Hope that a hand will touch my shoulder
Brush the rain from my hair
See me
The thought gave oxygen breath pulse
Now it is dampened down extinguished forgotten held clutched in the corner of the bathroom tucked beside the chest of drawers
just find me just find me
keep the chain on the door no one can get in take the plastic cards leave them on the table lost or found lost and found
Just what thought should I push past my lips bite the world with
Ah. There you see. That is why my kiss never warms the flesh.
There is no anger to defibrillate my heart.
I am not incensed enough to draw breath and shout
I am going I am going I am gone.

Graphs and Charts

Graphs and charts
Beautiful straight lines
Spots of colour between despair and getting by
Flip the numbers score your self
There is no figure to measure to say
I no longer have texture
I can no longer chew through myself
I am a mathematical plane I do not understand
Have no reason to understand
Have no desire to claim back
My arms my face my neck
They are my depth and texture
They are the graphs and charts
They stay tucked in my sleeves
Rammed in my pockets
Despaired
Ignored
Knocked bruised and buried
A death-barrel roll with no resolution
No surrender
No flames just heat
Lack of breath but no rest
Pains aches and black veins
Chaotic nests of waste years and emptiness
No one holds my arms
Holds me in their arms
I am as cold as a line on a mathematical plane
An equation abandoned on a page
A solution must be there
All numbers have resolution
But I am untouchable
An equation abandoned on a page
As cold as a line on a mathematical plane

Red Cherries

The last page in the red cherry book has been filled.
Fifty-six pages of the same words.
A whole nest of writing creeping off the edges
Not quite sure of its own cursive.
It should be different.
The way you start. Compared to the way you finish.
I should no longer be brandishing my little book and dangling my arms over the stairwell. But nothing has changed.
Words do not change circumstance
However hard you try to write yourself out.
The voice laughs
I forbid you to stop.
And so you don’t.
But you know you ended years ago.
Before the red cherry book.
Before the hundred other books hidden under the bed.
Butterflies and flowers.
Powder in pages.
Dust mixed with blood.
That’s all that is left.
A single dose of fire sent skittling down the evidence and you are gone.

Poof.
Well Done You.

The policeman stands behind me in the queue paying for a sandwich.
He keeps his hat on.
I pack my shopping.
A lady that manages.
Such a shame. You know. But she gets by.
A small step into the red cherries and my world would collapse. I would collapse.

How delicious that seems.
To fill the words.
To find my hand.
To finally be ok.

One Potato. Two

The pink sugar paper tears easily.
The tea bags seep into its cells.
Wiping out the words.
The sweet plan.
April disintegrating into May.
I remember when the top of each letter started with a delightful young lady.
Now the syllables are troubled and bruised.
I lie in bed picking up radio waves.
Wondering how time could have gone so wrong.
How it soaked right through me.
A stain.
I remember what it feels like.
To wait for the plane.
To jump from the platform.
I want it so badly that noise soaks through me.
A stain.
You can’t make the letters change or the paper disappear. Not really.
I spin amidst the dotted lines.
The cash register the beat of my heart.
One potato. Fifty beats.
Two potato. Gone.
The sweat collects on my neck.
No tissue to damp it down.
Two worlds orbit my place in the queue.
I try to show them but no one rings up the total.

If I cut off a single lock of hair I won’t be able to stop.
Pink sugar paper and hair collide.
Take it out on Tuesday.
Tear off the yellow page.
Form the words again.

Jitters and Plans

I stand in the kitchen all jitters and plans.
Cash boxes. Pillow cases. Coat pockets.
No real protection.
In my head it has already been done.
My fingers trace back the dust.
A thin trail of existence.
I am lines of ink.
Nothing more.
I used to hang bells on the door handle. To know when.
Now I think I should hang them from my lips.
It is an uneasy dance with Jesus and Alice.
A stumble and a fall.
Words mixed up.
No swirling cloud of grace.
My breath thumps in my ears. Regretfully. Necessarily.
And I just can’t see where I am.
A pencil echoes in the empty room. Tapping on the paper.
Clickety-click beetle’s leg.
All such a waste you fool.

And the air. It smells funny.
Too real.

Bag of Hearts

The bag of hearts is so old it disintegrates in my hand.
I was saving it for a special time but that disintegrated too.
I brush it up. With the powder and dust.

The white pages of the new notebooks are yellowed and worn. There are no words in them. Maybe my thoughts wore them out.

I write options in a scrapbook. Tear them up. Slice through the pages like claws through bark. As if slicing them up will destroy them. The scrapbook inside can never be torn. Time. Place. Action. It records year after year. Relentless and pointless. Like Ticker tape.

To have a list is to determine the action. Thick black ticks sit on the chair. On the paper. Things to buy. Things to do. The order of events. Taking a chance to within an inch of accuracy. It is a paradox. To scream. Let me be nothing. I imagine the time when my nothingness is scrubbed from the kitchen floor. By a man in his twenties who wears white and two pairs of rubber gloves.

A hazard.
J is not Jae is not Jacob.

It is not J who goes to the room and sits in the chair. J is hidden in ink on the wall. She does not come in. Absence is not recorded until something has been missed.

My prayer card has been pinned to the middle of the board. It seems only I visit and look. I guess I have to answer it. My own prayer. Unless Jesus sneaks in with Alice when the door is locked and the stoup is empty.

I await their reply with afternoon tea.

My tape mixes up with confetti. I walk by as they shout one, two, three. The picture is taken. The cake sliced. Imagine that. To rest on the edge of an occasion.

Just imagine. A day where a picture turns you into something new. But not a hazard.
Just imagine. No lists. No thick black ticks. No desire to buy boxes and bags.
Just imagine. A bag of hearts new and rosy. Used before you crumble into dust.

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.

Candy Veins

I throw away my name like candy on a path.
It means nothing.

I ate through my veins trying to find you.
That is what is real.

You listened to me on the phone.
You thought I spoke nicely.

Now I rarely speak at all.
And I am not nice.

Except I am -
Nice.

The man in the shop saw.
He said you are far too nice.
To do this.
To be this.

He filled my day.
I carried home the blue package with his words wrapped around it like a bow.

Maybe there are still riches left inside.
No quite buried in the dirt. The veins. The powder.

It is hard to wash the dirt off.
It lingers.
Persuasive.
Unyeilding.
Unforgiving.

There are people who are meant to wipe it away but they dare not touch.
Because I am not nice.
Because if they touch me my dirt might follow them home.

I might become real.

To you I will always be the same person.
Trapped in amber.
The one whose name you read out loud.

What a fine surname you said.
And I felt so happy you saw me.
My hair. My smile. My clean, white shoes.

You do not know that my veins are gone.
That my face is no longer a reflection of yours.

That it is not even the face of the old name.

I trap my dirt in a dustpan.
Collect the candy.
Mop the path.

It is so very tiring sweeping up.
The exhaustion so loud it eats through me too.

On Sunday you come back.
I stick you on the cupboard alongside the five reasons.
You are number six.
Your smile gets me through to Monday.

I look at you there.

A cool glass of lemonade waiting by the side of this dirty path.

Like candy.
Like veins.
I still love you.

Ruth

The new shop opened on the seventh of February.
I still haven’t been.
Not even near.

It has an escalator.
I would like to ride it.

To go up and down.
To see the beans from above and below.
The neat rows of cans like apostles on the shelf.

Instead I go back to the place with stories in the windows and sit.

A man comes in.
He smiles at me and my feet twitch.
But I don’t mind him being there.
He has his shopping beside him too.

He sits in the place that is usually filled by Alice or Felder or you.

I look at the back of his head.
His shoulders.
A real body filling up the space in front of me.

How strange.
How strange that I stay.

Then I remember.
The girl who puts sweeteners in her spearmint tea is called Ruth.
Ruth.

I go around this empty town like Ruth.
Gleaning.
Pulling up the roots of names and faces.
Placing them in shelves and rows.
Riding up and down the memories and words.

There are people here.
People who become the stories in the window.

It calms me.
To know that they will return to the same table.
Order the same drink.
Chew the same invisible food.

The man gets up to leave.
It’s a very special place he says
And I smile and say
Yes. It is. Very special.

It is hard to hear my voice.
To share the words out loud.

But as he leaves I know he has given me
A penny’s worth of kindness and love for the day.

When The TV Died

Somebody I know is behind me.
I can feel them.
I walk with hectic feet to get away.

Like tweaker guy.
He still walks upstairs with hectic feet.
And wears mirrored sunglasses in the rain.

Like ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’.
Except he only falls from upstairs.

We all ran out onto the landing the day the TV died.
A volley of panic and confusion.

He told me he watches travel shows.
He goes around the world up there.
No wonder I can hear him.

He wears out the carpet.
He wears out me.

I hate noise.
But am lost without the static.
There is nothing to drown out the headache.

I sit in the chair.
A little dual playing out in my head.

What do I want.

It is too much to wait for the deciding shot.

I trim off little pieces of myself and wash them down the sink.
Clip. Clip. Clip.
The sound of my decomposition.

I cannot stand the smell at night.
I cannot stand to look.

And yet I collect a thousand pictures and stare.

Look how pretty.
Look how clever.

So clever my fingers can trace out different powders in the dark.

Know the difference between shapes that seem identical.
Know the difference between colours.
Know how each one will taste just by smelling the cloud which erupts on the snap.

It is funny how each little difference has led me to this one place

This one place where every thought leads to the same feeling.
Where there are a thousand words and only one meaning.

I think about this.
When the TV gets cold.

I dare you to be as pretty as me.
As clever as me.

Try it once.
Multiply by 365. By 17.
Then tell me it’s ok.

Tell me you can breathe and swallow and think about the world.

Tell me that you do not want to rest in the static and dust.

Tell me if there is anything left at all.

The Pain of Wearing Blue

I choose a pale blue coat.
I carry it home nervously.

There has to be one coat that doesn’t end up in a green carrier bag with my shoes.

My fingers sweat around the handles of the plastic bag.

I am uncomfortable with this.
The colour.
The weight.
Cool light cotton.

I wear it.
In the afternoon.
When the sun is out.

I tug at the hems.
Plunge my hands into the tiny pockets.
Wish for it to turn black.

I walk fast through the car park.
To avoid being seen.

I could cry.
I do not like how this coat feels.

I take it off when I get home.
I feel sick.
Stupid.

I hunt in the rubbish bin for the receipt but it is covered in jam and tea.
I cannot take this decision back.

I sit down.
Try to ignore it.
But it stares at me from its hook in the hall.
Like a pin prick.
But not so nice.

I hate this coat.

I fill up black bags.
Make space for this new mistake.

Each piece of clothes falls into the bag like a piece of time lost.
The sound of my decompensation.
Like the nail clippings in the chiropody clinic falling in the tray.
Making me heave and wake up.

I file away this blue coat.
Settle my arms and bloated body into familiar black sleeves.
To hide is to be free.

The blue coat will remain untouched.

It will not fall into a green carrier bag with my shoes.

Jesus and The Onions

Jesus rides to the vegetable store on his mobility scooter.

He asks the lady for two onions and she puts them in the carrier bag on the back of his chair.

I smile.
How people fall.

He’s not ‘the’ Jesus.
The one from the book and the church.

But he smells strange as I walk past.

Dried blood. Incense. Smoke.

It carries on the breeze.
Tickles my nose.

I leave Jesus and hope he gets a good price for the onions.

The sky is blue today.
My boots are heavy and brown.
I drag them around the path.

How much easier it is to fall.
Weighed down by remembering and confessions.

The policeman looks over his shoulder as I cross the road.
The marks on my neck
Heavy like my boots.

I bang my head on the chiropody clinic window.
There’s nothing wrong with my feet.
But there’s no place left to send me.

I rock on my heels and rub the polish off my fingers.

It is better because there is nothing left to scream for.

Inside it is not mellow. Buttery.
It is hard knots, falling, drowning.

Small stones disappearing in the night.
Our faces getting older.

I try not to catch a glimpse of myself.

In the chiropody room door.
The vegetable shop window.
The mirrors on Jesus’s scooter.

That smell. It comes home with me.

Dried blood. Incense. Smoke.

It is not Jesus.
It is the raw onions weeping in my head.