Alice and The Candle

I take Alice to the church.
She is my only friend.

Although I only hear her in my head.
And I only speak to her in my dreams.

The red lady pays ten pence for a candle and kneels.
A small price to pay for a big guarantee.

I keep my pennies in my purse.

The man in the hat chases up the aisle saying
I love you so much.

This is why I rarely leave the house.

When they have gone Alice rests her hand on my head.
She lets me cry a pool of tears and we float in it together.
The salt eating into the holes in our skin.
Quelling the fire.
Like kisses.

We drift in the water until the red lady’s candle burns out.
Then all I can feel is the wooden seat.
The cold in my breath.
The cold inside no blanket can warm.

For a moment the clock ticks and I hear voices outside.
I look around me.

Scared.

Alice is so small she can be blown away like a pencil shaving.

I often wonder if she is there at all.

The Universal Key

The radio that makes no words hums in the bathroom.

They will come with the yellow key.
They will figure me out.

I lie on the floor holding my breath.
Squeezing my eyes shut.

I don’t exist. I don’t exist. I don’t exist.

I wish my body out of this room.
Put it upon a train.
Send it away to some place full of light and feeling.

I hear feet on the stairs.
The hollow rumble of life going on outside me.

I drown out the stress of the radio waves by grinding my teeth.

I hate that I cannot switch it off.
That I need it.
Dead batteries and no reception.

All the good people are gone.
The one’s with the juicy stories.

They left and now I can’t find myself.

I hit myself on the head with the back of my hand.

The feet get louder and are joined up with voices.
I hear a hand approaching the glass.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Are you there?

Tea and Biscuits

I dispose of myself bag by bag.
Cell by cell.

I don’t own anything from before the war.
I no longer fight the good fight.
I no longer can.

Confrontation wins war.
Not care. Not love. Not kindness.

I cannot confront myself.
I cannot stomach a war.
And yet I cannot be kind.

I can’t think of anyone else who would do this he said.
But it was too late.
They already had.
Quietly.
Behind the safety of enemy lines.

All I want is a cup of tea.
Maybe a biscuit.
A warm house to sit in.

The bags tie up easily although I struggle to carry them out.
They weigh as much as my body.
They weigh as much as me.

If I have nothing left then no more can be lost.

Nobody sees me dispose of myself after dark.
Nobody sees my feet tremble over the yellow lines.
My arms buckle.
My head spin.

I hear voices behind me and above me.
I am no longer sure if they belong to you.
There is so much time between callings that I have forgotten who you are.

There will be no letter sent home.
There is no home.
No people waiting.

I feel the weight of that.

My body.
3 am.
Blinking in the light I have to put on.

A light by which I can see every weapon of my war.
A light which does not forgive me and the murder I have caused.

The Comb

I blink. I don’t know where I am.

I am looking for an aid to restful sleep but the bright lights make me swirl around like Dorothy.

This tornado is so loud. It punches my ears.

The blue lady amplifies my confusion.

Don’t scrub me away
- As if the soap will make me more bearable.

Keep your hands clean from the wreckage
- As if washing me will protect you from what I have become.

I prop myself up on the yellow cushion at night and half believe I am in the place where people push your head down.

The place where nobody comes any more.

I think of this place a lot.
I hope there is occasion to go back there.
I plan my next visit in the little book with cherries on the cover.
Like people outside of the wreckage plan holidays and birthday parties.

I bought the little book from the shop.
In the place where I let my feet slip.

I think of the kind time. Firework’s night. When a stranger bought a comb and brushed the knots from my hair.

‘You’ve missed all the lights’ she said. And I smiled because inside I had found the brightest, most wonderful light.

Maybe she thought it would make me pretty.
Everything becomes smooth and pretty when you fall into the bright light.

I have kept it.
The little purple comb.
It waits in my bag for next time.

I look out the window.

I have moved from the shop with the shiny floors to the place where I drink coffee and pretend to read the paper.

In this place people talk about their shopping and how good the food tastes.

For a moment I know that what I am looking for is in St James.

If I go there I will find him.

As I sit on the hard chair I feel him stroking the tangles from my hair. Easing out the tornado inside. Aiding me into restful sleep.

And I smile.
His hands will lead me to an end.

A Thousand Years

My Valentine’s jelly-pot sits in the fridge.
On top of the rotting burgers.

They say eat protein. It’s the only way to heal.

But you cannot plug the holes with jelly.
It barely has substance.

We had two books in our house.
An encyclopaedia for ‘idiot children’ and a junior bible.

But it wasn’t enough to plug the holes.

I liked the pictures.
I did not understand the words.

How can you understand words when nobody speaks.
When you are an ‘idiot child’.

The police came again.

Everyone starts their eternity as a good person.
It’s just sometimes they have to come to your door.
To make sure you pick up the phone.
And get up from the floor.

They try to plug the holes.
Give you kind words to go with the pictures.

I remember the smiling baby.
His face was pink like strawberries.
The animals in the garden.

(I try not to think of shaking the dog)

The tiny map of the world.

(I try not to think of where I have not been)

Tomorrow I shall eat my jelly.
I will try to plug the holes.

A thousand years of something missing.

My Essence

I dare you to do it.

Swallow. Swallow.
Jump. Jump.

All day. Every day. Loud. Soft. When I’m awake. When I’m asleep. When I’m on the nod watching Harry Hill.

I pretend it makes me laugh. It is funny. But it can’t drown out the voice.

Only replaces it with the memory of laughter. Not real laughter. The laughter you think people make.

It is so very hollow grabbing at hysteria.
Taking it down with the powder and the wine.

I dare you. I dare you.

I send the card with hearts on. I sweat in the shop. My god. I am sending a card to the voice.

I write it in red pen.
It is not about love.
It is the same note I have written for fifteen years.
It arrives without a stamp.

You were completely unrousable he said.
There are more certain ways she said.

I know. I know. Shut up. I have done the lesson. Many lessons. I am waiting for the practical application.

But I don’t know which voice to believe.

It is hard. Trying to make sense of these words.
Carrying a bag of bandages in the wind.
Kind of symbolic.
A bag with no weight.
Full of things which should hold me together.

(We are far beyond fixing).

I dangle them over the side. Along with the pages and pages that aren’t quite me.

This shouldn’t still be happening he said.

How I wish that were so.
How I wish I could let it all go.

Take a deep breath. Laugh a true laugh. Open a real card.

How I wish I could fill a bag with my essence.

The Story

I want to feel every word. Let it burn in the back of my throat.

Like the powder. The index card. The rolled up piece of ‘Hello Kitty’ notepaper.

It takes you there a little bit quicker.
And when you have no place to go quick is definitely better.

It all falls.

The smells.
Bubble baths and rotting pins.
Skipping ropes and ‘hundred-and thousands’.

My hair falls out as I sleep.
I find it in clumps on my pillow.
It’s just like losing you.
I collect it up. Throw it away. And another clump grows.

So many of you lost that way.
So many of you filling in the bald spots.

The blisters are popping and bleeding.
On my hands and legs.
I scratch at them and remember the girl. The tumour. The brillo pad.

Behind every story is another.

No one’s story quite belongs to them.

Waiting. Waiting.
For seven o’clock.
When I can fall.

When I can feel every word.

Please

The woman in the panda hat looks so mean. She is sitting opposite me on the train. I am going back to the falling over place.

It is abrasive to look at her dark face framed by fluffy white ears. Like how I feel about going back.

I want to see the person who held my hand. But I fear remembering why she had to help me up from the fall.

I try to explain to them that I was not there. That I was neither in or out of my head. I was absent. They look at me absently. I scream in my head. No, not that like. Completely gone. Nothing. Nobody. Nowhere.

One minute I am a sitting behind the curtains thinking this is great. I am not gagging. The next I am eating mini biscuits in a wheelchair in the hall. Crying.

I think I must have been gone for a whole day. Not that it was a loss.

More a waste.

It’s amazing how it becomes easier and easier. A packet of tissues. A clean pair of socks. An umbrella cover.

I acknowledge it was a slip using the bin in the toilets and holding the can in my hand.

I am getting tired. Old. Complacent.

It’s strange how this order is so congruous. Not a mean lady in a panda hat. A handful lady at the top of the stairs. All so fitting now. The security guards pass. They know my name. I answer. That’s what you do.

Not that my name belongs to me. It is absent from my presence.

Apparently I told her all about that. The person who held my hand.

I sit on the train trying not to look at panda woman. She scares me. They all say I still have a pretty face. That makes me feel sad. Like there is something left to salvage. Although I never want to look mean however far I fall.

I remember little things. I remember little things. I remember little things.

Then I think of the park bench. The brick wall. The kitchen floor.

How when I fall I use the ink to say what I truly want.


I wrote three little words on the chart.

One of them was please.