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.