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.