I think I’m sat away from everything that nobody can know.
I think I’m sat away from everything, where nobody can go.
The farthest branch could hang me,
The weakest branch could hold me.
If I could just escape, this tree is where I would want to go.
If I could just escape I’d find this tree beside the silent lake.
The farthest branch could hang me,
And the weakest branch could hold me.
And in sunrise my silhouette would be to the west
And at sunset it would be swaying in the east.
I am king of all the castles when I’m here and when I’m dreaming,
I should show you all the bruises up and down my spine.
I should teach you all the ways to drink my skin like poison.
Bewildered and sunburnt, I make my way back to you.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Flying South
Chapter one
I guess the first time we spoke was around winter. I remember because we watched the birds flying south, and I remember saying
“I wish we were flying south, th...”
There was a short interval of sirens. Neither of us spoke. I never speak over sirens and she had nothing to say.
I also never speak in night clubs. I hate raising my voice over loud noises. I’m the same around trains. Sometimes I just stop talking mid sentence. Leaving whoever I’m with in limbo. Hanging on my last word. I continue, mid sentence, as if nothing had ever happened. And everybody except my closest friends just look bewildered as they try to remember what I was saying. They usually never do - loud noises always come in the middle of the dullest conversation. I guess it’s just god or whoever trying to make me shut up. But I always carry on. Fuck god, or whoever.
The sirens pass, and I continue
“...en we’d be there to watch them arrive”
She replied, instantly
“then let’s go”
I said no, but we shared a smile. Brief, but real.
I knew from this moment on, if we weren’t already close friends (which we probably weren’t) that one day we would be.
I think she knew that too.
Chapter two
Her feet were always cold.
I remember lying in bed with her. Our bodies close and warm and wet. When it got too warm she’d bend her knees and put her feet on my stomach. I’d tense up with the cold.
But she wouldn’t flinch. She’d keep them there a while, till I had absorbed most of the cold, then she’d straighten her legs again and we’d continue lying. I’d take her hand and squeeze it softly. I never thanked her but she always knew I was thankful.
Some things just don’t need saying. And when you do say them it never feels right. It takes something away and you just lay there a while, regretting the words and wishing you could turn back time by thirty seconds, and just turn to look at her in silence instead. That always says enough if it’s the right look. And when you’re in love, it’s always the right look. Even when it’s an angry look, it’s the right kind of angry.
It’s the same with “I live you’s”
She never liked them and I didn’t really get why.
But now I know “some things are best left unsaid”
Chapter three
She had cold feet, and I had cold hands.
We were probably both anaemic but neither of us liked the doctors, Guinness or iron tablets so we never bothered to do anything about it.
Sometimes when we sat in bed at night, reading, whilst her housemates watched the Simpsons, I’d hold a cup of tea in my hands to warm them up.
It felt amazing, like drinking soup on a winter evening.
After holding the mug for as long as I could stand, I’d let go and softly take hold of her upper arm. I would always grip the mug in such a way that the palms of my hands became numbingly hot, but the fingers would remain icy.
This is what she liked
Pure heat would be too much
And the combination of boiling and freezing was a bit of a head fuck and always made her dizzy.
Helium dizzy.
Chapter four
Her and her friends had a theory -
The first day of summer is the day you go to light a cigarette and you can’t see the flame at the end of the match.
Summer didn’t start until that day
And that night they’d all go to the local seaside town and get drunk on the pebbly beach to celebrate the start of summer
Sometimes summer started early and sometimes late
She told me once that the latest summer she’d ever had was in two thousand and seven.
The eighteenth of august. It had been a particularly rainy year.
The earliest was a few years before. The fourth of February
They didn’t celebrate that year. The group saw spring as their favourite season, and this year it had been skipped, and so they all felt a bit bitter.
I guess the first time we spoke was around winter. I remember because we watched the birds flying south, and I remember saying
“I wish we were flying south, th...”
There was a short interval of sirens. Neither of us spoke. I never speak over sirens and she had nothing to say.
I also never speak in night clubs. I hate raising my voice over loud noises. I’m the same around trains. Sometimes I just stop talking mid sentence. Leaving whoever I’m with in limbo. Hanging on my last word. I continue, mid sentence, as if nothing had ever happened. And everybody except my closest friends just look bewildered as they try to remember what I was saying. They usually never do - loud noises always come in the middle of the dullest conversation. I guess it’s just god or whoever trying to make me shut up. But I always carry on. Fuck god, or whoever.
The sirens pass, and I continue
“...en we’d be there to watch them arrive”
She replied, instantly
“then let’s go”
I said no, but we shared a smile. Brief, but real.
I knew from this moment on, if we weren’t already close friends (which we probably weren’t) that one day we would be.
I think she knew that too.
Chapter two
Her feet were always cold.
I remember lying in bed with her. Our bodies close and warm and wet. When it got too warm she’d bend her knees and put her feet on my stomach. I’d tense up with the cold.
But she wouldn’t flinch. She’d keep them there a while, till I had absorbed most of the cold, then she’d straighten her legs again and we’d continue lying. I’d take her hand and squeeze it softly. I never thanked her but she always knew I was thankful.
Some things just don’t need saying. And when you do say them it never feels right. It takes something away and you just lay there a while, regretting the words and wishing you could turn back time by thirty seconds, and just turn to look at her in silence instead. That always says enough if it’s the right look. And when you’re in love, it’s always the right look. Even when it’s an angry look, it’s the right kind of angry.
It’s the same with “I live you’s”
She never liked them and I didn’t really get why.
But now I know “some things are best left unsaid”
Chapter three
She had cold feet, and I had cold hands.
We were probably both anaemic but neither of us liked the doctors, Guinness or iron tablets so we never bothered to do anything about it.
Sometimes when we sat in bed at night, reading, whilst her housemates watched the Simpsons, I’d hold a cup of tea in my hands to warm them up.
It felt amazing, like drinking soup on a winter evening.
After holding the mug for as long as I could stand, I’d let go and softly take hold of her upper arm. I would always grip the mug in such a way that the palms of my hands became numbingly hot, but the fingers would remain icy.
This is what she liked
Pure heat would be too much
And the combination of boiling and freezing was a bit of a head fuck and always made her dizzy.
Helium dizzy.
Chapter four
Her and her friends had a theory -
The first day of summer is the day you go to light a cigarette and you can’t see the flame at the end of the match.
Summer didn’t start until that day
And that night they’d all go to the local seaside town and get drunk on the pebbly beach to celebrate the start of summer
Sometimes summer started early and sometimes late
She told me once that the latest summer she’d ever had was in two thousand and seven.
The eighteenth of august. It had been a particularly rainy year.
The earliest was a few years before. The fourth of February
They didn’t celebrate that year. The group saw spring as their favourite season, and this year it had been skipped, and so they all felt a bit bitter.
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Friday, 24 December 2010
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
I
The smoke curls round my fingers
Out of time with the ticks
And the gargles of the baby swans -
The intestines of their dead mother
Their only source of survival.
Once I saw three children
The eldest, a girl, fourteen,
She was holding a paper umbrella
It disintegrated in the rain and her hair got wet
Her brother was three
and his white hair reflected the sunlight into my eyes
so I had to turn away
and when I turned back they were gone
I never noticed the other child
So I’ve painted a picture of them
It’s black and smudged
And I call it something like ‘failure’.
I don’t like the title but it’s the only word I remember the meaning of.
II
It’s like that sensation you get when you stare at a bright light for the countdown to a power cut.
Like sun spots in your vision then absolute darkness.
It’s like shaking the clammy hand of the guy who’s sleeping with your ex girlfriend.
Or maybe I remember it wrong?
The child was grey.
Either his hair or his eyes were brown
But his skin was entirely grey.
I’m guessing hyperthermia or the Chernobyl.
CHA-KNOB-ALL.
I could count his strands of hair on one hand.
His pulse came less frequently than... (insert metaphor)
His skin so taught, you could make out the marble of his bones.
For some reason I said yes when he asked to sleep with me.
I was half aware he was HIV positive
But the other half of me didn’t care.
The other third was indifferent.
And the remaining quarter felt too much guilt to turn down the body of a child who would most likely be dead within the next seventy-two hours.
III
It’s been a week of horrible nights and hangovers.
£180 worth of education wasted.
Perfect days spent for free.
Lifeless bodies. Bloodless limbs.
Watching clocks from 5.25 to 5.26
Then just wishing you were alive to see 5.24.
But your head was somewhere in that lamp
Or in the fireplace.
Or your eyes were lost someplace in that mirror –
The one that shows you the reflection of a cancer ridden widow.
An empty entity of hollow timber and deflated helium balloons.
If I put a wooden spoon between my teeth now,
By 5.36 I’d be left holding a wooden handle
And stood above a pile of blood, ivory and sawdust.
It’s because I’m nervous, and when I’m nervous I grind my teeth.
The acupuncturist asked me to stop.
I should have listened.
It’s constantly taking my jaw out of line.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Monday, 8 November 2010
text
shoelaces tied round our necks to make necklaces
small children in pots of boiling water
the darkness getting lighter and lighter
until i cannot be afraid any more
petals from month old roses
like the leaves of a
rotting
butterfly
small doses of poison in every mouthful
i hold your hand but i have to let go
my cold blooded skin smokes
on each point of
contact
waxy calluses scratch the cheeks of all the baby's
faces i stroke
i hold a cigarette now
and will hold it forever
i don't smoke
but i like people to think i
do
and i like the yellow fingertips
i hold
my head
underwater
until i can no longer think any more.
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