20130413 the things you say

20130413

I forgot about this, did I not.  In the passage of time, time past and passing, I forgot.  Well I would. What do you say? I would, wouldn't I?

I forgot.

I sat and looked at windows grown black with the want of a rub down.  At piles, dust accumulating as I watched. At corners untouched. Life, quiet. Moving only as needed. Now and then. Then and now.

I forgot.

In the whirr of inward activity, the outside was too much to manage, the effort to muster a rise, a step, too much, all too much.

Where is the hand that comes in and cares. I care. I care. Let me shift you and shake you.

Ha ha ha

I am grown known that there is just me, just me.  Say what you will, what you will. That is you. Just you and your crooked intentions.

I cannot bury this in half hopes and dreams. The dust in my landscape covers stuff. I covered myself in hopeless hope. Hopeless hope.  What a fool.  There is me, only me.

I forgot.

I forgot.

20121204 the things you say

20121204 the things you say

i have abandoned you. well, it was time to wasn’t it. what do you take me for? think i will sit here day after day and hope for the snippet, the hook for my worm? i cant do that, this life is too short. too tiny.

any rate, i forgot about my husband somewhere in the mix. forgot him entirely. would have denied him, looked right through him. doubt i would have recognised him. 

he came to see me. footsteps on the lino, footsteps on the flattened oh so smooth shiny concrete, buffed to look like oiled wood, like marble. he poked that head around my door and said my name, aloud. its the first time i’ve heard my name spoken in a while. it gets like that doesn’t it, when there is no one that knows you, or when those that do know you as another thing, another person, by a different sound.

i dont start or startle. no jumping or immediate shock reactions, nothing like that. i turn my head, slowly, like this, see to the right and peer over my shoulder. i stare. i feel quizzical, cross my brow, furrow me. i hold his gaze. not bad i think. not bad. something amiss perhaps. a hardness in the eyes, slightly too proud of feature, but for a man his age, not bad at all. do i know you i say, for you seem to know me, or my name at least. 

its me he says, unhelpful, wary. i think he is wary of me. ah, i say none the wiser, i didn’t recognise you at first, come here, pats the bed, settle your arse.

i’ll take the chair, so he says, gesturing, do you mind? not at all so i say, but return it, of course and i laugh. i laugh. what a sound  what a rusty old sound that has become. like a can rattling down the inside of a down pipe. echoey. clunky.

i hold the smile. feel its warmth.

i saw a robin red breast today, so i say. it stopped, hopped on the arm of a bench in the garden.  i stopped, so i say, to look upon it long and hard. it moved me. small round bird, red of breast. i moved closer to look and it skirruped away with a chirrup. i watched it move from near to far and could not shake my gaze. such beauty in it. such known and unknown beauty.

they are always about. you state it, its a fact. plain and simple. 

they are beautiful, i say, say i. beautiful. rare, plentiful, it matters not, they stir my heart.

ten a penny, so you say.

a memory stirs and the quashing of possibilities happens right there as i sit in my space. my space. the sinking of hope under the weight of what? misunderstanding? difference? lack of care?

are we friends, say i?

we were, so say you. we were.  

ah. i think it would be good to be friends, enemies, thats not good is it. it is pointless a waste of time of effort of energy what do you say?

you say, well, i am here aren’t i ? 

it’s a start, surely its a start.

20121226 the things you say part 20

20121226 the things you say part 20

This skedaddleing goes on. so it does. on and on.

We come together. Leave. A word. Leave. A gasp. Leave. Room for hope. Leave. Gone. Leave. A word. Leave. Another. Leave. In space out. In space out. Hook. Sinker. Hook. Sinker. Leave.

What is it? Your difference. It is there. I see it and I know it I know that it is there and it is real. Whatever. Whatever.  Have it. Fuck ya.

They clamber for a piece of you and the reasons are wrong their reasons are wrong and I am done with it. I know your cheeky smile as you sign yourself good bye at the end of a communication.  Authorised communication with a flourish. Something extra a bit more. A cheeky smile, euphemism, exclamation mark. An adage. I thank you but I'm off I shall skedaddle.

Have him, have him I say. I am done with it, bored with it, over it.

Let him be who he is do as he does. Clamber. Laugh too loud.  Hope for the treacle of attention as it pours down heavy, sticky.  Bored.  Done. Gone.  I take my leave. Bow out.

In my interior I watch as you speak so clever and articulate about the everyday, looking again, the malleability of the material. I watch you clearly talk it up, tell it loud, speak it true. Look at you, articulate, able, beautiful. Beauty of the unclaspable kind. Outside, inside, seeming real.  Seeming real.

Ah.

The truth. I sent you word, you sent me word, I sent it back and back and back. You backed away.  I lay my head. You sent me word, I batted back you hit me again I went for more you put your nose between your paws, the cancan played a mighty tune and you danced to it on and on and refused again to look my way.  I played the dice, I took the bet, I took the step, I extended my hand, through bars lined with glass I sliced skin and muscle in the stretching out of hand holding heart. Pump pump. You gazed towards your meadow, outside the window. I lapsed into silence. You spoke again, suddenly, out of the blue, thought of me and let me know it.

Damn dashed heart, split spliced and smarting skin with pumping blood and muscle in.

You whittled yourself away in the leaving. You chipped and chipped into possibility with silence and the big expanse of oak became a twig, a snippet, a fragment finally that I cannot recognise.

The facts remain. I am in here.  You are too. You are out of my reach. I love you. I love your knowing, articulation and distance, your expertise, intuition and vision. I love the space you create and inhabit and the lack of need you wear as a cape upon your shoulders. I love your knowing of me. I want more. It is not there to have. I draw a line a real solid line and watch me turn on my heel and walk away.

I will leave you for the others. You are not mine and i no longer want you.

20121029 the things you say part 19

20121029 the things you say

In this bed, in the gap between sleeping and living. There is a slow glow, molten gold burning at the heart of me. I am warmed. I am delicious. The warmth moves through, seeps out, coats my skin, puffs like steam into the new cold air. I am caught in the dream that feels true. As I come in to life I am smiling. I am changed. I am loved.

I open my eye.  The dream whisks away, sucked back into black in a flash and I cannot refind it. I hurt my minds eye with the trying.

I sent you a note. A real one, handwritten. It said, let me come and find you. It just made it clear, again and again, that I want you. I want you. I want to sit with you, talk with you, listen. I want to lie with you, drink with you, laugh with you, talk with you, listen. I want to look at you, watch you, stretch my hand out and touch you, to sit with you, drink with you, laugh, talk, listen.

I said, did you get my note, looking up at you, laughter skating round my eyes. You said, I did. And it was clear that you knew what I meant by the note. And you said, I cannot do this, look at me, who I am, my place, my position. It would be like the 1980's all over again, when this stuff went on all the time. Wouldn't it. Things are different now, less easy. Then you said, we can't drink tea, not at my space, but we could meet elsewhere.

Do you see. Do you see what this means? All the silence, all the time away, the snippets that I hope are more than they seem, they are real and for a reason. It is the reason keeping you away from me, silent and formal and distant. It is the reason, not a lack of wanting. The wanting is there, but hidden, you can't speak it, not aloud, it would place you in a place, a predicament.

We are hanging a showing. I am distracted by you. You have led me to a quieter place and we are doing this talking, still framed as formal, still reticent. Suddenly out of nowhere a girl appears, she throws herself at you, onto you, into you. It is quick. You move her away, push her gently away. Wow, I say, you've surely got what it takes today, you say, quietly, 'you've got what it takes, for me'. What? See? Gold melts, moves with languorous weight through the marrow of me. I am quieted. Mellow.

Where shall we meet I say and when? When are you free next week, this week? Not Wednesday, Thursday or Friday you say. But Saturday. Definitely Saturday. We walk now as we talk and your hand touches mine, cold long finger tips lock into mine and hold on. As we walk. I am aware of some others looking on and know that we should break this embrace, but do not. I cannot.

20121020 the things you say part 18

20121020 the things you say part 18

I just can't leave it can I? Can't leave you, can't wait. You are the itch that I have to scratch, the scab I pick, hang nail that I tug. You are the soft unblemished skin that I worry with my nail until it bleeds, the blood I suck, the lip I chew, the teeth I clench until they grind and ache.

20121018 the things you say part 17

20121018 the things you say part 17

For fucks own sake. What the fuck can I say. It is so many steps forward and then three times as many steps back. This is my heart.  My heart. Lurching and shrinking, growing and hoping. Recoiling. Feeling embarrassed, ashamed, part loved, forgotten. Make up your mind. What is it? Huh?

So, then, time passed by slowly, and the small word received rescinded, fell into an abyss of meaninglessness, nothing. How can something remain something? How many times does it need to be retold, reaffirmed? Are words or actions more telling, more true? What is true? Where are you?

So word came. I blew myself wild and alive with the pulse of it. Possibility. It faded. Flat lined.

This has become a ruled line, straight and flat on a back lit screen. Darkness helps the white line illuminate itself. Bold. Clear for all to see. A ruled straight line is a nothing line. There is nothing here.

So, then, the word came, and it was good. And so then, the sound of the word faded, my soles gained wax and thread and twine showed its scratchy face to the world. In the corridor I heard a new sound, new whisper. I am coming back. I listen to them speak in spat tongues. This has done some good so they say, there is marked progress. I hear them.  I wonder at progression. How is it marked? From where to where? How judged. A successful stay away. Success? How is it measured? How judged? But my preponderance is short lived. I care little. So little. The main point, the point that matters is this, I am coming back. Tomorrow I think, I will be on the way, back to you to you to you.

Yeah, great, and what. What? I come back and am here. Back in this place, trying to keep out of sight of the others, the fuckers, the no good pieces of shit who will fail. If there is judgment of success they think that they mark it, but they fall short, fail short, mis read. Those acquisitions mean nothing, are short lived, are mere triflings to trick you, inbred thoughts of 'I'm happy' placed in your silly ego centred souls. Fuck wits, fuck ups, fuck off.

Ha ha

You, you fucker. Half this half that. Twat.
Give me something real that I can feast my eyes upon, sink my teeth into.

So then, and this is true,  I am suddenly given the opportunity to go into the hall and look at the results of the baring of the souls. Not mine. That is still hidden away, bearing fruit under the five year rule. But the others, the others. I am intrigued. Alarmed at the plentiful futility, moved now and then by a snap shot a thrill of something real.  In there, weighed down with the earnest appraisal, the talk and the showing you throw more words at me. Sudden. Unexpected.  More small words, tiny, telling me in a half sentence about you. Your life.

More exaltation. Delirious at your consideration of me your wanting to share that news with me, with me. I can neither wait nor think but must tell you straight away how wonderful how brilliant you are.

Since then, since that time, the net has fallen over me. There are no flies in here. No space for words, no paper. Lost, again, as you step back find new distance. Into formal.  I stoop bow down and wish.

I lose my charm, my power. I am humbled by my wanting. I wait on.

20121011 the things you say part 16

20121011 the things you say part 16


It is not my way to wait. It does me no good. I fidget with the anxiety of hours passing and no news no sound. I pace with the minutes back and forth or forth and forth. March a hole in the carpet. Wear a tear threadbare. I love the weave. The hessian bound so fiercely together, harshly entwined. Prickly and protecting. Wound, strong.

I can see reflections in the glass. See the space around me, bushes, hedgerows.  I am reflected back at myself with the landscape panning in monochrome. I am the inverse of an image. The negative space. Colourless.

I forgot to say that word did come. It arrived in a flash in a flurry. Nothing much. Nothing obvious. The date, do you remember the date?, the date was not mentioned, glossed over, absent. It was a dumb idea. It could not have happened. Not at all. Dumb.

The word was scrawled quickly. Bunched in a fist shape on scrunched paper. Thrown, across the sky until it landed here, there, thud. When I looked down and I saw it, saw the writing, my name, hysteria rose up through my body. Really. I felt that my rib cage would expand and explode with the operatic tone I needed to hit to release the wonder. The wonder. I felt I would split outwards blasting all in my sight to the ground with the strength of my roar. My roar.

You said nothing really. No agreement to meet, to sneak a snatch of this for ourselves in some uncommon place far from anyone who might see and say. Nothing of that ilk. And I had prompted you for the word had I not. Prodded and poked and pushed for a something. It could have been a nothing at all I suppose and so this, this was at least more than that, even if it was wrenched into the world by my own hand my own making. The word is at least a something. You impart your knowledge to me, offer advice on ways to make the passage of my time more interesting, more engaged with the land around me. You say, and I love this bit, you say, there is a beautiful cove, a place carved out of the rock made into a bay a formation of rock. I like the attention to detail, the joy I hear in the word that says the rock and how it is formed is noticed by you. You like it. I like it too. I have never seen it, but I like it now, very much. The bit that I love, that I hang onto, is the one half sentence that says, clearly, be careful. It is dangerous.  Be careful.  Oh. Oh. Do you care? Does this mean that you care for me? My well being? Does it mean you care more than a little? Or does it mean that you are trying to tell me that you care a bit? That you think of me? Do you? Do you think of me? How can I tell care from polite concern? But then, why would you express polite concern to me, a grown up? Fair enough, a grown up awash with the wonky, but grown up indeed. Oh. I hang on. Oh. I hang on. Oh.

My tummy is full of warm toffee. It heats me from the inside out and bubbles and pops away each time I think of those words. I am warmed through. I am coated with no cooling toffee inside. The warmth makes me smile at nothing at all. Oh look there is dust on a surface, how lovely that can be. Oh look there is an ice pink tinge in the dusk night sky. How did I ever miss that? Jam tastes so divine. The flavours of it burst in my mouth on my tongue. I am eating a bramble hedge. I am sitting inside of one and the earth is touching my feet as the sky licks around my head, strokes my face. The dampness of the ground is delicious. It works through my clothing to my skin. The pieces that touch it are cooler than the rest of me and my head, nearest the sky is glowing hot. Each note of birdsong stops my pulse. I never knew such beauty.

I hide the crumpled note, mere sentences long inside my person. It is out of sight. It is mine, just mine. It is mine.

Still I am here and I am pacing. I want more, don't you know, much much more. All of this that I know in this moment will be lost before I see you again, read you again. By tomorrow the strength that the word has to hold me will be gone, dust. I will talk myself round. I will sit, look, think and yearn. When the strain grows too hard to maintain, I will pace, forth and forth, wearing marks in the carpet, erasing wax from the boards. I want to you to come and find me. To sit with me. To want me. To know me. To laugh with me. To get me. To love me.  I want you, to love me.