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.

the things you say part 15

I miss you so.  I could almost weep. The day is longer without you in it. I want you in my day. I sit here in this weather porous shack, listening to the waves tumbling sand, grinding sand and I wait for word. I wait for a word from you.

20120801 The things you say part 14

The things you say part 14

It is as though my eyes are closed. I am travelling and seeing nothing. It is as though I have been drugged, silenced. I am present and absent all at once. Going through a motion, acting on clockwork, on memory. One foot, another. One foot, another. I am leaving you behind. You are not going to where I will now be. You will be there, where I was, and I will be here. I am mournful at my lack of you. My wanting you. The ache of your absence. The ache of absence. The missing of those moments. Missing you and our moments. My knowledge of our connectedness. How we could use our time well, in talk, as a mirror. You of me me of you. Us.

I am moving at speed in a different direction. I have heard nothing. Nothing. The words I so wanted, the sign I so wanted unforthcoming. Not here.

I am travelling at some speed. Eyes open, light entering, thoughts tumbling, weight hung heart.

I press my face to the window and watch as bricks fall into one another, cars back to back pound the road. Inches from each other. Seconds from each other.

People blur into people, mass into one.

Now we are so high, soaring miles above sea level. The water stretches endlessly left and then right. Endless.

Steel floats.

In a rush helium heart yanked upward, I see green.  Green. When did you last see such expanses of green and grey green and pea green and dust yellow. Dark green and sea green and emerald green and mustard yellow.

I choke on my breath.

Gasp on air.

I am astounded to find I can breathe. I can breathe.

We pound on.  Hammer on.

No word from you, yet your traces are here, all around me. I can breathe and know you have been near.  It is enough. Traces of you. Almost enough.

20120731 the things you say part 12a

20120731 the things you say part 12a

All those years of craving silence. All those snapped shut up shut ups at people as my busy buzzing head filled itself with noise of its own making. Yak yak yak. Chatter chatter. No space for more noise, outside noise, noise of the world.

Tick. Tick. The quietude explodes all around me. I am paused, poised, toes over the edge ready to dive, to leap to dance to spin to hear you say something anything. A word. A whisper. Some confirmation.

The corridor remains empty. No tread of sole against Lino, no slap slap, creak or trip. The walls whistle occasionally as air is trapped by the wind in the cavities, bricks missing, barred windows, still ill fitting. I lay, exhausted by the action of action, unrequited action and watch the extended arm of a too large uncommon tree tapping on the glass.  Old glass. So old it has run downwards over time, thickened at the base, blurred and opaque when it should be seamless seeing, inside to outside, in here to out there. The tapping branch I can see. The leaves I do not recognise.

Days upon days with nothing to do. I dreamed of this. All those years I dreamed of this, the time, the space to do nothing but listen to my thoughts and make the work, the work, the most necessary work. Now, the days stretch and I have lost a sense of urgency. Precious time bleeds into itself and I have forgotten my panic. I have become dumb to my ending and instead of constant productivity, thought, I allow myself days of inertia. I succumb to the tired that I would have fought off. I lay. I hope. I dream. It is you. It is you.

Still nothing. Still nothing.

There is a black wire that snakes through the branches of the tree outside this window.  It hits against the trunk and moves past, stretching out from here to where? I would look if the impetus were here. It is not.

I have said to myself, take action. Life is for living. For living. Keep alive. Feel your pulse. Feel that heart skip, miss, slow, but do not let it deaden. Screw hard fists and show them, push them forth in the face of complacency. She is not welcome here. Be brave, be true, speak as it is, say your piece, hide not in falsehoods. But oh, action taken, I am tired. I want the next bit. The joy. It is absent.

In it creeps, in it comes. Always. The self. Pick it apart, pull it apart. Hound it. Batter it. Smash it to pieces. Beat it. Stamp upon the self.

Pull it together. Stop. It is not you. It is not you.

A sound, my attention is drawn to a sound. At my door. I missed the slap of sole on Lino. I was wrapped up in my self. I missed a sound. It could be the others, one or more, come to remind me that i am just shit just shit.

A voice, out of nowhere, unknown, confirms without showing their face that I am to go away. For a bit. Just a while. Short time.

It is not for me to question. Argue. Shout. Cry.

I will go.

the things you say part 12

the things you say part 12

I sent word in folded note form along the corridors along the wires and asked you out right point blank to your face but in word form if you would like, perhaps to meet me, somewhere.  I called a person over to my side and gave them the tiny folded thing, wrapped up, written, ready. I pushed them pointed them in your direction pushed them on their way, they came back duly empty handed after some time, I settled and waited they did not bring word from you there was no word from you from you there was just silence weighty real heart stopping silence. It stopped my heart. Heavy heart, like an overweighted pendulum hanging from a wall clock, too heavy ticking out the wrong time wrong rhythm.

Tick the silence carries on and on and on. I need to find the messenger check with her with him that the note went the right way was exchanged the right way. I confirm. It is so. It went to you. You took it. Did you read it? This I cannot know for the messenger did not stay could not say. It was you though, I checked, the markings, noted markings that make of you who you are. Confirmed. All confirmed. See here, I rolled it, big woman, I made my choice, I threw caution to the wind, embraced a non determinist fatalism. I took action, I am a taker of action a hope-er. I am brave. I am foolish. I am strong. I am weak. I am thrown into disarray. Please respond. Not silence. Not more silence. Just fuck off will do. But no. Nothing. Nothing.

I sit with it. With the whirr of the stillness.

I cannot come and find you. I want to come and find you. Will come and find you. Will find you. But not here not now. The timeframe is awry, out of synch out of loop out of balance.

I slide my fingertips across the coldness of the stone bones. Shall I go again? But no. I must wait. Just pull myself in to that ear cocked position and hang in there.

the things you say. part 11.

The things you say. Part 11

The others crowd around, backs to me, rugby scrum style. They speak, as I hear them, in monosyllables. I recognise that they are from a different place to me, lesser somehow, more lowly, less clever. It is ok. I am glad to see their backs, the back of them, time is too short to waste on the undeserving.

In my room, so white it reflects back on itself in a never ending circle, cycle of reflection, eternal, in my room I notice the wrapping has been undone. You gave me one day, in a dark secret place, out of earshot out of eye shot, you gave me an individually wrapped square of darkest chocolate. A cactus chocolate, I may have mentioned it. The wrapper, crisp, with greens and cerise, scarlet and plum. A prickly wrapper. Have a chocolate you said, and handed it to me. Just to me. I looked at it, there in the palm of my hand for a while. Pretty thing, I thought. I looked up skywards, towards your face, your mouth, and saw you had eaten one of the individually wrapped squares yourself. Chocolate in your mouth, pooling at the corners as you sucked on it, absent minded and still, as always ready to move in an inkling, poised to dash away. Oh stay I thought just stay. Futile thoughts, impossible thoughts, you could not stay, you simply could not. And neither for that matter could I. You and I there, together, it would be odd, after a while, it would seem odd to onlookers, to the others.

I take my precious gift and place it, a token, a charm, I place it under my pillow. It is not you, but of you. See? You gave it to me, to me. I flickered in your thoughts right then, and you considered me, thought of me, gave to me. Fed me. You fed me.

Today, white on white on white, in the gleaming I see, clearly, the flash of ripe colour, set off against the blue white of sheet of counter pane. I rush forward. The crisp individual package is ripped open. The morsel absent. Stillness freezes me and only my eyes flicker and move and register. Taking in the room, seeking other traces. There, in the glass half full, half empty, at the bedside, on the floor, at the bedside, beside other glasses half full, half empty, full empty of water that I place there and leave there as comfort over days over weeks because the act the sheer act of stooping to move them is tiresome the mere thought that I may need to act in such a way, a 'move the fucking glasses of water' way, is exhausting in the extreme and after the thought the tiresome, exhausting overwhelming thought, the act is impossible implausible unthinkable. They gather, a tribe of transparency nursing nectar in their midst, protecting nectar in their midst, sweet taken for granted water, sweet water drink from heaven, precious gift. Ah, as I was saying, there, in the depths of one glass, settled and melting at the bottom, sticking to the glass in a goo is my chocolate. My chocolate. Your chocolate given to me and made mine.

The others. One or another of the others will have done this. Snuck into this room that is mine. I can lock it but I don't I don't want to why should I? Ah. They are like that I think to myself, full of bitterness, mean ness, sharp desire to take and to keep and to ruin and to blame.

I am fine. See. It is just a thing. A ruined thing, yes, but the act, the act of being given to, of being thought of one day, that they can never take away.

I discard the wrapper. I throw it, careless, into the bin. No need no need.

I have in my pocket, hid deep, with the fluff and the pine needles six small stones. I found them all. They are smooth and round the colour of bone. They may be bone. They could be.

I have no dice. I have one envelope with my name writ large, one paper aeroplane right wing hand crumpled, no chocolate or wrapper. I have bursts and moments, mine, all mine to keep and wrap around my heart. I have stones, six. I am the dice man in female form. All present and correct and bursting to splitting with hot life. The stone bones are my dice. Just one. All that I need. I will shake them all six in my hand, I will cast them up, inches above my open palm, I will turn my hand over, rapidly, so rapidly. Whatever does land upon the back of my hand, whatever number of stone bones lie there, so shall they be the voice of the dice. All evens, a date, all odds, arranged marriage. Although, as the day has progressed I have thought that this second option may seem too strange a proposal, even for one of my own, a fellow, a tribesman of my tribe.

Still, the dice man did rape willy nilly, and this seems less odd than that. Let it stay, let it stay. Option two will remain. Hurrah.

I place the stone bones into my palm, I shake and shake and they rattle, tickle. I am a girl, just a small girl, sat on the pavement, hot concrete against my legs, grit making me itch, sun on my head. I have jacks in my hand, small metal crosses, how I love them and my ball, small bouncy ball. I shake the jacks in my palm, I cast them randomly across the floor. I bounce the ball and pick up one and then catch the ball. Seamless. All ten collected, I bounce and grab two and two and two and then three and four up to ten. Bounce and collect before the ball lands again. Bounce grab catch bounce grab catch.

I cast the stones upward. Once I could catch ten shiny jacks on the back of my hand. When I grow up I will be a famous jacks player. I will i will. People will flock far and wide near and far to amaze at my skill my ability my panache. I will wow them with talent extraordinaire.

I flip my hand, palm floorward. The stones tumble down. I feel the soft thud as some land just there. My eyes I realise are closed. Closed tight. It is the memory of child me my belief my hope it is crushing, crushing. I peep, one eye, then two. Oh look. Oh look I have caught four stone bones on the back of my hand. Oh look at them there. So fitted. So fine. so caught, so four, so even. So it is a date.

The things you say. Part 10

The things you say. Part 10

I am thinking of following in the footsteps of the dice man. Might I be the first dice woman I wonder. I am not going to roll a dice and see whether perhaps I should rape a downstairs neighbour, I don't have a downstairs neighbour, I don't really have a neighbour at all, do I?

If I had a dice would I dare?

I am thinking about you, of course I am. Wondering how I can break this new stretch of silence that has arisen. Wondering how brave I am, whether I can reach you, what I might say if I could.

I might see whether I should ask you for a date. How would I say it? Hi, I know this may seem a little forward, informal, overstepping of boundaries, but how would you fancy having a date with me? Would that work? Having a date? Is that the right way to say it?

Hi, how are you doing? All good with you? Life treating you ok? Busy? Happy? Ermmmmm. Ermmmm.

Uncomfortable silence descends.

Ermmmmmmm.

Arghhhhhhh. I can't do it. I can't say it. Now I must slink away with a heavy heart. I missed my chance. I missed the chance. I want to turn around, run back, knock at the door, burst in, shout, errmmmmm. What I meant to say was, great. Yeah. Great that all is good with you and yours and your life and you. Great. I'll be off then. See ya.

Hey, it's me, back again. Do you need that? That paper? Can I take it? Oh, thanks. Yup. Great.

Knock knock.

Red faced.

One more thing, just a teeny tiny weeny little bitsy kind of thing really. Hmmmmm. Will you be here next week? You will? Oh, great, yup, that sure is great.

Arghhhhhhhh.

Do you like me, don't you, am I likeable? I am no longer sure. So many people, so very many people find me so dispensable, so disposable, so forgettable so unimportant. I am so unconsidered by so many. Do you hold me in mind as the hours make days fall into weeks into months into years into the final length of one lifetime be it yours be it mine. When I leave the room do I cease to exist? Do you keep me in place. Frontal. Accessible.

Do the trails of our energy sap you, waste you, in the missing of more. I want more. I want more.

Can we even do dates here. In here? The others, so very many of them others have decided not to hold me in regard. It is not in my mind. It is tangible dropping. I am dropped. Or did I do the dropping. I can no longer say for sure. I no longer care, for sure. I care not. I will waste not a jot not a moment not a minute more in the shit such shit it is shit fucking bollocks shit.

Ha ha

The others were cloying, taking, suckling, stealing and in return? Fuck all. Fuck all fuck them fuck off. Eh? That's what I say. Fuck them. They have tried to get in here, but cannot. Cannot. This is a place for the special, the clever, the able. It is the place for those that know. I know. They do not know. Oh how they try to. How they mimic what they think it could be, how far away from the truth of it they sit, all of them. On the driveline sideline locked out for eternity. Wishful and wanting but only so far, of course, just so far, just the surface the dry surface dull surface the meaningless surface. To take what is there and think it is new? To steal it? Oh look inwards. And what do you find, I can say, I shall say, there is nothing. Hollow space. Hopeful space wishful space. Marks and spencer thinkers. Knickers. Knockers. Bollocks you are outside and not in a good way. Try and read to learn it, fail. Try to use other people to gain it, fail. Try to dress as it should be, ha ha fail. Fail. Fail. Stay out there. Outside. Tick the boxes tick the boxes show the pleasant face. Time for that? Fuck off. Time to try? Fuck off.

I am in here with you and we fit. The surface the surface is nothing. We know it. We know it. Watch us fly.

I think we could date in this place. I will ask you. Will I? The dice is rolled. A six says I have no option, I must find a way, anyway, and I must say, this may sound a little odd, but will you go out with me? Can we date?

A three says that I must ask you, out right, straight out, no grimace, no pause, I must ask you this: hi, this may sound a little strange, but might you like to enter into an arranged marriage with me? Tomorrow if we can? There will be a contract, of course, and I would keep my own name. We would live apart, in here, but meet for moments, allowed moments where we would learn to grow and share and love and be and forge and form and make.

I cannot put a 'no action to be taken' clause into the dice throwing ritual. I cannot. some action must be taken and it must be taken by me.

All even numbers say, date. All odd numbers say, arranged marriage.

Here we go.

Now, a dice. I need to find a dice. I cannot keep rolling this one over and over and over in my mind.

20120709 the things you say part 9

20120709 the things you say part 9


I asked you to collect a slip of paper for me, it promised the bearer. You didn't answer. How could you? Such a forbidden act.

I arrive at the middle of an endless hallway. From this vantage point I can see you, away, away, far far along. A huddle of talking. I walk the cat walk. Slowly, trying to keep eyes foot bound until the last moment whilst still drinking you in drinking you in. That rush of excitement marred by anxiety. Will he stay, go, care. Will he care. I, gaze downward, see you folding and turning, twisting, shaping, considering, a sheet of paper. It is written on. Found. Clasped by your extended hand in an absent gesture, an 'I cannot be still' gesture. If our eyes meet now I will have thirty, forty paces in which to maintain my tread, to place one foot in front of another without listing hopelessly, un controllable to one side, I will have to stick on a smile of greeting that will look fixed, crazy, the frozen face of a dead thing. I am not that. I am pulsing and punching with light, with life, with love, with lust, with the need to consume you. To stare at your fingers, lean fingers, shaping, making in spite of themselves. The hands of a man that are making. What can be more delicious, delightful, wonderful, filling, so filling. Make it for me, I think, as I examine still my shoe. Stout shoe. Fool's shoe. It is done. Endless time in endless hallway has moved me towards you, ten paces, I can look up, appear startled, unknowing, smile sweetly, nod greeting. Stop. Smile on. Wait for a gap in the chatter as I swoon at your hands at your bony long cold fingers. Jack Frost. How they fold, measure.

Esoteric, I say, I think you have an envelope for me? You say, aloud, in public, oh yes, here it is. You hand it to me. White. A5. Pedestrian. Looped large on its front, in a hand, your hand? loping strong letters shout my name. Bold. Strong. Present. A shout. Really. I smile, again, thank you and hug that vessel in my own minds eye to my heart, as I slide it, ordinary, into my bag.

There is talking. The rhythm of the conversation is not in my tune. I cannot sniff out the undertow. Something is in there. You say, there were voices in the head discussed in public and learning to listen to the voices was a good way to progress. Move forward. I missed it. I will find it, it will be somewhere, data, and I can listen to it and think of you. Want, in the listening, the chance to look over and smile, acknowledge a word, a sentence, laugh even, although voices could be hard to laugh to.

The faltering, haltering, stuttering chatter comes to an appropriate end. There is nowhere else for you to go now, but away. To stay would be odd, out of character, implausible. We say something, a quick connect, a burst and you turn to walk away. I watch you, unabashed, brazen now, as you stride, purposeful, elsewhere. At a point, thirty paces hence, you unfurl fingers and launch a perfectly formed and balanced paper aeroplane skyward. I am open mouthed. Entranced. Focused. As you stride on, I walk with quick steps, travelling pace upon pace at such pace. I reach up my hand, snap, I catch you.

20120622 you

I love you. How can I? I love you. I do. You, the single entity that will make my heart smile and take away the cold hard fear of the endless quiet night. You. Cow eyes. I love you. I don't know how, I do know why, and I do.

20120608 the things you say

20120608 the things you say

snap. snap. snap. snap. i miss you when you leave.

20120601 the things you say part 8

the things you say part 8

Out of the blue you called me.  I was in the quiet room with the white haired guy, moustache, pale grey suit. You know the one. He looks as though he may have egg or spunk on his upper lip. Something rests there, amidst the bristling hairs, congeals. I never tire, you know, of looking at him and imagining. He thinks I am listening, all engaged, hanging on to his every word. But no. No way.  Instead I am focusing on his mouth and wondering all the time about what goes in and fills that black moist space.

I sit and stare and ponder and I see my hand held device, just there on the table, to the right of me, still within reach, but too far to get  hold of in a nonchalant way. It flashes and jerks and I want to grab it but look on listlessly instead. If I extend my hand, straighten my arm, he will notice and it will all become such an issue, won’t it. Why is it so important to me that I get that, that I yank it towards me, so expectant, so hopeful, still so hopeful, what am I wanting, expecting, hoping for. Questions galore, nosey fucker, fuck off.

He is so busy, so sure of his important self, so rattling on and thinking he’s helping that the jerking slips by, unseen except by me. Yours truly. I catch the flashing numbers. My heart, kaboom kaboom, skips a beat. Oh could it be could it be.

I must wait. Grey spunk guy chatters on. I notice the grain of the table is fake, brushed on like this and like that, too real to be real. I want to run my hand across it, feel its flatness. I stroke the soft velour of the cushion on this hard backed chair instead. I notice the fibres one by one. The touch of softness on fingertips reminds me of love and the heart skips again and then crashes. It is the way of love, such hope, such despair, such hope such despair all so possible, impossible, possible, impossible. A train. I am on it, whatever. 

It’s the fact.  I was expecting you. How could that be no rhyme nor reason no words spoken barely a gesture.  In the bursts of informal sandwiched between the ‘how can we step across this formal barrier, this set up, this established conflict between right and proper and desire’, in the bursts just yesterday that flew out, random, intimate, shared until we stood and wondered at how to retract, step back. Or did we? Was it just me? No. I have been expecting you. We seek each other out for moments, in this the most uncomfortable of places where there is nowhere to rest, where public seating is harsh wood, cold metal, where the corridors go on and on and lead nowhere, nowhere private, nowhere restful. Here, we speak to each other by speaking to others. We make ourselves known in statements that could be made to anyone. We meet. There is no resting place.  No place to simply be. We snatch it. You sit occasionally for moments at a table I occupy and talking to all we talk to each other. Would you stop anyway, without me there, am I the pull, the draw.  I think I am.  I think the interest is real is mutual is hidden but flickering real. Or is just that I listen to you so hard. Hear it all. Hear you breathe. Feel the change as you move between relaxation, high stress, playfulness, concern. I can listen hard.  I do listen hard. Does that mean I imagine?

My time in the silent room not bothering to listen to the self-importance of another, came to an end. Time had passed by, it always does. I smiled and nodded and said thank you, helpful yes yes most helpful, it is all clearer now and I know what to do, some of what to do, yes I will do it, of course I will do it, I must, I know, there is no choice, none at all. Smiling and leaving. Walking backwards, sincere, smiling, until I can spin around the corner and out of direct sight. Where can I go to look at this. I see a book upon a table in the corridor and look down at it, I make as though I am interested in it, I turn its pages, bend forward, so interested. In my hand, my device sits snug, I see the numbers, they are yours. This is new. A step over.  A new way.  I had no idea you knew my numbers. It had never occurred to me that one day you might use them, like this. My heart is soaring. Under my scrutiny this says you feel it too you want more contact too. It says that we have the opposite of resistance to one another. We have trails that want to mesh and embrace and when I pull away from you from where you are my trails feel snapped, lost, they spend some time, days seeking the others that they slip into so easily, they are busy looking, missing, mourning. I think you feel it too. Hidden, formal, out of view, but human. In there, under this, human.

the things you say part 7

the things you say   part 7

Some weeks have gone by. There has been silence. No sound in this small world of you and I. I have lain head upon the grey white of this unwashed pillow and considered the uneven surface of the flat white ceiling. I have located its flaws. They are many.
 

It has been monumental, that task, lifting my head. I strain my ears until they want to bleed in the listening for a whisper a movement from you. There is nothing. Just the stillness of air unruffled by hope or possibility.  Just the bland scent of nothing but tedium, the inner walls of standard cardboard boxes, the hard to fathom colour, the jolt of disappointment, empty, uniform, recognised nothingness. Not even a twinge of leaf mould to make the heart move faster, no concrete, no acrid heat on dirt. No scent of rat. 

This then is where I find myself. Lying in a pit. Mattress shaped below me. Pillow damp with the uncontained dribble, spilling from the corner of this hanging mouth, slipping, sliding slowly across my cheek to pool on the cotton beneath me, to moisten then dry, moisten then dry, layers upon layers.  I am looking, eyes open, but the looking is inward. What is this? What is it? I have heard the things you say. I know them. I hear them, I read them. I am quieted by the tangible mutual desire we feel when nearby. i sense you as you sense me. We talk across crowds with words said to all and speak to each other. We do. I do not think it. I know it. In our presence the world becomes clearer. There is hysteria. There is laughter. There is intimacy.  A blurt of telling, a burst of excitement, stilted in shyness, in distance, in recognising and maintaining the required space between us. It ends too soon. And when there is no formal reason to come together we are held, like this, apart. There can be no step forward, not from you. You are not allowed to say, cannot say, there, under such scrutiny. I can, I can say for I am freer, but I, i am afraid. The fear of this, my imagination. 

 

In this place, this state, this pit, where I know all the things no one wants to, I catch a gust of you. A net cast wide, my net cast so wide, happy to snare an imagining. Come and find me, you say. Come and look. I am not even sure if the words are yours, are meant for me. They are so wrapped in formality. But it becomes enough to bring me back to the world of chance, of hope, of some small offering of possibility. I know the distance is vast, untraveled, uneven. I will take hold of your words and make them mine, stitch them into my hem, hidden in weight and fabric. I will keep extending this hand and soon I think you may see it, hope you may catch hold of a fingertip, a palm, a wrist and know that it is solid.

the things you say...

the things you say...

i have fallen out of footfall with myself. there is mean-ness in my heart, hard and round. loving kindness is lost to me. long gone. i am startled, still, by the normal. the functioning everyday. discussions about cook ware, furnishings, aquisitions, leave me cold, head numb with the tedium. but i do recall that easy living. that shady entry into the arena of the ordinary, where we do as we're told, buy as instructed, toil, earn to spend and spend on objects made to break within months, objects, plastic cast in moulds with the specific aim, so it seems of travelling, hurtling, to the dump. land fill. buying stuff that is, as it is purchased, recognised as shit, shit for the landfill. see, i do not care. cannot distinguish, have no hankering, want nothing. nothing that i can buy. it makes no odds. i can buy and not care, i can not buy and not care, where's the difference?

oh to discuss and mean it. to see and desire. to want. to care. my eyes are glazed over. there is no room in me for such trivialities. i hate the people who can laugh and be trivial, can enjoy the throw away, can sit and waste hours, days, in prescriptive reveries. don't they know about time? is it just me?

you, i cannot buy you and  have an imagining that you will be mine. you. i want you and cannot decipher my reasoning. i try. is it love that i want? it's not that. it is what? you, so impartial, so far away, hard to reach, hard to fathom. you know about time, i know it. you know about me, i know it. are you the piece that will slot right in?

so far away with your notion of distance. i stretch out my hand, again and again, try to pull you across the chasm, bring you closer. you resist, ignoring the palpable warmth of these extended fingers, snaffling to grab and hang on to your cold, red, bony-ness.

the things you say part 5

the things you say part 5

the feeding room is long and bright. bright when you look upwards anyway, towards the ground it is darker, cast in shadow from the lines and rows of plastic coated tables, providing plate resting places for the hoardes. there are hoardes in here. the silence shattered by sounds of eating, ingestion, biting, slurping, sucking, chewing. a chant, now and then, one solitary voice, sing song, hot food hot food hot food. no-one takes a blind piece of notice. heads down. scoffing by the shadows at the floor, to the knee.
 
there is a queue. of course there is a queue. i join it at the end. of course i do. i wait. crane my neck now and then hoping to get a sight of todays delights. will there be custard. it's all i want to know. will there be custard.
 
i left the other place, grey room sparse, one bright light flickering against a wall. I left there and wandered along the corridors, a moment of outside, rain lashing, cold, denting skin to get here. i left you, behind, back there, maybe still sitting on my chair. i wanted to stay and talk and laugh and poke and prod and find and know and hear and share and laugh and laugh and listen and speak. but i cannot do that, can i. i can't let you know this about me. can i? so, watch me, careless, carefree, as unconstrained as i imagine i can be, i, nonchalent walk out of the door. i don't care. do you see? not at all. it's as though there were all the time in the world, and we know, do we not, that there surely is not.
 
as i leave, carefree me, i throw a tiny remark out into the air, a puff, dandelion kiss, stating where i will be. as i walk, slowly away, i see you look towards me. i want to beckon. wink. lift my skirt. i walk and drink in the fading tones of your voice, i hold it as long as i can, i hear it still in the silence, such loud silence, i hold it and then know that the quiet is just that and silence is booming with wanting, nothing more, anymore. the fading tail of your sound, you in my world is gone.
 
fuck it i think. and fuck you. fuck you you fucker. chase me. go on do a bit of work yourself. me, i do it all, put it out there, give you bits and you see, and give nothing to me, nothing real, nothing i can put my hands on, so fuck you matey. fuck off.
 
fuck you
 
the doors open. they are double doors, sealed in their midst with rubber, air filled rubber, that shushes and squeaks when it catches, it touches. i hear it. i want to turn my head but do not. i see you, corner of my eye. there you are, you, come to join us here in the feeding room. such a surprise. so unusual. was it my dandelion kiss that drew you here. i'll say it was. i will not look at you, alone, just behind me, there in the queue. i will pretend i can not see you. you say, i overhear, you say 'pasta's good'. i pick up brown plastic curved edged tray. pasta please, i say, to the masked man in white with blue gloves on his hands, surgical procedures anyone? he's ready as he'll ever be to slit me open, take out my heart, sew me back up. he ladles pasta, ladles like it's soup, i can't drink it, onto my plate. i finger the plastic cutlery until i find some clean, untouched so i hope at the bottom of the grey moulded plastic pot. 
 
i sit. head bowed waiting for the sound and scent of you passing by. damp sand crushed underfoot against a hot concrete path in summer, that is how you smell today. it is an arid scent. a scent that tags like clothing against bramble. i love it.
 
there you go. you sit close by. just close enough for occasional tangs to reach me. you know i am here. i know you are there. you say to someone, loudly, you say something about a man that lost the lot, lost it all. that man, i know is you, and you are telling me.
 
i eat the pasta. it is unbelievably good. it is great. a darkness falls across me, i look up. you have left your plate, food half eaten, are standing still chewing, looking at me. close. you have something to say to me. it's pretty important, i can see that. there are small flecks of green sitting on your teeth, is it cabbage, is it lettuce. i don't care. i love those flecks of green in your teeth. i wish that i were one. that close to you.

the things you say part 4

the things you say part 4

I hang my coat onto the back of my chair. it has parts of me intricately, intimately woven into it. my moisture, tiny flakes of skin, sweat, scent, bits of me. i am hot. i remove the layers, three maybe four and i hang the coat, well worn, well loved, never cleaned, moulded almost to the shape of me, i hang it on the back of my chair. it is my chair. i sat in it first. i placed my bag by the side of me and plonked arse first, down, nestled into the moulded plastic, rested weary into it. mine. i brought my bad mood with me, my lack of integrity, my misery. my coat, hung on its back named it. it named it, mine. i supped coffee from a cardboard cup, through the slit hole at the top, in the white plastic lid, as i sat. i sat and sipped in a chair made mine by my coat.

it is busy in the room, can you see? it is full of us. us lot. we are looking, we are talking. it is quiet, then we speak, mostly one at a time, an interjection, possibility, thought.

all the chairs are taken, occupied, on the right side, which is my side, where my chair is. there are some over the way, not too far, just over there, under the window.

i say, to you, cow eyes, brown eyes, i say, i have to go for a bit, a short bit. I'll be 5, maybe 10, yeah, 10 at the very most. i slide the door open. i take my leave. i don't look back. i want to. i want to see if your eyes have lingered upon me, for a wisp of time, for longer than they should, for longer than eyes that are not interested would. but i find a resolve not to and walk swiftly away.

i am hot. i leave my coat, the marker of my territory, i leave it behind. i head off. i do what i must and after a belated amount of time, i return. i open the door and there you are. sitting there, sat there, sat in my chair. my chair. you rest back against my coat and i know bits of you, bits of me pool together and make bits of us. i wonder at the scent of you, mixed with me, there in one place. i want to lean past you and inhale, but resist. i am inside the door, you are sat in my chair and there is no where for me to go, not now. the show is on the road. i cannot walk across it.

you are sitting in my chair. do you see? chosen to sit there, where i was. it is lovely. i slide onto the table just there at your right. we are close. so close. is it intimate? did you choose this? i can breathe you in. and i do. i lean, lurch forwards and let myself rest in the warmth that rises from you. i suck you in silently, and then you are of me. For a minute or two it is just as though i am at school, brushing in passing against a boy that i like, that likes me. So close, so accidentally close to one another, both ignoring, both knowing. I breathe and know that when i next pull on my coat particles of you, scent of you, skin falling from you will be invisibly close to me. Lucky me.

the things you say 3

The things you say part 3
 
Oh it is very soon, I barely know you and now we must all bare our souls, some of our souls as much as we are willing, are able. I am able. Caring what others may think feels a long way away.
 
Across the borders of respectable and professional distance I sense a whiskers quiver of interest from your direction. Oh it is less than the change in the weight of the air from a spillage of salt thrown over a shoulder, is it left, is it right, lets do both to be on the safe side. It is a quiver. No more. A wrinkling of a nose, a half turn of the head. It is there. I am certain that it is there.  Like those games people play, we all know them. The smile belies the malicious intent and no one else sees it, they just see the smile. The more you explain the malevolence, the more fucked up they all think you are. And it is not you, not at all, it is him. Or her. Smiling and fucking you over, seducing all those around you, smiling, beguiling and sticking the knife in your back. Twisting and at the same time explaining that this is the only way, and explaining it so reasonably, that you almost believe him yourself, and all those around you, they fall for it. Fall. It's the same sort of thing, don't you think. The unspoken link that you sense that says 'i know you', 'you are one like me', 'i am excited by your presence and want a little more of your time'. We sense it, we do. That bated excitement, finding ways to catch a moment, speak for a moment in a rush of babbling words, trying to fit it all in, this is me, who I am, that is you, do we fit, just a bit, is it a hit. 
 
Ah. And the wondering. I walk by and behind me in a room to the left you are there and i catch a glimpse of you, how could i ever see you tucked away over there? and then, without making eye contact or acknowledging your presence i know hands down that your gaze catches me. We catch one another and do not look at each other. I know where you are. You know, but less well, but you do know, most of the time, when I am nearby, i'd say, yes, you know where i am. How to cross that boundary that line of defence. it is tricky.
 
so we are to bare all. to show ourselves one and all. the space is clean pristine, mental institution bland. no fidgeting colours or patterns to divert our attention from the truth. it is disclosure time, for the first time. I am bold and brazen. it goes without saying, that is me, i care not any longer for this or for that. it is bollocks, i know it and i am beyond here, in a holding cell of my making, looking backwards with envy at the energy and joy of naivety. that's how i see it.
 
on a screen on a block i show the room a recording of my thoughts. they are dark, but insightful. papers declaring loneliness hang in unending regimented lines and flutter occasionally as though caught in a back draught. a shrill pitched laughter escapes from me randomly. i talk without stopping, trying to get to the nub, the kernal, the stone, the seed, the core, and i feel blank eyes upon me. i try again, and again. the words erupt from me, almost stream of consciousness. i am determined to put value on me, so then, i note as i nod to myself, i care a bit. i care for you. i care what you think. i talk on and look at you. i know you want to show me, to hear me. i feel that, your interest. i like it, so i do. there is a laughter in your eyes, tiny, a glimmer. i see it.
 
someone speaks out, asks me about my life, my home. you say, we would need to be invited to her parlour to know that, wouldn't we? i smile. shall i invite you? of course not. that would be mad. insane. that is not what you meant, not at all. you are not asking for an invite i tell myself, just stating a simple straightforward fact. a simple, obvious, clear, straightforward fact. and why would you want to come anyway? you. look at you.
 
phew. it is done. my turn is over it is done i think i was open and honest and declaring. i think i passed the test, whatever test it was, whatever it may have been. i am here, still here. i am in.
 
i watch as another bares their soul, it is hard for her as she cares, so much, so deeply. her voice wavers, i can perhaps see the glint of a tear, a diamond caught in the intense bright light, sliding and slicing as it rolls, full of weight downwards. she has cut the marks from her soul into shining silver, harsh marks and abrasions into silver. she talks of food and change, and she cares. i hear you say, oh so throw away, that you are free from the chains that had you bound and catching life back open armed. you said it to no one, no one heard, except me. you said it, i know it, just for me.
 
later, all done. the screens need returning to the locked storage space along the corridor. look at you, long, lean, strong. you bend to move the item. can i help? i ask. no, no, i'm fine, you say. you have done this so very many other times before now, for sure. and you cannot manage see, you struggle terribly. can i help? i ask once again, wanting the intimacy of sharing a task, any task at all with you. i think you want that to. yes please you say as you struggle. it is light, it is easy, we laugh and struggle together, really struggle because it does not need two. not at all. then bang, the base falls away. naughty children you and i, caught scrumping in our own orchard, lines crossed and discarded, forgotten, for a second or two we are lost in old behaviours, freedom of youth, gaiety. ah. see. just for a moment. you and me.