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.
it’s a start, surely its a start.
