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.