when did you start loving me?
can you pinpoint the exact day
and time, the particular thing I
did to make you look at me
differently? I want to know
exactly what it felt like then,
exactly what it feels like now
that it is familiar, now that it
is normal. Show me how you
see me and we will compare
notes – reader interpretation
versus authorial intent.
If in doubt, grasp all of your words:
Close your eyes.
Reach into the lucky dip bag of vocab
like a child fishing for sweets.
Feel for the ones that best fit the palm of your hand,
the ones that mould to the hills of your knuckles,
that give way to the swirls of your fingertips without
leaving sticky residue on them.
Squeeze the words, with their hollow vowels and
crunchy consonants. Don’t crush them. Test them to see
which ones are hard, which ones will have the most impact,
which ones will bounce and which will fall flat.
Pull out those words and throw them
in the direction of your target. The page, the
cat, your mother. The armed robber in the bank with the
hostages. Make sure you get the delivery just right –
a gentle underarm toss or a heaving thrust for
those targets who are harder to reach. Let the words fly
and pray the good ones stick –
else be ready to flee for safety when it backfires, or to
work your arm until it’s sore and your message is received.
I still have last night’s smell on my hands:
the fruitiness of my perfume;
the remnants of a spicy ginger beer cocktail;
a glass full of limes;
a whiskey I can never remember the name of;
burnt, sweet, sticky marshmallows;
warmth and comfort and heat and ease –
so much ease.
I just found two poems I wrote, two and a half years apart, about two different people, and they fit together perfectly, and have almost the same title with only one word different. How very odd. It’s like one poem answers another; one person answers a call that they didn’t hear at the time and that wasn’t intended for them, yet still they appeared.
Another dream is dressing,
preparing for her entrance.
I hope she is good. I have
not paid for a ticket but
I have rights. The curtain
twitches and the lights
dim. I hope the dream is
in her best dress. Something
gold and glittery, hip-hugging,
trailing down to the floor as
the dream sways like she is
about to walk onto the red
carpet. Maybe her hair will
be wavy and flowing, topped
with a tiara. Stilettos lifting
the dream a little, making her
walk taller and stand straighter,
proud and excited to perform.
Sitting in the front row of the
theatre by myself, I am underdressed
in my pyjamas, but I am an
eager audience – stripy blue
and white bottoms and even
though it’s February now, a long-
sleeved top with Rudolph’s
face on it and a gimmicky
pink ball for a nose, which
strangely sticks out not far
from where my stoma used
to be. I am comfortable yet
vulnerable. I urge the dream
not to read my thoughts, not
to think about the day just gone
or the day about to ascend. I ask
her to perform a work of fiction,
to sing a happy, upbeat song
I won’t want to wake up from.
I pray for a play that strays
from my normal viewing –
that strays from dead relatives,
from haunted houses, from
familiar fears, from realism. The
curtains open and I see the silhouette
of the dream walk to the microphone.
I clap, my hands hollow and echoing
in my private purgatory. The
spotlight shines on her, and she begins.
don’t refer me to a surgeon,
refer me to a good friend.
give me a letter urging me
to go to the pub immediately.
don’t refer me to the hospital,
refer me to jack daniels.
after all, he is a specialist
in these things.
don’t refer me to a doctor
refer me to my boyfriend
send me home to do nothing
just refer me back to bed.
the fog contains all the
bad thoughts, all the
worst possible outcomes,
all the harshest parts of reality
and descends
familiar lands turned foreign
even time is warped –
the turn of the day barely signalled.
the fog isn’t malleable
you can’t make anything
out of it except things that
are beautiful in an ugly way
and even then it’s a
matter of opinion.
one day it will lift
but the end is
impossible to see
because the fog
doesn’t simply shroud –
it steals, with no promise
of replacement.
I visit my uncle
whose nose has been partly cut away
to remove some of the skin cancer,
who can only eat through a feeding
tube, who has lost all his weight,
who has developed an infection
and a bloodied, sore face, whose
wife feeds him and gives him his
morphine and antibiotics, who has
blood in his pee when he goes once
per day, whose organs are shutting
down, who, when he asks if it’s
curtains for him, hears the answer
yes. And I leave to go back to my
upgraded hotel room and I eat pizza
and drink Southern Comfort and
the next day I go home and kiss my
boyfriend and go to work and my
aunt and uncle will carry on for
the next two weeks or maybe more
but that will be all, just a few more
weeks of enjoying this world in that
hell hole of a body and we all watch and
listen and know that we will each follow,
somehow, someday, and we’re all
already on our way.
Remembering a dream:
There was a tugging,
a feeling of belonging,
a sense of comfort
and safety.
