Writer, researcher, music lover, cancer survivor with CMMRD ("double" Lynch syndrome)
It’s not enough for words to be true
it’s not enough for words to evoke empathy –
they have to poke and prod with their meaning,
they have to scope out your hollows and fill them,
first x-raying and identifying your sores
(search and destroy)
before deepening – yet at the same time,
patching up –
the wounds of your particular
broken organ.
Written on Tuesday 2nd December, 2014 at 22:26
They are not all wonderful years,
but they are years, for sure,
years that overrule minutes and days, years
enhanced by whirls and swirls of colour
induced by Jack and coke, a joke
or two, puns and double entendres,
lights residing alongside tunnels,
stars and stripes and banners and my silly
ideas, my far-flung dreams, contrasted by
your grounding foundations so I’m a flag waving
at the end of a pole instead of a loose cannon
shooting through the shepherd’s delight,
uncontrollable like nothing I’ve ever seen
before – I’m staring back at myself like
in a hall of mirrors at the funfair. I recognise
myself but at the same time I really don’t.
Obstacles aren’t so bad; they at least make us
pause for breath before continuing on to the
next year and the next.
Written on Friday 28th November, 2014 at 22:15
I write a poem; type out my thoughts
one-handed, a glass of bourbon in the
other. Tap out the title at the top and
declare the date and time of writing at
the bottom. An old ritual. Open a new
document. Write another. Add my time-
stamp. I write a blog post. Later I decide
I’m drunk and it isn’t very good, so I edit
it, still drunk. It’s probably better. I start
on the Scotch. Write another poem.
Restart the soul-spilling.
The timestamps get later and later.
maybe if I make myself
small enough
I’ll
dis
ap
pe
a
r
.
Cannula:
Cannulook?
Not when they put it in
Not when it pierces the skin
Not when you know this is just the beginning.
Cannula:
Cannulaugh?
There must be something funny here.
But no; affix that blank expression to your face,
remove all trace of human. No-one must know
you’re actually feeling something.
Cannula:
Cannuleave?
Not without getting rid of this
and even then, you never really leave
this place, this bed, this mess
inside your head.
Cannula:
Cannulive?
Not with this,
not without remembering,
not without wincing and covering
the crooks of your elbows
(was it the crook of the elbow?
It is hard to remember, my brain is
trying to protect me that much.
Not enough.)
Cannula:
Cannulament?
Always, and probably too much.
Cannula:
Cannunot
give me another cannula, please?
I had to go for a CT scan today. So, that’s what this was. (Written yesterday in “anticipation”.)
I have grown tired from wrestling with my emotions.
Why are they so much stronger than me?
I can’t even win an arm wrestling match.
I think I’ve grown some new veins,
I’ve become a bit more blue,
changed into something new,
or maybe I’ve turned into a cliché,
one who drinks and scrawls their troubles away,
but that notebook isn’t far away enough,
I don’t know when it got so tough.
Let go, let go, if I knew how I might,
but both my fists are clenched far too tight,
my fingers curled around repetitive notes,
the same thoughts recurring, the same words I wrote.
Instead of letting go I keep my fists clenched
so I can swing for a punch while I’m entrenched
in this fight with my feelings, because they’re never fatigued.
The match goes on long after the spectators leave,
and while the sun goes down on all past events,
I’m sparring with those whom I love to lament.
A little something to take the edge off
To make me a more well-rounded person
To loosen those edges
And what now?
Hey.
Pay attention to me.
Hey.
It’s hard to write with a glass of bourbon in one hand
and half a decade’s worth of confusion in the other.
It’s hard to say what I want to say.
Whatever the fuck that is.
Pour me another.
We had no camera so we made frames with our hands,
blinked to fire the shutter and held the picture
with faces squeezed shut,
gone from the world for those moments
as we tried to emblazon the image
onto the insides of our eyelids,
where it would hang for viewing with every blink,
its presence in every dream.
Is there a magic formula for
waking up with more resilience?
A certain position to sleep in, a
particular temperature to set the
thermostat to, perhaps a single thought
to cling onto like a parachute
while drifting down to the ground, to sleep.
I think I cracked it last night
but I might not be able to
repeat the feat tomorrow.
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