I write stories I never send you,
little vignettes
like storyboards in my mind
that shape and colour
and seek to define
the thoughts that cue
behind my eyes
like Tetris blocks I can’t align.
Like shuffled papers, ruffled, worn,
flung in disarray, discarded scars
upon the surface, order marred
non-tangential sequence, scattered
meaning in clumps and clots,
drawing lots for space,
paragraphs displaced, cliques
dismembered in disjunction,
serving form a function,
braying punctuation, straying
hither, yon and thither meaning
less with each missed step,
a full-stop disconnect, dot to dot
discarded plot, anarchy’s favour
the flavour of chaos upon my desk.
She squawks at birds
and yells at the sun.
She holds the world
in high disregard.
She laughs with her heart
and smiles with her eyes,
pats, flatters and giggles
with infectious innocence.
A practical thinker
with a mind for lunacy.
She takes stairs two at a time
and treats life the same way.
The rain walks me home.
A soliloquy of steps
on the night-time path.
I’m drawn to your way.
Your mystery becomes you
in the way you smile.
Kate had her serious face on. The one she gets when she thinks she has something important to say. It’s funny actually, I can always see it coming. First she goes very quiet, then her lips set themselves together while she works out exactly how to say it. When she’s ready she’ll tilt her head down and look over the top of her glasses in just the right way. I always thought she should have been a librarian.
‘You should quit smoking,’ Kate said.
We were sitting in my bedroom. Well, the room where all my stuff was living anyway. Technically I’d been there for a year, but I hadn’t been able to settle. It was my parents’ house, and I just couldn’t make it mine. I was sitting on the edge of the bed in front of the computer, rolling a cigarette. When we first started seeing each other I was so nervous about smoking in front of her, she doesn’t smoke and she always knows exactly what her opinions are. Apparently smoking is bad for you. We both got more used to the idea though. I started smoking less and she told me I was dying less.
‘But I like it so much’ I said and pushed my bottom lip out in a mock pout
‘Yeah and it’s killing you’ she said.
‘Slowly though, I’ve still got plenty of time left.’
‘You have all the time in the world until it runs out.’
‘Runs out where?’
‘Out of time, dickhead.’
‘I’m not going to run out. I bought in bulk,’ I said, exercising my perverse sense of humour. I always enjoyed arguing with her.
‘Don’t be a smart ass, I’m really worried. You’ve been smoking so much lately.’
‘Yeah but I haven’t been drinking as much,’ I said. It was true, I hadn’t been drinking as much, but only because I hadn’t been able to afford it. So far the cigarettes were winning.
‘Well, that’s good because you drink like an idiot.’
‘I’d like to think I drink more like an alcoholic fish.’
‘You think you’re funny don’t you.’
‘Somebody has to, otherwise all my jokes would go to waste.’
‘You’re going to waste.’ Kate sighs, ‘How much do you weigh these days?’
‘What’s that got to do with my drinking?’ I said. I always hated when she brought up my weight and she knew that.
‘Nothing. It has to do with your body not being able to run off cigarettes and sandwiches.’
‘Not even tasty grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato and stuff?’ I said trying to get her off the track.
‘Nope, not even the tastiest of sandwiches.’
‘What about all the yeast in beer?’ I offer. ‘Do you know how many calories alcohol actually has?’
‘Not enough to live off obviously,’ She moves a lock of hair away from her glasses and tucks it behind her ear, ‘and cigarettes are sugar free.’
‘So there shouldn’t be a problem with me smoking then.’
‘At this point sugar would be good for you.’
‘Awesome, cause I’ve been eating a heap of candy lately.’
‘And that’s why your teeth are going to hell. You need to put something more substantial in you,’ Kate said, fixing me with her quiet in the library face.
‘Do you want me to put something substantial in you?’
‘Like the sense of satisfaction I’d get from convincing you to be healthy and treat your body better?’
‘Nah, I was thinking more like my-’
‘I know what you were thinking,’ she said sharply, ‘and I don’t know how you even have the energy.’
‘Milo,’ I said plainly, ‘is slow burning energy you know.’
Kate grunted, ‘Do you know how frustrating you are?’
I looked at her calmly, I could tell she wasn’t really angry, there was a smile hiding at the corners of her mouth. ‘Is it anything like trying to get the lid of a jar of pickles or something, but the lid just won’t come off, so you get a tea towel and wrap that around it, trying to get a better grip, but that doesn’t work so finally you just pry at it with a knife until the knife breaks and you decide to eat something else? Is it anything like that?’
I could tell I had won when she smiled.
‘Kind of,’ she said. ‘Except that I can’t eat anything else, I’ve already chosen my meal and I have to stick with it’
‘Is it pancakes? Cause they’re really tasty you know. I like mine with lemon juice and sugar’
Kate groaned into her palm.
‘What’s the matter babe? Are you a syrup girl?’
You’ve carved yourself a little niche
behind my lids at night,
with a presence so enchanting
it absolves my will to fight.
I listen to your footfalls
as they creep around my mind.
I chart a course of echoes
and i know what they will find.
The place you’ve taken residence
now I’ve given you the key
make yourself at home my dear,
I hope you like my me.
Winter comes
her face is hidden,
she waves to me,
I go, now bidden
like a zephyr
floating thin,
with open arms
she folds me in.
I dreamt I was a cowboy last night. You were there. It was like a Hollywood cliché with a sterilized bent; in Technicolor. I wore a gun at my hip and my hat cocked askew. You wore a ribbon in your hair and a lurid red petticoat affair, with just a hint of garter and hem.
I fought bandits and scoundrels, and scandalized as much as either might. At night I took you roses. You refused to swoon without a searing parody of my advances. I persisted and insisted and persevered. You were adored.
By day the bandits came. Quietly at first; not one of us heard them arrive. They made out for the bank, but not one of them left it alive. I went in with my gun at my hip and my hat cocked askew.
They barked at me, demands, indignations and torments, or so they thought. But they held no glamour on me. This day I was blind to their leers, my mind’s eye struck with other visions. This day I was deaf to their jeers, my ear serenaded by midnight whispers. This day I fought with my heart.
Visions of red, scarlet, garter and hem, danced in front of me and lead my hands. One by one the bandits fell, while bullets rattled around me. Faint glimmers of steel, distant and harmless. I was invincible while you danced in my head. You were incredible.
‘You’re quite considerate,’
she says, and I laugh.
It’s probably true,
but I don’t consider it.
It’s only natural
to want
to think of her.
In the dark, alone,
I’m scared so often,
but only behind my eyes.
There, lies.
A kraken wakes
and I hear it’s moaning.
I shudder.
How, I wonder,
when all around me is still.
What causes such insipid self effacement.
I hate what waits behind my lids,
like being forced to live again,
to recollect, is some great torment.
But honestly, the hurts are done
and all I force upon myself
are simple shadows of what has come
and cannot hurt, so much as sting,
but still, in the dark
I see the light behind my eyes
showing horror films that were my life
and keep me up,
awake,
alone
and shivering.
She says her peace like truth then holds it.
What a bitch, I think, as something in me screams and dies.
Three years won and lost like some back alley dice game.
I bet too high.
I go to speak and can’t. Can barely think.
I want to rant. Instead I look away, shame faced,
full of fear and passion I can’t feel.
My fingers reminisce over her skin from the safety of my lap.
She won’t look at me so I watch her mouth.
I watch her lips pucker around a cigarette, puff and part.
I watch the smoke coil between them like a serpent.
I watch them shape the words I already expect.
I can’t say anything, I have nothing to offer,
but I know she needs something, so I nod.
I want to laugh, or scream.
I want to feel something other than the numbness.
I keep nodding.
After a while she looks up at me. I can see tears uncried in her eyes.
Something like a smile eats at the corners of her mouth.
‘At least the morphine was good,’ she whispers.
I really need you,
though I very rarely say it.
Some days I’m so alone,
isolated in my skull,
peering out
through Perspex eyes
into plastic lives.
I long to be held,
to hold, to be told
that I’m ok,
that I’m fine this way.
I need your love,
like I need to love you,
to be real in your arms
if only for a time.
Gritting his teeth, he watched it draw closer. Watched the monstrosity drag itself across the cold linoleum floor. Watched it working at words through a palpating mess of blood and gore, what once was a mouth. He listened. A raspy hiss, a sound like cutter but more familiar, slurred and husky, sickeningly percussed by a slippery snick of teeth on bone. It was trying to say his name. He tightened his grip, shut his eyes and brought the axe down hard against his wife’s freckled neck, a mottled target. ‘I’ll always love you, Sunshine,’ he whispered into the silence.
Black stockings,
straining to contain the bulging veins of age,
sensible shoes,
a slight heel and faintly worn alligator skin
print the only concessions to fashion.
A navy blue skirt, conservative length,
nods gracefully at better times.
Over the top of matching jacket,
peek happenings of blouse,
offering daring hints
of Pollock patterns in black and blue.
Stereotype lenses pinned to face,
pinion skin in place.
Steel wool hair
rises, looming in bouffant,
thin dry lips painted desperation pink
in the styles of her youth.
Shorn grass scent and fresh turned dough
overlap clouds like pressed felt
tacked to a dry blue canvas, slapdash
lashings of shadow attack at intervals
the palette of the day, its colours hewn
though unmarred, intransigent sunshine
in transient lines, cuts its fine ribbons
in time with the wind, swaying trees
and leaves in rhythmic assent.
A Few Short Words 