Only A Flesh Wound

It hurt with such a ferocity that he thought it must surely be a fatal stab.

If his hands were not covering his chest, clamped down tight over the heart he feared would explode out of his chest and lie withering and fading and oozong out its horrible red on the ground then he would, by now, have bled to death; he felt sure of it.

Such cripping pain! Such agony!

I shall die, he thought, surely I shall die; no man can endure such a pain and live. God, end this pain, end it now - I cannot live - it's much too much.

Resigned, he took his hands away from his body and spread them helpless and inviting to the side.

He was amazed to discover that rains soon came and washed the blood away while his heart still beating in its place remained.

Despite the pain it was only a flesh wound, after all.

A Conversation Between a Girl and her Alarm Clock

The alarm clock screeches through the beauty of the dream like a siren piercing the stillness of a summer night.

“Wake up!” it screams to her.

“But I don’t want to wake up….I was happy; it was beautiful.”

The face of the alarm clock seems to sneer. “You were dreaming. The dream is over now.”

“It can’t be. You’re wrong. The time is wrong - don’t lie to me, I shan’t believe you.”

There is a quiet in which the clock seems to take pity on her as she lies there, befuddled and bemused, incapable of realising what is so very obvious, the dream still clinging to her like lover’s kisses, her eyes part closed, remembering, her body in rapture posed.

But then it screams again and she is jolted wake wards.

“Wake up! You cannot spend your whole life dreaming!”

She is about to tell the clock about the dream, about who she met there, about the smells and the sounds and the sensations, but another blast from its bell cuts her short.

“Save your words,” it says, “and get up. He has already risen - look how the space beside you is empty - he is living and breathing and laughing and loving in the real world. Get up and do the same. He enjoyed it immensely, I’m sure but he has forgotten you, you who are crumpled bed sheets and ragged hair. Get, up, you fool.”

Teardrop on the Table

There’s a teardrop on the table. It landed in such a perfect circle and in such a perfect way that I am sorry there was no-one there to see it.

That teardrop landing was of filmic proportions; it was a classic, a masterpiece, a one-off, so delightful that I would have laughed, had I not been the one who had shed the tear.

For an instant, the chaos in my head ceased and the voices stopped their incessant babble and the lights ended their flashing and the pain evaporated like steam from a bubble bath until there was nothing but the teardrop, a perfect circle upon the table.

I wiped away the teardrop and erased that emotion.

The moment could not last.

Moments never do.

It Never Dies

If it is real, it never dies.

It may change and alter, just as the leaves turn gold and bronze and fall from their branches when autumn comes, but it will never truly die; not if it is real.

If it is real, it will remain.

It may change from a clear liquid to cloudy water when paint soaked brushes are placed in it, but it will not disappear.

If it is real, it will endure.

It may find itself torn, like the full skirts of a ripped summer dress when the wearer is reckless, but it will not completely break.

If it is real, it never dies.

A New Dawn

It was a seismic shift, felt from eons and oceans away.

Not a change or an alteration, but a shift of earth moving proportions. Or this is what it felt like, at least.

Many, many moments before the change actually occurred, it was perceived, felt and, sadly, understood; the suspicions had been proven, the doubts verified, the questions answered in a morbid and unfortunate way.

A seismic shift.

One cannot argue with changes in nature, any more than one can argue with changes in the human heart.

Real and Rare

I am not here.

And, strangely, this is a rare time when I am not looking ahead. But nor am I looking back.

I have moved myself, through time and space.

I have arrived at happiness.

I wondered why it was so profound and far-reaching, why it did not want to let go, why it lingered around me, like an additional aura.

It was because it was happiness, delirious happiness, of the very real and rare kind.

I have returned to it, waiting nurtured in its arms, for the next blissful wave of it to crash over me.

Disposable

I am utterly disposable; a bubble gum wrapper, a snowflake in a jar.

My mind is a semi-vacuous haven for butterfly thoughts with short shelf-lives and cobweb creations which fall apart at the touch.

My debates are half formed and ill thought out. My sentences fade away into nothing, their point having been lost on the air. My inner music is shiny, plastic, over produced nonsense and the synthesizers have drowned out the beautiful cacophony of guitar and piano.

I am wasted and wasting disposable babble and all I really wish to dispose of is this in itself.

The Shiny Bicycle

I coveted that shiny bicycle from the very moment I saw it, sitting at the front of the shop, resplendent, almost regal.

I was determined I should have it, determined it should be mine.

Eventually, my child’s wheedling got me what I wanted. It was better than all my Christmases, better than birthdays, better than anything I had ever had before.

I rode that shiny bicycle every opportunity I had. I rode it to school and I rode it home. I rode it around the streets until it grew too dark to ride. I rode it round the park until my legs ached. I rode it up and down the short drive before breakfast time.

I thought I should never tire of that shiny bicycle; I adored it and it was all that I could think of, waking or sleeping.

One day, I woke up and ate breakfast without first exercising my shining steed and walked to school with a light skip in my step.

The shiny bicycle was left slowly rusting in the garden shed, wondering, I fancy, what it did wrong.

To Look Forward

He was always at the back of the bus, holding court in the centre seat, lapping up laughs won by his wit. Boys basked in his attention, girls blushed when he brushed passed them in the corridor. Too lazy for an athlete, too cool for a scholar, his popularity stemmed from the cult of personality.

It saw him through. No, it flew him on.

Those who were lucky enough to be reflected in his dazzle were held in similar awe. Those who attracted his attention as the butt of jokes, the prey of the prankster, still hide their scars.

He looks out of his house, The House With The View, the call it, locally, and looks out upon a different landscape than that which spreads out before him; he looks out on the landscape of his life.

And then he looks away.

Each night there is a little less whiskey in the bottle. Each night the pain creeps in a little further. Each night he feels a little lonelier. Each night the grinding tedium of his life becomes a little harder to bear. Each night he stays up a little later, looks back a little more.

If only he would look up, look forward, he would see that it is not too late, not too late at all.

Walk Away

No-one would blame you for walking away.

I say that to myself. I say it to you. I say it to both of us.

Walking away would not only be easier, it would be more sensible, a smoother road, a less bumpy ride, a more predictable journey back.

But since when have I ever done what is easier?

Why, I’d place rocks in my path just to make the ride more exciting were there none there to begin with. I have to feel the pain to make the pleasure real. It was always thus, the heavens said so since I was a mere twinkle in an eye.

No-one would blame you.

Who knows, it could all have been a dream. There is no photographic proof, no irrefutable evidence, nothing that will last or linger. There is only the memory of heels on cobblestones and one hand held in another. There is only a mind’s snapshot of a ghastly green pub with its air heavy laden with inevitability, the flash of a mutual glance of understanding and the gentle inexorable ness of a first kiss.

The perfume that rubbed from my neck onto your shirt will now have been washed away. The champagne bottle is tomorrow’s recycled green glass, nothing more. My hair is brushed and sleek; your hands no longer entangled in its wildness. The sheets are freshly laundered, no doubt, already soiled by another tainted love, the terrace seats vacated, the words lost on the air.

There is a storm brewing here; I see it from the attic window. The clouds are heavy and blue with woe. The air is cold and stark. The flowers’ petals shrink back into themselves.

But I think this is not pathetic fallacy, as one would suppose, for the storm in my heart may already be over. Clearing up the wreckage is the task which faces me now.

This Is Why

You asked me why. Do you really need to ask? Can’t you see it?

Can’t you look into that place inside, the place where secrets hide and hearts beat, the place where fears are kept locked away and dreams are sometimes left neglected, the infinitesimally small cabinet that holds the key to who we really are, that blindingly true part of us that is so scarcely, if ever, seen?

Unlock the cabinet and open the truth; hold it up to the light, side by side with mine and you will see that they are the same, exactly, entirely and perfectly the same, so identical that they could be one.

When someone speaks your name, a spontaneous smile spreads across lips, when I hear your voice, I feel cocooned and safe, when you reach for my hand, the world spins backwards on its axis, when you look at me in the silence, everything else fades away like a retreating tide.

Do you see it? Do you see it now?

Choked Words

He asked her to write something, something for him.

She wants to, but the words choke in her throat like ink in a pen which has been too long unused and the consonants sound harsh and vile and the vowels fly away like light clouds over a seascape.

Her head is empty of all words and wisdom and her heart is jumble sale full of clutter and confusion; every word she strings bead like on this necklace of thoughts jars her soul because it is wrong, it cannot express, it does not explain, it is not enough.

He asked her to write something. And she will.

But first she must try to decipher and translate the inscrutable language of the mesmerising spheres of brown; if she does not fully understand what it is that has been said, how can she ever respond?

The Case

I opened the case. The fresh, mint sea swept, sun bleached, creamy scent hit me like the ice blue and white crest of a wave.

The open case beckoned me like Narnia and I was gone, through a funnel, back in time, long time, short time, over miles and lands and seas, back to where I should have been.

Ironic, that, when I was there, I was never really there at all - I was looking sadly forward, through a hundred mirrors to here.

We stood on the cliff top, by the statue of Christ, and I was not there, with you at my side, I was sadly looking over the miles, over the months, to here.

We embraced in a pool of sea-scape sapphire blue, only the veil of water between your skin and mine, yet I was here.

We drove up the mountainside, under the shade of a thousand trees, and out into a sun soaked heaven where the slim clouds could touch out to us with fairy’s hands and kisses, yet I was here.

Still more ironic that I would give anything to be back there again.

Love and Pride

You laid the floor. It took hours and hours of hard labour. But the floor was laid.

You bled for me on that floor; the hard white edges cut through the skin on your hands and fingers, teardrops of rubies fell onto its surface like red rain onto snow.

Something swelled inside of me when I returned to find you on hands and knees, bleeding but still dogged, still determined, still fitting the pieces together and my head was dizzy with a mixture of love and pride.

I am unsure whether I will feel anything even vaguely like it again.

Heart's Fortress

The heart is encased by a perfect circle of glass bricks, not quite transparent, not nearly opaque; there is still chance enough to see it beating out its passionate rhythm.

It is a beautiful thing.

The mere glimpse of it sets the soul alight.

Someone has built this wall around the heart, high and strong and seemingly impenetrable. Someone is determined that no-one be allowed inside. But someone’s materials are ill chosen - they may as well have left cracks in the glass, forged a doorway in the cone.

Each brick is a laugh, moulded and crafted to keep away the tears. Each glass block is a smooth comment with a serrated edge to keep trespassers at bay. Each ice-like slab is a shrug of the shoulders, the draining of another tumbler, laissez faire and do not care emanate from the coldness that surrounds this beating pulse.

Someone thinks the heart is safe inside.

Others will not rest until they have scaled the slippery walls of its fortress.

Second Round

The novice heart did not even survive one round; the blood had been drained before all of the crowd had even taken their seats.

Sad heart; weep for it. The scarcely living thing was never even permitted to experience the heady, dizzying fullness of love. All it really caught was a glimpse of what could have been, might have been, and such glimpses are far from satisfying.

But I am undeterred; as I bury the dead heart, I am already planning the cloning of another.

Barely Beating

After the breakage, I thought the blood would pump without the need for that intensive valve, but I was wrong.

In the empty space left after the fragments had been cleared was forged a new heart, fragile and half transparent and barely beating, yet flushing further with scarlet daily.

It was not long before a ridiculous prompting from I know not where tempted me to chance the delicate organ on this game of pitch and toss and in the ring I placed it, while the crowd cheered and jeered and the Father Time looked silently and quizzically on.

The embryonic heart will be beaten. It is as near a certainty as earth can offer. It is already skipping beats. It is already hurting. How short a life this heart will have before it is broken completely.

Worth Work?

It's work, this thing, these mutterings and murmerings. They are loaded with amunition, as deadly as a sawn-off shotgun in the hands of a maniac.

I never much cared for work; too difficult, too time consuming and scarcely worthwhile, no matter what the project or how high the aim, how laudable the goal.

And this work is so pointless. It is shuffling papers around a desk merely to look as if one is busy. It is a deviation from the real things that beg to be addressed.

And, whichever way I look at it, I cannot justify it.

It simply is not worth the work.

Shrug

This is a shrug of the shoulders. This is total ambivalence.

I cannot compete. I will lose the race. I shall not even attempt to run.

I throw my running shoes onto the sandy track, careless of their value, unconcerned as to their expense.

Here; I throw up my hands, I concede.

Have the medal, take the prize.

Accept my congratulations with a shrug.

Black or Red?

I stand by the roulette table and, for the first time in my life, it occurs to me that I have something with which to gamble. This, in itself, is a shock. The chips are cold hard and smooth in my hands.

People place their bets; numbers, colours, intakes of breath as the wheel spins, gasps when small wins are made, groans when little losses take place. They place their bets. They come and go. They scare me, so sure in what they are doing do they seem.

I have no idea what I am doing, even though I now recognise the value of these chips.

There is no way I can pick a number on which to lay this weight in my hands. There is no way I am even able to choose a colour. Red or black, red or black, red or black? One must surely win; this is a universal law, is it not?

But to me, the red and the black are both losers, and I wonder, as people continue to come and go, and I stand in a paroxysm of despair, why I am the only one who sees this.

Still Digging

I don't need to be told how foolish this is; I am all too aware of it already. I was aware from the birth, from the conception.

I don't need to be told that I am walking down a street that is just as peril filled, if not more so, than the last, that the place is seedier, the shops are cheaper, the people meaner, the pavement dirtier and the road strewn with obstacles that could cursh a spirit, break a heart.

I am walking down this street nevertheless. I don't know how not to - there seems to be no other place to go.

And I don't need to feel surprised when I find myself at the bottom of a hole, staring up at a palid blue-grey sky.

Why would I? I dug this hole myself.

Scarlet Heart

Pop me in your red wagon and pull me along.

Rouge up my cheeks and call me Dolly.

Tie a cherry ribbon in my hair.

Polish my ruby shoes.

I will act the part, I will play the role and dance out the tune, do whatever you want me to do.

My veins are blue, but I have a scarlet heart.

Returns

Have your diamond band.

Put it back in its case and proffer it to someone else, like the fool on the knees that you are; you will never find what you are searching for - why even try?

And you, you can have your ruby. I toss it on the slate floor as I march from the room with the too high ceilings and the gothic windows. In all probability, it was red glass and nothing more.

It was only ever fantasy, after all.

Ruby

He is offering her everything she ever wanted.

Everything.

It is encapsulated in the gold band he holds out expectantly to her, the one which is symmetrically set with ten precision cut diamonds, not too many, nor too few. He feels sure and certain that she will take it - it is all she has ever wanted, after all - and when she does, his heart can stop beating so violently in his swelling chest.

She wants it.

But there is something else which catches her eye.

A ruby.

It is just a rock, not cut nor styled by expert hands, not mounted in gold or scattered across the circumference of a bracelet and yet, it has the kind of rugged, ragged, indecipherable charm which she finds it impossible to resist.

She wants that ruby, though what status or guarantee it will furnish her with is questionable, to say the least. She does not know how she will wear it, what she will do with it.

But the scarlet inside her does not care - to hold it in her hand, for however long or short a time, may be enough.

The Inevitable

I cannot let this happen, I should not let this happen, I will not let this happen.

Allowing it would be akin to throwing myself heedlessly from a precipice of unknown height into a canyon the floor of which I cannot see; certain pain, inevitable doom.

But six black magic kittens purr and play upon a white rug, a cold hard burning sun has set early accross the sea, my hand is encased in another and in a pocked placed, green shoots herald the Spring, my eyes are lined with smiling.

These and other visions dance before me and I reach for them over the edge.

I know you will not catch me when I fall; but it is inevitable that I hope you do.

Meaningless

I don't look for meanings, hidden or otherwise.

These liquid pearls in my eyes are merely a chaffed iris, stripped by the sting of the sea.

The songs and the words and the rise and the fall of the secret chords have no meaning.

The looks and the laughter and the promises of ever after have no meaning.

I have no reason to hope or to reach or to stretch or to be.

I don't look for meanings; they never meant enough to me.

Any Which Way

I was stranded by the roadside, trying to hitch a ride west. I had had a half-baked notion about following the sun. And the east was beginning to sting my soul.

He stopped and spoke to me; his voice was plausive, calm, persuasive. His smile was gentle and his eyes were kind.

It didn’t matter that the seats of the car were faded, or that the radio played a melody which jarred my heart. It didn’t matter that he was travelling south and the puppet master’s strings were pulling me west.

He offered me a way out.

And I took it.

The Ship Has Sailed

I saw that ship sail away.

I was almost certain I had a ticket. Perhaps I lost it, around the time I lost everything else that mattered. Perhaps I put it somewhere ‘safe’ and, in the ebullient rush to ready myself, forgot where that safe place was, forgot, even, that I required a ticket.

Whatever the reason, I stood upon the docks as the sun began to set and watched that ship sail away.

There were no more ships that day, that week, that month, that year. My luggage is Havisham dust covered and my failing eyes scan distant horizons for funnel smoke.

Worse still, I turn around and look behind me; it is with slight horror that I notice the lands on which I stand beginning to sink into the sea.

Jagged Rocks

Time and time again, they struck him down with every kind of amunition they could craft.

Time and time again, he dodged their bullets, took steady their blows, picked himself up from their bomb-blasts, staggered on with the shrapnel still in his skin.

They exhausted their artilery; soon they were doing no more but throwing jagged rocks at him.

He's bloodied, he's bruised, but he is ever moving on.

Not once has he complained about his wounds; to him, they are the punctuation marks of his life.

Let It Go

This seemingly nonsensical journey is not without its finer points, its highlights, if you will. It is by no means entirely akin to pushing water uphill; there are shady spots to sit and rest tired feet and eat Blyton-esque picnics, even though the road does loom large ahead.

Recently, when forging my way through a miniature flood, I saw something striking bobbing on the surface of the muddied waters. I had no idea what it was, but I picked it up, on impulse, and carried it with me in a deep pocket whilst I navigated the rushing waters with renewed vigour. It propelled me forwards, somehow.

On dryer land again, I took it from its cocoon and looked at it more closely. I still had no idea what it was, but I found it rather wonderful and decided I would keep it. It never occurred to me to question to whom that thing belonged.

I have been carrying it for some little while now. Each day I take it from my pocket more often and look at it for longer. Each day I wonder if I would bother to walk forward if I did not possess it. Each day it becomes a little clearer that I must, though I do not wish to.

I should remember that it is not mine, put it down, set it on its way, let it go before I break it. Or, as is more likely, before it breaks me.

Vintage Red

She is everything he didn’t want.

He feels as though he has entered a grocery shop with a list dictating he buy eggs and bread and milk and bacon and has emerged shell-shocked and shaken with an inordinately expensive bottle of vintage red for which he has neither the palate nor the pocket.

The click of her heels is too loud, the shine of her smile too bright, the colour of her hair too brash, the sound of her voice too startling. Yes, she is everything he didn’t want, but, somehow, it has come to pass that she is everything he needs.

Nothing More

It’s just a bump in the road.

It’s not a mountain. Nor a precipice. Nor a high-wire with Captain Hook crocodiles clammering their jamming jaws beneath.

The lost boys are still lost.

And this is just a bump in the road.

It matters that its circumnavigation has lasted ten months or more? It matters that the road beyond it may be anything but straight and smooth, or that the wall calendar is filled with ways by which to surmount it?

No.

It’s just a bump in the road.

Starshine

You speak to me, and when you do, in a warm, thick blanket I am encased. My spine is soothed by words of pure velvet and my temples tingle with a quiet delight.

You speak to me here, in the stillness and depth of the night and in this still, harsh world, I am not alone. The stars glint through cover of cloud, casting sparkles on the counterpane; the same stars that glimmer on the surface of your sea.

How, then, can we either of us be alone when united we are by those tenacious stars?

Hours later, your voice is alive in my mind, struggling for space, jostling for a place and I throw whatever I can find upon its fire in the hope of keeping warm.

Hours after that, the cold begins to creep callously back in. I look to the sky and hope there will be star shine tonight.

The Thousands

There were thousands of I Love You’s.

Some were filled with a fiery warmth as they exploded from lips, others were quietly yet intensely whispered on doorsteps in the dark.

Some were written in a variety of ways and propelled forth to their targets through a variety of mediums.

Some were lit large across the sky.

Some were small notes hidden in shoes.

Some were the first magical combinations of that irreplaceable three word mantra, others were uttered quickly, accompanied by backward glances and flashes of guilt.

Some will always be true.

Some were never meant at all.

What do I care?

All the I Love You’s are the confetti crushed on the heel of the divorce lawyer emerging from the registry office.

She will take you on a time trip, the greatest ride of your life. She will lead you back into the classroom and tie you to the chair. She will suck out the poison from the teacher’s apple and let you kiss her tainted mouth. She will be the most thrilling lesson you have ever learned. She will make your palms sing out with the sting of the cane. She will detain you and make you dance. She will set alight the youth in you again.

Polish on the Parquet

I can smell the polish on the parquet floor. I can hear the shoes click across it. I can see its shine reflected on the well brushed, silky hair of youth.

As the flash explodes, the air is heavy with the hammer of heartbeats, twenty two aortas swelling and filling the way only unscathed coeurs can do.

The flash gives a second lightening strike, fast forwards near three decades and the picture shatters - the smiles fall from faces, postures slacken, rings appear and disappear from fingers, chasms are carved between shoulders that one touched, lives are made from stolen sideways classroom glances, some flourish and blossom, others fall like withered fruit from dead trees and some souls are so crippled they are barely holding on.

Better that they did not see their lives illuminated in that second blinding flash; their smiles would never have been so bright id they had.

The road is lined with glassy ice
And yet I have to walk it
To nameless journey's end
And I,
I long to buy a ride
In comfort and in style
But I cannot afford it
And so it goes.

Block

He tried to ignore it, but he cannot and finds, to his dismay, that he has exhausted all the possible means by which it might be exorcised.

He shudders as he looks it in the face and finds that it is as deep as eternity and twice as frightening. Now, now that he has stripped away all the layers he had thrown down to cover it and they lie useless and discarded on the floor like heaps of garish, clashing wallpaper, now that he sees it was there all along, in spite of the useless and foolish facade, he wants to shrink back into himself, like a snail retreating into its shell.

But he cannot do that either as he realises, to his dismay, there is no longer a shell into which he can disappear. He is naked, vulnerable, alone.

There is only himself and the truth; a hard block of solid granite in front of him, blocking his way, and, whichever way he turns, it is there.

He feels helpless, teeters on the verge of hopelessness and considers throwing himself into its abyss, yet something steers him back and urges him to look again.

He stares at the immovable stone pillar, wondering whether it will be easily mastered and all the while the truth stares at him, unblinking and harsh.

Not Waving

I thought there was terra firma under my feet, but there is not and, worse than nothing at all, worse that floating, I find myself upon a turbulent sea. The current changes moment by moment; I am pushed this way and that way, then dragged back. Water is filling the pockets of my clothes, the weight of surviving this pulls me down while the roar of the ocean deafens me and the spray from the crashing waves blinds me. There is salt water in my lungs - it renders me mute and a lightening strike of panic flashes across my brain as I realise that I am drowning.

Across The Fields

We used to walk across the fields
Down the slope and to the stream
We used to wake
Early and smell the dawn
But not now
Not any more.

The walks were languid,
Lilting, even in rain
And in those long, sun soaked summer
Days we’d walk at dawn, in light
Twilight
All day.

I don’t walk these days
I march.
The climb is steep and the hills
Seem harsh, the wind
Is keen
And my face is set
Every step beats out memories
I can’t forget those walks
Across the fields…

Mountains, Always Mountains

There are always mountains; mountains of paperwork, of ironing, of bills, of lists, mountains to climb, mountains to conquer.

In a low valley, by the shores of a lake, I sit in the shadows of the mountains, with my feet in the water. The lake is beautiful, but it is impossible to relax and drink in it’s splendour when, all the while, with every tick of the unseen clock, these mountains are closing in.

They move surreptitiously and, each time I turn around, though they are nearer, they cease their quiet creeping.

They make the shores of the lake crack and the rocks slowly crumble.

They send ever more violent ripples across the placid surface of the water.

They un-nerve me.

But I still make no attempt to climb or conquer them; I am intrigued to see what will happen if I do not.

I Stand

I stand here, amidst the icy mist, in a short cotton gown, ill suited for such conditions. The freezing fog engulfs me. My mind spasms. My legs ache.

But I will not sit down.
I will not back down.
I will not go inside.

I will stand here while chaos falls all around me with all the force and thunder of a tropical storm, rain drenching the cotton gown, ankle deep in mud.

But I will not sit down.
I will not back down.
I will not go inside.

I will remain here, as the rain turns to snow, as the lashes of my eyes are silver with ice, as the white flakes stick to my skin, numbing all feeling and turning my red blood deepest blue.

But I will not sit down.
I will not back down.
I will not go inside.

I will stand here, firm and resolute, awaiting the thaw, awaiting the Spring.

For after Spring, there will come Summer.