Fail #3 - I miss uni - Some Poetry from 2006

Lent
Aching calm
consumes the house.
Alone
in hours of thought
and circles
sketched
behind my eyes.

My hands
are at my desk.
I watch them
sweep the page
with words
while dust collects
on clock-hands,
and the sun
never dies.


The Only Way I Love the Quiet
It was the last day of October,
remember? I was restless,
caught by city walls
and counted days
of stalking magpies,
staking-out the moss
between the pavement slabs.

That day we stood together
on the platform. Waiting
for the rumble of and escape
train to the lake.
Between us, static
silence smothered
the only space to breathe
within the whiplash pace
of a clockwork city.

When the doors opened,
a hundred miles north,
a shock of air greeted us
with flushed cheeks.
And at the shore,
the simple beat
of water, licking pebbles,
drew a rule against the swell
of our impeded speech.

We found our tongues,
of course. Even enemies
are never dumb for long.
So, as we limbered
up the fellside,
we strived to fill the time
with syllabic drudge.
Verbose lines of anything
with no relevance to us.

On the summit crags
we gulped the wind,
the drone of my last sentence
sliced mid-air.
Clouds were riddled,
stakes of sunlight
pinning lush greens
to the granite.
Knife-edge colour
rose in peaks
to prick the sky.

But my gaze was stolen
by two birds of prey
that swooped and waltzed
the stampeding wind.
They rode together
with ballet grace
and whatever touched me
found you too.

You took my hand
and I didn't waste words.

Our first moment shared
in silence.


Limbo
Here we sit alone,
assigned to boxes,
taking shallow breaths
clogged thick
with urban dust,
walking endless streets
becoming faceless.

My feet lead me
stone to stone
without direction.
I step to squint
at signposts,
bent in neglect,
while the city buckles,
groans beneath.

Through starless skies
and blind-spot sun,
the only light to guide me
seeps from under hoods
of network lamps,
to amber pools
inviting me to jump,
spotlight to spotlight.


Dead Skin
I woke early this morning
And cleaned my house.
It was the onion peel
In the kitchen
That inspired me.
The waste of an evening
Spent drinking wine
And chewing on the product
Of my whim
For haute cuisine.

I picked it up
And felt it crack
Against my palm,

Then looked at my fist
And thought of revolutionaries,
And wondered if every rebel
Held a trinket
Just like mine.
Their cause was for the future
But their fight was with the past,
And in a way,
They pushed for freedom
Of the fingertips
So that they may touch
And feel again.

I woke early this morning
In the mood for mutiny.
The onion peel felt foreign
In my hand.
In the yard
I let my grasp unfurl
And watched
As the flakes were lifted
And peeled
Like old scabs
That blemished new skin.

They caught the wind
And fluttered away -
Ash from the flames,
And the breeze
Took the woodsmoke
From my hair.

Fail #2 - a piece for uni back in 2005 - apparently my writing went downhill from here...

Three minutes ago I told the biggest lie of my life. One word. One monumental mistake of a syllable exploding from my mouth, and then it was over. I snapped my lips shut, feeling a vacuum expand inside my mouth, sucking my tongue dry. My stomach lunged towards my chest, trying to escape through my throat and suddenly I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. I averted my gaze, staring at my knuckles turning white as I gripped the sides of the table. My favourite restaurant. Not anymore. It is forever tainted, polluted by guilt. In one fraction of a second, one episode of temporary insanity, I have changed my life and my preferred eating place forever.

‘Will you marry me?’
‘Yes’

Never to return.

The car seems stuffier than usual, I can feel the buzz of static raising the hairs on the back of my neck, hear my heartbeat drumming in my ears. He burbles happily, blissfully unaware of my teeth grating against one another.

‘Can I open a window?’

Fresh air slaps me in the face and I feel my cheeks, swollen with blood, soften and relax. I watch as the lake fades into the distance, morphing from a crazed animal, passionate and alive, to a solid mass of grey. Such is life. It takes a while for me to realise it’s raining. A drop of water hits my eyeball and shocks me back to reality. He wants me to close the window now. The upholstery is getting wet. It’ll dry. I need the constant whistle of rushing air to fill my silence., to drown out his excited chatter and I still haven’t finished that pile of ironing. It’s waiting for me at the foot of the bed. A crumpled mess of Oxfam goods and hand-me-downs. Oh joy, my life is so fulfilling.

We pull in at our house on Terrinton Road, the middle of nowhere, Cumbria. Chloe from next door is pulling down the sheets from her washing line. I wonder what the point is when they’re already wet with the rain. May as well take them down when it’s dry, save yourself from getting soaked. Then again, one mad laundry-based rush is probably the closest thing to excitement she has in her no-frills and no-thrills life. But I cant talk.

He’s struggling to get the key in the lock, juggling with bags of quaint Cumbrian ornaments and other such clutter we bought despite good taste. But no, he doesn’t need any help. It’s ok, I’ll just stand here in the rain, why not?

And we’re in. The dog flies towards us, hell-bent on being the first one to piss me off. I should have bought a plant. Just like a pet only it doesn’t shit on the floor. He’s shouting now. At the dog, not me. He storms into the living room, flailing fists full of ripped up toilet paper and blabbering on about behavioural lessons. I tell him she’s creative but he doesn’t see the funny side. I’m starting to enjoy tonight. I give the dog a stroke and go upstairs to find that evil ironing pile. Yep. It’s still there. I had almost convinced myself it had been left so long it would have sprouted legs and walked out by now. I guess I could leave it another few days and see what happened. Yeah, take a risk, stop being so anal, live a little. I know I’ll be back here doing it in half an hour but I decide to humour myself. I could be a rebel, its just so much easier to follow the rules. Cuppa tea, that’s what I need. Maybe a garibaldi since its such a special night, or, hey, why not go all the way and crack open the chocolate hobnobs, I can afford to put on a few pounds now I’ve sold my soul to Dan the brick-layer. I shudder at that thought. Maybe I’ll add a shot of Jack Daniels to my tea tonight. Get quietly drunk and call the whole thing off., but that’s going to take a lot of PG Tips.

Downstairs Dan is fiddling with the video player. He thought we could watch a nice film. I think we’re going to miss Emmerdale but I don’t say anything. Joyce at work will fill me in tomorrow. I cant help noticing the silly smirk on Dan’s face, I hope I’m not about to sit through Robocop 2 again, he knows I won’t complain. The fuzzy mess of black and white on the TV screen crackles away and is replaced by a warning - "Adult entertainment" - Oh dear God no. Dan’s eyes widen and flicker my way, he gives my arm a loving squeeze and turns his face toward me. His eyes look as if they have been drawn on by a demented four-year-old with ADD, puppyish desperation, they say "Stroke me". He reminds me we’d agreed to try something a little different, spice things up, he says, and since its such a special night…THIS is his idea of special?! Dan-the-bricky-romance-specialist surely knows how to treat a women on her big night. When did life get so twisted and surreal?

I’ll blame it on our Dave. The brother. The evil being that set us up on our first date. "Dan’s a good guy", he said, "He’s loyal". He didn’t mention the wirey hair growing from under his collar, the pug-nose squashed into his otherwise featureless face, the bulge forever hanging over his belt and swinging a little when he walks. I was never the pretty one but it wasn’t until I met Dan that I realised all hope was lost.

There’s a spider in the corner. If I look long enough from my place on the sofa it looks like art. Thin, hair-like legs clutch the creamy walls. Black and cream and soft shadows where wall meets wall meets ceiling. I think it’s beautiful but I won’t tell Dan. His art is made of the grotesque wails escaping from the TV, oozing plasticity and sleaze, I hate to feel so seedy. I hate to sit in this dog-hair room, watching beads of sweat form on Dan’s temples, reminding myself to relax my legs when I notice I’ve been perching on the edge of the seat for over an hour. I was an average student of average looks and average ambitions. Get married, have kids, drink tea with the ladies at work. But now that I’m 33 and about to fulfil those dreams, I no longer want the average life. I want to get out, I want to move away. I know it’s just a pipe dream. Why try when you’re bound to fail?

Fail #1 - self-indulgence from 9 months ago - cheer up!

It was out of the blue one morning that time stopped. The girl wasn’t afraid. She felt as if this had been coming for a long time. She knew that from now on things would no longer happen temporally. Everything that occurred would do so on the horizontal. This was the day the girl realised that she had no control over her fate.

Years later the girl awoke to a bright Tuesday morning. The wind flowed through the leaves of the horse-chestnut outside of her window with a silent grace, moving like an invisible tide. The girl was accustomed to living underwater by now and the gravity of the day no longer left her trembling.

The accident happened a little after three. The girl was buying flowers when she saw it. A spur-of-the-moment purchase. When she saw his bloodied face register nothing on the asphalt she understood. She sat at a bench and watched the paramedics carefully lift the man onto a canvas stretcher. She listened to the siren’s wail grow deeper as it raced away. She boarded a bus to the hospital.

They would not let her see him at first. She did not know his name after all. The family arrived. She sat in the reception area and gently caressed the stems of the lilies she had bought. They weren’t for her.

A day passed and she did not sleep. Time meant nothing to her anyway. A nurse must have told the family she was there because a little before sunset a man in his fifties approached her warily. The skin around his eyes was swollen and creased. It seemed that only pupils peered out at her. Black glass sunken into his puffy skin. His hair was thinning and ruffled. His hands were limp at his sides.

“You wanted to see our Graeme?”

She nodded. He dropped his head and sighed at his shoes.

“He’s stable but they say he may never use his legs again. He opened his eyes this morning but he can barely remember a thing of what happened.”

The girl nodded again. The man lifted his head a fraction to see her face. It was blank as a corpse. He could not read her nor glimpse any signs of life.

“Are you a friend of his?”

The girl shook her head fluidly.

“You don’t know him?”

She let her head fall slightly to the side. Holding his eyes with hers.

“These flowers are for him.” She said without intonation. Her voice unwavering and viscous.
The man was confused but not afraid nor angry. The girl was harmless but she seemed as if she were living on a different plane.

“You saw the accident?” He asked.

The girl barely moved.

“I felt as though I saw it over and over again.” She replied. “Everything slowed down and the birds stopped singing. He didn’t even scream.” She looked at the lilies and twirled them between her fingertips. The petals were beginning to discolour and curl at the edges. “These flowers I had just bought. They must be for him.” She said with a hint of sadness.

She must be in shock thought the man. The accident had shot her mind. He had no way of knowing she had always been that way. He stood and stared at her bowed head. Slowly it lifted and she raised the flowers to him. “Please lay these by his bedside,” she said, “they are meant to be with him”. The man shook his head. Something had come over him. Or rather something had enveloped him. Lifting him up. He was floating. “Bring them to him yourself” he said, then turned his back and led the way.

When the door opened to the room three faces lifted to stare at the two figures standing there. Six eyes were confused and unmoving. No one spoke. The girl brought the flowers to the man in the bed. He was young. Probably around the same age as she was. Now and again he winced in pain. The girl lay the lilies at his head. “Thank you,” said the man uneasily. He didn’t think he had ever seen her before but his thoughts were still thick and fuzzy. The girl turned to him and a smile crept across her face. Emotion flashed into her eyes as she stared at his. The young man felt something strike deep within him and his heart seemed to surge for a moment. He thought he saw her eyes slick with tears but in an instant they were dead and her smile seemed cheap and hollow.

The girl relaxed her face, turned her back and walked out of the hospital.

She wasn’t meant for the present. She had lost a dimension there. She seemed flat. A cartoon character on the TV screen. The past was where she dwelled in a kind of wholeness, granted her in retrospect by the imaginations of those that had known her once. She lived more in the fleeting memories of others than in her own reality. Her existence was lived out in vignettes, spread across the memories of all of those with whom she had shared a moment. The young man became a part of this web and she began to live partly within him. Her life did not burn but simper. It wouldn’t be hard to extinguish the flames. But as she lived through others she would continue even after her being came to an end. It would be years, and the deaths of many, before she fizzled out.