Routine

She woke up in the morning and stared into the mirror.

She couldn't find it.

She flung aside her quilt and pillows.

She looked under the bed, threw open the cupboard and searched through piles of clothes.

She wandered from room to room.

Looking through cabinets. Inside the fridge. Under the table. Between piles of unwashed dishes in the sink.

She scanned through the pages of the newspaper.

She walked the streets looking for familiar faces that could help.

Finally, tired, she decided to give up. It seemed as though she'd have to do without his smile today.

Anger comes back rushing to her as she reads through the pages. Someone's grief has been hers too. At some point.

She used to think it's unfair that it happened only to her. Now she thinks it was unfair it happened to someone else too.

"Why are we the bearers of this pain when it was inflicted upon us?"

She shuts the pages and thinks in silence. Reading someone's private thoughts comes with a burden of knowing it.

Pain is after all a shield that protects you.

She needed time and experience to understand that pain is essentially good too.

Stillbirth

I do not begin immediately.

I am not dawn.

I will take my time to plaster myself upon the world.

Consciousness breaks, like water,

and now the birth pains

are my lids and lips; slowly becoming sticky-notes

meshed on angry, unfinished essays.

Someone else's unfinished essays.

They rub against my paper-mache eyes and my ink-sodden tongue with

something akin to relish,

and enjoy the friction of temporal attachment.

Expand, and I feel the sand of my face

shifting, shifting, with the liquid light; currents of the Sun

that flow through the curtains I know are above me

seeping into my shore.

Tiny feet scour my cheeks for shells

and I dare not move for fear

of earth-quaking her to never was.

Contract. Nesting deep in the throat, an injured bird breathes slow and painful.

I try to start.

Thoughts coil like infuriating headphones wires

and the dreamlessness of my sleep hours mock me.

'This is what you left us for? You silly, silly child!'

And I look at them like I would at a once-lover.

My words are beaten prisoners, with no more juice in them.

Are these what I shall use, to find her eyes in the glare of my dreams?

No.

Perhaps I shall not plaster after all.

For now, I say to myself,

let this be a stillbirth.

My Guy

eyes look upon the flower,

and it is no longer a flower.

it has become, at once;

.

kisses in the dark, and swelling red lips,

like so many folds of a rose,

or is it flesh?

.

at once glove white petals, in the wind, falling all about

in kamikaze flight,

committing Death on the pavement

.

at once her hair, and the smell of sweet love,

but with a hand-picked, light pink exotic,

in the bun now, resting, outcast.

.

it is, at once, my An,

smothered in hospital linen,

but happy, oh yes, quite happy, for the flowers!

the flowers in the garden bright where the army ants raged up both their invading legs,

and him begging, begging-

.

then the comforting fingertips of a girl in a floral dress,

soft, tremulous, of loving, loving- but essentially nothing,

like a meaningless print on the back of a hastily bought Valentine card,

as meaningless as an orchid on a dollar note, abused, like a true patriot-

claws in the air- for the bride has thrown the bouquet, presently, yes,

high up, thrown it out of sight, like that baseball, not soon forgotten, and the vase-

.

oh the vase! petal pandemonium that was,

falling like, like- American Beauty, in sweaty sweaty desire,

wait, though, all play, of course, all play-

.

forgotten origami game, never played since 12 years young,

then the painting, in a clinic where he hung his head down while she she cried-

cried and cried and cried and cried and wallpaper like Gilman all yellow but flowery;

goading her as she sat inert but was in fact an ocean of deep sounding trouble,

walking in and out of dark dreams;

amongst smiles that followed lilies,

tulips, daffodils, lavenders, daisies,

and rose after rose after rose after-

.

it is, at once,

the edelweiss on a dead Romeo,

clinging desperately to his chest,

as the last agreeable scent in the whole bloody affair.

.

.

.

eyes look upon the young man.

and he is no longer.

he has become, at once.

Grim Reaper

He reached for the scissors, tenderly lifting it to his breast,

As if he were carrying a small child.

The unforgiving morning light filled the room like a slow certainty,

Pushing past the flimsy curtains and gently making love to everything;

The floor, the tiles, the barren piano in its corner, the table with its sheets and,

The man, sitting there with his scissors- unspeaking.

He closed his eyes, more like blood welling in the brain, he thought.

That was what it felt like-

Blood, leaking into the back of his head.

He lurched to his feet, heavily, and drove the closed blade deep into the desk before him.

The wood splintered and shuddered.

Papers and pencils hurriedly slid off the surface, seeking refuge closer to the ground.

The air settled.

He waited for his breathing to slow- a patient man observing a train-

Heavy with cargo, churning and grinding to a halt on the tracks, allowing him to step on board.

He opened his eyes, tentatively, and looked down.

His palm was bleeding. Odd, he thought.

After all, he hadn't felt a thing.

The deep gash swelled with a dark red that spread along the thin lines of his palm.

He imagined droplets of dew dripping down the strands of spider's web.

Solemn and subdued, the Grim Reaper eyed him from the corner.

Evening

There is nothing in the atmosphere today.

Once crying skies and frantic lines lie deadened.

Stillness impalpable force the noise of memory back into mortality.

They shift each silent stare into a glaze of disfocus, then back, and glaze, and back, then glaze again.

Haunting, it streaks against the stream of consciousness where-

Seemingly chipped leftovers float below the surface,

Melding crimson blood with the nothingness above.

The sound of a blink or the turn of an ear permeate all knowing now.

Thoughts struggle in stasis for birth, to be born, to cry and be heard, to breathe and to die from want, to gasp and suffer life...

But no grave stirring breaks from this face.

No jazz resounding, no interludes, no orchestra concerto.

Emotions rudely snore from a cavity of soundlessness,

Of mindlessness, noiseless beat.

The Sanctuary, on which the trudging compressions of Commune solemnly stamp down upon, fascinate the few that circulate, vulture-like.

Pit patter dewdrops of laced conversation string souls of desperation delicately together.

Pressure's cooking.

Reflection

She was a picture of false bluster, a rippling of plastic flesh, with pearls that pulsed alongside porcelain teeth and crippled cheeks. She carried a doll's cleavage, like a gun. She tried to smile a wall into existence, but the news was a wedge forced between the cracks of her face, looking for the tide that was crushed beneath it.

You can never let things go completely. Never completely. Nothing is ever reversible. What we do, remains forever, ingrained and unforgiving and forevermore they will resurface, again and again, to stand in the corner of the room with closed eyes and silent lips.

For several moments, she carried the false intensity of eyes that stop where the mind begins. She swore she could feel a heart inside her, buried deep, somewhat unreachable, inside her, ticking away.

Our Song

Didn't you go through all the past before in a mayhem

Now you're wondering if I'm gonna call

Or if I took note of who you are at all

Didn't you get my message as your worries get bigger

Now you're wondering if I could recall

Took sight of you knocked my head against the wall

Didn't you hear from me I'd tremble and talk when I see you

How this pondering much make me believe

That this is all I've got you'll receive

Didn't you tell me once you stand alone in the city

How this pondering you will never leave

And this is what I have I'd care to give

So close your eyes...

And try to picture you and me

Walking down a lonely beach

Holding hand in hand and as we sing along a melody

Lalalalalaaa lately, I've been thinking about you baby

Wish I could be the one you've always longed for in your life

So close your eyes...

And I can't tell you how many years I've gone without a smile

Oh have I done a crime

But lately you flow in like an angel from the sky

Now I'm smiling again almost all the time

So close your eyes...

And try to picture you and me

Walking down a lonely beach

Strolling in the sands and leaving footprints like a symphony

Lalalalalaaa lately, I've been thinking about us baby

Wish I could be the one you'd spend the rest of your life... with.

6-teen Candles

They fall like missiles,

leaving craters, in their own style,

tiny explosions of grey, too

fast to catch.

It made me remember my birthday.

The warm bed and bare skin.

We were our own blankets.

Outside, the voice of God thundered

terrible things,

but we sat on the floor and ate pasta.

That was before everything, of course.

Now, smoke trails

have replaced the bubbles you blew.

When I am finished,

I will flick the cigarette into the rain,

and watch the sparks dissolve.

Carcass

She found the poor thing lying by the roadside. It was stiff from the cold, and quite dead.

Even in death, the little creature was oddly beautiful; its delicate plumage was a complex weave of shimmering green and bright red, almost pink, and its talons were sleek and black. The eyes were closed, but with a little effort, she could almost imagine its sharp, piercing gaze following her about again.

She remembered how they used to hook themselves into her back when she tidied the house, in the old days, when she still had a home with him and his family. She remembered the gaze well. She couldn't remember her home.

Stooping down, she lifted the small bird in her hands, and cradles it to her bosom. She carried it back the way she came; past the ditch with the mouldy half-eaten apple, past the streetlamp with the abandoned umbrella, past the brick wall with the old bundle of rags heaped against it. She shuffled as she walked, slowly, deliberately, almost like a funeral march.

No one will tell you who she is, or where she comes from. No one knows why she holds the dead bird in her hands. She will bury its body far from the roadside, in a glen, perhaps, or a field somewhere where the earth is soft and the world is merciful. She will bury her memories with it, if she can.

Do You

Did you ever really look at her?

No. Now that you mention it. No, I don't suppose I ever did.

What do you think she would've been like?

What I expected? I don't know. Someone different I suppose. Quite different.

Beautiful?

Simple. Someone easier to love, perhaps. Someone I could trust.

Pure fantasy.

You think so?

Of course. You're telling me what you wanted to see, not what you really expected of her.

Am I? Well, I suppose you're right. I'd always thought she'd eventually prove to be something somewhat breathtaking, on the inside. Like a pearl in an oyster.

An oyster. Fancy that.

You get what I mean.

I've never thought of her as a crustacean.

I didn't quite-

And pearls. You would love a pearl?

I realize it's not the best-

Pearls are cold, hard. Very expensive.

Yes yes alright. Not a pearl. Something else then. Something softer... contained within a disagreeable exterior.

Nothing wrong in loving a pearl though. Why did you love in the end?

I thought I wanted to.

You gave her pearls did you?

Why do you ask?

Did you?

A necklace.

Really?

And a bracelet.

She's very pretty.

I know.

Did she take them with her?

Take what?

The necklace. And the bracelet.

No, no. She doesn't like pearls.

Did she like you?

Did she like you?

She did.

You're certain?

Fairly.

You're rotten.

I'm different.

I think she hated me, really. Couldn't bear looking at me looking at her. With adoring eyes. A writer's eyes she said. The way she tried to avoid me sometimes. Small things. Looking up from a book, or meeting me at the door. Something in my gaze repelled her. I brushed it off as insignificant, of course, but I was blind, then. She was always looking at me looking back at her. Writer's eyes.

You never really looked at her then.

No. Now that you mention it. No, I don't suppose I ever will.

Pity. Did she ever see you?

Yes. Oh yes. Acutely.

She's a sharp one isn't she.

Very.

She hasn't changed.

Good to hear, good to hear.

Same ol, same ol.

Do you love her?

Do you love her?

Yes.

You're certain?

Fairly.

You're rotten.

I wouldn't know.