Endings

When death comes you think it will be a thunderclap

That it will devastate you

Leaving nothing behind

When death comes you think it will be a thunderclap

That it will be explosive

Overwhelming you

When death comes you think it will be a thunderclap

That it will strike you down

Bringing you to your knees in one hit

When death comes you think it will be a thunderclap

The sound of it decimating you

Flattening you to nothing

But when it finally arrives

It will have been on the road to you for some time

Painstakingly but surely making its way

When death comes you think it will be a thunderclap

But when it gets to you

There is no sound

There is nothing

Catharsis

I knew the moment we met

That I should walk away

But I didn’t

I let you in

Gave you a little bit of me

You didn’t notice

The little bit I put out for you

I guess it wasn’t shiny enough

To get your attention

Your door was always closed

I thought then

Because you were closed-off

Played your cards close to your chest

How can I have been so wrong?

I was so wrong

About you

I was so wrong

I didn’t see it

Then

I thought

Hoped

Wanted

So much for your door to be closed

For other reasons

I didn’t see it

I believed

You were

Who I thought you

Wanted so much for you to

Be

But

I see now

It was closed

It is closed

Because there was nothing behind it

There is nothing behind it

For me

I wasn’t shiny enough

I am not shiny enough

I will never be shiny enough

For you

Again and again

I let you in

They say

Insanity is doing the same thing

Over and over

And expecting a different result

I am insane

I expected a different result

I hoped for a different result

Again and again

Until

Until

A moment in time

Such a teeny tiny moment

A mere blip

That moment

When someone stabs you

Through the heart

Sometimes you don’t feel it right away

Sometimes you laugh

Make a joke

Act the smartass

And then

A bit later

Perhaps even just as you stop laughing

You realise

You get it

You fucking GET IT

That is when it stabs you

That is when you feel it

That is when suddenly

You see it

You see him

You SEE him

I see you

And that is when you bleed

As it leaks out of you

Warm and wet

It is full of things you want to disown

Things you wish weren’t inside

Things you wish you could take back 

Things I wish I could take back 

I wish

I cared about you

I fucking CARED about you

I loved you

No

I loved what I thought was you

The idea I painted in my mind

Inside myself

Of the man I thought

I hoped so much

You were

Not

And you

So carelessly

So nonchalantly

Tore me open

Right open

You don't even seen the wound

You don’t even see the wound

You don’t see

Anything

All the little bits  

Small pieces I never ever shared with you

How do you know?

How do you fucking KNOW?

How to hurt me so much

To scar in a way not many can

To cut me in a way I had forgotten

I could be

Cut into

Take all those slivers

Of everything I fear

Of everything I hate

Of everything  

Take them

Put them down

In front of you

Look at them

Probably not

Set them alight

Walk away

Don’t look back

You made a cut in me

You can't take back

You pierced the softest part of me

The part I can’t cover with my armour

The part I thought was

Covered

That I thought you couldn't see

Didn't know about

The part that hurts the most

And then I bleed

Then I feel it

And then

I have been here before

If I don’t tear you out  

Of me

If I don’t take back

The little bit

Of me

That I gave to you

That you don’t want

That you don’t even fucking KNOW

I gave you

I will be here again

Eventually I will be here

Again

But maybe

Maybe

If I'm strong enough

If I'm cold enough

I won’t

Maybe 

I won’t

Then And A Lot Of Now

Guitars around camp fires
Green mountains
Heat
Dirt and dust
Rivers and sometimes the ocean
Rice fields
Jungle
Lush, lush jungle
The sun
Sunrise
Sunset
Always the sun
The sky red
Or blue
Or in between

Landscape passing by
Looking out
From the bus
From the train
From the back of a truck
Just sitting
Somewhere
Watching the world fly by
Wind blowing my hair
Or not

The world flew past
And I watched it
Felt it
Was part of it

Was that me?
I don't remember her
But she remembers me
I do remember her
I remember

Now life passes
While I watch
I can't stop it
Can't slow it down
It's passing
Where is it going?
Am I going?

Panic
My chest filled with ice
It's hard inside my ribs
I can't breathe
The rest of me is crying
I'm crying

Memories
Moments
Feelings
Freedom

Freedom?

Nothing is real
Really matters
And I'm full
Of nothing at all
Full of empty
Or too much of everything

I can't empty it out
I'm drowning in it

Dreams Can Hurt Too

I haven’t thought about you
For the longest time

It used to be an
All-the-time thing
Now it's a
Not-really-at-all thing

Then I dreamt
About you

I dreamt
I went to your work
I don’t even know where that is
But in my dream
I do

So
I go in
On the pretence of having business
On the pretence of not seeing you

I pretend not to see you
Of course
I pretend

You look different
I think
But it's you
I like how you look
Now
As if I would ever
Not like you
I would always
Like you
I would

You pretend not to see me

So many glances
Out of the corners of eyes

Then I leave
I no longer have a reason to stay
To be
In the same place as you

Outside
I wait around
Outside the entrance
By the lift
Pretending the lift hasn’t come
I haven’t pushed the button
Not yet
Just in case
But
I pretend

And then you come out
I'm so hopeful
No I'm not
I pretend I'm not

You pretend you have reason to be there
Outside
Where I am

You pretend to suddenly notice me
And then
There are smiles
Creased faces
And teeth
Smiling faces
Smiling eyes
Eyes smiling
At each other
Not pretending
No more pretending
No more
Pretending

And I think
Really?

We go back inside
Sit down
Together
In the same place
You
And I
In the same place
And
I don’t want to feel
Excited
Hopeful
But slowly it creeps
Creeps inside

There is so much
There is
So much

Smiling

Then you reach for me

You
Reach
For me

Your hand closes around my wrist
And I remember your hands
My wrist so small

Your hand closes around my wrist
Tight

And you pull me towards you

I sit up in my bed
Awake

The Sad Hand

I really thought it was you
Stood by the bus stop
My bus stop
This morning

I didn't once consider that it would be bloody strange
For you to be there
At my bus stop

The heart doesn't work like that
The brain
Ruled by the heart
Doesn't think like that
And most certainly
Does not let the eyes see like that

So
I thought it was you
And my heart was in my throat
In my eyes
And then I didn't want to see
Couldn't see
Just in case

Panic
What will I do?
What will I say?
Will I smile?
Make conversation?

No
I look away and walk past you
Head turned
Looking for the bus
Where is the bus?
So you only get the back of my head

And inside I hurt
Because you don't recognise me
The back of my head
Because you don't say hi
And I wish so much that you would
And I'm back at square one

That feeling
That wishing
That hoping
That you would call
Message
Want to see me
Show you like me
Give a fuck whether I exist or not

The bus comes
Finally
Enough standing around

I walk to the door
I turn
I have to be sure

It's not you
Of course it isn't
As if it ever was
The levels of stupid I feel right now
Overwhelming
Kind of like what people washed away by a tsunami must feel
Just before they drown

I sit down on the bus
Look out the window
At the person that isn't you
And the sad hand wraps itself firmly around my heart
Again

Just when I think I've beaten it
Have perhaps run it out of me
Maybe I'm stronger than the sad hand now?

It comes back
And all it takes
Is a person who isn't even you

Stupid Fucking Girl

Stupid fucking girl, she’s always trying to open the same door. I can see her from here, standing outside the house. She looks around to see if anyone is watching, but she can't see me, can't feel my eyes burning a hole in her head from where I stand, staring, hidden by the trees.

Of course she reaches for the handle and tries to turn the knob. Of course it wont turn. It’s the wrong fucking house and the wrong fucking door. Even if it were the right house, and even if the key had fit, had turned the lock – click – it would still be the wrong door. It’s always the wrong door. 

But watch her persist, time and time again, constantly trying to open it. Stupid fucking girl. She never learns. She’ll never learn. She’ll keep coming back to the house, putting in the keys and grabbing at the doorknob. And she’ll always end up standing there, left to stare at the door that is wrong.

She’ll never see me, watching everything, knowing the door is wrong. Never feel my stare, never sense my loathing. She’ll die out there, outside that door, hoping and trying. And I’ll see it all. Stupid fucking girl.

...

Spewing

It’s not your first time

And it’s not your last

It isn’t food poisoning

It isn’t coincidence

Half an hour after dinner

Halfway down the row of doors

This time

Every time

It’s so important

Perhaps it’s your silence that gives you away

Your silence in between the moments I am not supposed to share

The moments I am not supposed to know about

The moments I don’t know how to handle because they’re like a punch in the throat

The moments that feel like claws on my bones

I’m gasping

No

I’m holding my breath

I know you’re waiting for me to leave

You know I’m in here

Halfway down the row from you

But you don’t know I’m listening

You don’t know

That I know

The air conditioning hums

I sit here and listen to the thing that isn’t happening

I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing

Why I haven't left yet

I know you heard me come in

Maybe you’re getting angry and frustrated

Waiting and hoping that I will leave

But I can’t now

Your need is getting stronger

I know what you’re dying to do

The walls close in on me

Get thicker and heavier

I wonder if they’re closing in on you

I wonder if you’re listening to me

Like I’m listening to you

I’ve been here so long now

Neither of us can pretend any longer

You can’t hold out

And I need to hear it

Need to hear you shove your fingers down your throat again

Need to hear you bring it up and get it out

You’re disgusted

By your need to do it

I’m disgusted

By my need to hear you

...

Through and through

There is a hole inside of me
From front to back
Like a bullet wound

Maybe I was standing on the street one time

Alone
Minding my own business

And

Maybe someone drove by
In a “drive-by”

And shot me

Loaded the chamber
Finger on the trigger
Aimed

And shot

Me

Through and through

The bullet ripped open my front
Tore my skin, burnt, seared it

Smashed its way through me
Damaging everything in its path
Everything inside me

Exit

The back of me

I can’t see the marks but I know they’re there
I feel the blood dripping out
Fast

So I have this hole in me now

And I can’t fill it

Nothing can

Eventually I will bleed out
This is a given
It doesn’t even need to be said

Even if you don’t know it

I do.

....

Emptiness
Convulsion
Uncontrollable
Spasmodic

Psychotic reactions

Innocuousness

Why bother

Move along pretty girl

Risk it all

Throw it all away

Become a star

Part of a constellation of many
You won’t be alone then

But you will die
Fade

Slowly

But surely

You will fade to black

Nothingless

Oblivion

Heaven.

Three rounds

Vomit drips down the bricks on the outside of his building. He doubles over again, his stomach cramping violently, his face red and contorted in pain. It passes for a moment and he takes a breath, panting and exhausted from the effort of regurgitating what he's sure must be inner organs by now. Then it starts again and he lurches back to the window, this time producing a speckled mixture, pink at first then followed by much darker spots of red. Blood. His eyes widen at the sight of it, pupils dilating, whites showing more prominently, a horse that has just been startled. He knows what this means.

The bell rings and the crowd goes silent. The fighters adjust their gloves and eyeball each other from opposing corners of the ring. There is real hate in their stares. They’re getting ready to start.

He looks out his window at the city that is already awake, it has been awake for hours now, and inhales the mess of noise created by people and vehicles below. Although the din penetrated his room hours ago, it didn’t wake him. He never slept to begin with. Instead he spent the night bent over the toilet, the sink, arriving finally at the window sill for this morning's final showdown. It wasn’t the first night spent like this. If he tries, he can’t even remember a night that wasn’t like this one. But he knows all too well that it could be the last.

The prancing around the ring is over; it’s on for real now. Their muscles warm and stretched, they assume their positions. Round One: Fight!

The walls in his room are not painted but consist of exposed bricks jutting out from what was once white plaster. Sometimes when he isn’t seeing things clearly, which is often, he thinks it looks almost like art. So many different colours, a veritable kaleidoscope - blood both fresh red and old brown, dried shit smears, vomit stains and pieces of old photos, some still in colour and others so faded it’s hard to fathom how they’ve survived the horrors that have taken place in here.

There isn't much furniture: a mattress on the floor covered in stains he dare not look at, broken in sections where the wire edges of inner springs stick out, springs that scratch his legs during the rare moments when he does sleep. He doesn’t need to think about the bacteria growing in there; the glare of infection from the swelling around his scratched legs, the blood and festering pus is more than enough.

The bathroom has a sink and a tub, both black in colour now with spots of green where mould thrives. Not that it bothers him. He doesn’t use either really, he hasn’t been able to bathe for a long time now. There’s the obligatory chair and table set, plastic and metal of the cheapest sort. The table littered with meal containers full of rotting food he knows he never ate, containers that are now home for cockroaches and maggots, crawling in the filth that to them is a kingdom of untold treasure.

Bruises are showing now, one fighter has a split lip and the other a cut above his left eye. But they’re panting and blood thirsty, ready for more. The bell rings. Round Two: Fight!

It seems that he has spent years here, lurching about, vomiting and spending days semi-comatose on his broken bed. In his broken body. With his broken mind.

Sometimes he finds himself staring into the mirror for hours on end. Just standing there, leaning on the sink with his hands, his emaciated frame screaming at him from the mirror. The sunken eyes and hollow gaze, the colourless skin that speaks only of death. He can stare into his eyes for hours on end, until he is trapped inside them, not seeing anything anymore. He wonders whether his eyes ever had any colour beyond the endless black of his pupils.

He feels calm now, his insides have settled and the pains have subsided. As he looks around the room, seeing nothing and knowing everything, he wonders whether it is over or whether this is the proverbial calm before the storm.

If there is a storm coming, he knows it won’t be a matter of rain and wind. There will be no putting out buckets and pots out to catch the leaks from the roof. It will be the storm to end all storms. He has nothing left to give, finally. After another round he won’t be standing anymore.

The bruised and battered fighters pull themselves upright and wipe the blood dripping from their injuries. It is no secret who will win this fight. Round Three: Fight!

...

Inappropriate Eyes, Wandering Fingertips

Are thoughts like these wrong? Is it wrong to feel this way about you? To be honest, I don’t know how I feel about you, but I know how I look at you and I know what I think when I do.

And you have no idea, you don’t see me looking at you the way I do.

Is it wrong to look at you like that?

You don’t realise it, you sense nothing. Even when our eyes meet you have no idea. You don't suspect for an instant just how amazed I am by your skin alone – so smooth, pale and unblemished. Skin yet untouched by time and unmarked by the hurt of years, without the scars left behind from wounds of heartbreak or disappointment.

As I look at you I know instantly what your skin would feel like to touch. I know, even though I would never dare to...

I lie. I did dare. Once.

You slept; the dead weight of your arm lay across my side, the warmth of your body against mine. I could feel the slow beat of your heart ever so slightly against my back.

I watched you while you slept. You looked so beautiful. And I couldn’t help myself.

I knew I shouldn’t, more than that I knew that you wouldn’t know if I did because you were so fast asleep. Or so I hoped.

I reached out carefully and touched you, ran my fingers along your neck and down to your ribs, to the place I have always thought is the most achingly vulnerable part of the body, the curve of the waist, the space between the end of the ribs and the beginning of the hip bone. I can hardly stand to look at it, let alone run my fingers along it. But I did. And it was almost unbearable.

You didn’t notice, or if you did you pretended not to. Either way, I’m thankful. I wouldn’t have been able to deal with it if you had woken or indicated you felt my touch. I would have been too vulnerable then, too exposed, my insides cut open and spread out for inspection. No, I wouldn’t have been able to ever look at you again if that had happened.

As I did this, watching you sleep, running my fingertips along your skin, I thought about how when you talk to me – always about nothing in particular – I am stunned by the tiny, tiny lines that appear on your face, like markings on a blank canvas. And then they disappear again, a mere hint of years to come. Seeing them makes me feel like I’ve suddenly burst out laughing in aloud in public, a loud squawk bursting out of me and then disappearing.

I’m not sure if it’s you exactly, I am certainly not ‘in love’ with you in any way. I’m beyond such thoughts, I’m too far down the road already to pass time with such naïve sentiments, or more accurately you could say I’m too jaded and cynical. I think it’s more of an infatuation...with these characteristics of yours that I am all too aware we do not share.

Then a small tight hand of fear grabs my heart and squeezes it. Sharply and quickly like an ant bite – what if I’m wrong? What if I actually do like you? What then? Would that be wrong? If I know that looking at you the way I do is wrong, then to actually like you...

But I don’t even know you. You are practically a stranger to me. No, not practically, literally. So even if my fear was true, then any affection for you would be based on my own little idea of you and my collection of assumptions I have linked together in my mind.

And yet.

The moment, which did not actually exist beyond the twirling of my own thoughts, fled from my grasp.

And I had been right. I really had known all along – what it would feel like to touch your skin. It hurt my fingertips. And I loved it.

I stopped.

I got up and walked away, and I didn’t look back.

Even if I had stayed a little longer, even if you had looked at me and reciprocated my childish sentiments, eventually reality would have conspired, schemed and plotted to destroy everything. It always does.

So I walked away and I didn’t look back. And I’ll keep walking away, over and over again, because it’s the only thing that makes sense.

...

Sickened

Even though it’s early, the sun is shining recklessly in the freezing winter air, teasingly hinting at a spring that’s still so far away. Everything looks hard and fresh, the concrete a mean grey, the grass a little too green with morning dew.

I know I’m getting closer to the city now because the number of people joining me grows with each step, all of us bustling along in the same direction, like worker bees filing back to the hive, marching together but completely alone.

The buildings are like closed, silent faces towering above, blocking out the sun, the windows huge staring eyes watching us enter the streets and alleys that divide them.

I'm in the thick of it now.

The sun doesn’t shine here anymore.

All backs straight, faces grim, stares focussed ahead.

Little by little the noise around me begins to change. I continue to make my way, pretending not to notice, thinking maybe there's something wrong with my hearing, maybe I'm just a little tired. The sounds thicken and dull, as though I’ve put earplugs in without realising it. I look from side to side to make sure there isn’t a squirrel on each of my shoulders stuffing cotton wool into my ears. Nope, didn’t think so.

I keep walking. The music from clothing stores fades away. People’s voices subside until they are no more. The beeping of cashier’s registers wanes, each beep shrinking until it sounds like a cartoon mouse in the corner squeaking at me from far away...and then all noise is gone.

Nothing.

No sound.

Not one peep from anything or anyone. I stop and look around. A few other people slow and for a second I think it has happened to them too, that perhaps a huge vacuum cleaner was just switched on at the city’s edge that has slowly sucked all the sound from the air. But they continue walking, after throwing me an odd look, and I realise I am the only one with this apparent hearing difficulty.

A noise begins to reach my ears. I start walking again and slowly but surely it gets louder. I’m trying to pinpoint the sound but it seems to be all around me, with no one definite source.

Then I start to feel ill, really ill. My stomach clenches and my throat seizes tight. I realise it is the sound – no, sounds for I notice now that there is more than one – that are making me sick. I look around and it doesn’t take long to figure out where the sound is coming from. They make it together. All of them. Alone it most likely wouldn’t be so horrifying, but united they march and prance and stampede all around me, beside me and past me. The din is incredible.

It is the sound of men in their suits that sickens me, as they swish past me in these city streets, in a hurry to get somewhere, desperate to exude importance. The flapping of their jackets between their arms and sides, like the wings of birds taking flight, the whooshing of their pants as the material crushes between their thighs, the slapping and clacking of their heeled, shiny polished shoes that announce their arrival behind me and are just loud enough to ensure I don’t fail to notice the magnitude of their significance as they pass me.

There is a grotesqueness to these sounds that makes me feel more than a little ill. It breeds queasiness in my stomach and leaves me feeling so faint, so lightheaded.

Moving in packs or even alone, they present a front; a grey, black and blue front. Like a lingering bruise on the face of a woman passing you on the street, faded in colour so you know it no longer hurts, but impossible for you to forget once you have seen it.

I make my way through their midst. We do not make physical contact and do not look each other in the eye. And yet even as I move among them in my isolated bubble, their sounds pollute the air around me, piercing holes in my bubble, allowing their smells of hair product and cologne and leather to flood in, making it harder and harder for me to breathe.

I can’t believe this is happening. Is no one else aware of what is going on? Am I the only one?

The sounds made by these men, the whooshing and swishing and clacking makes me want to regurgitate my breakfast, to heave and churn it out onto the pavement, to hear the chunks of chewed up toast and mouthfuls of coffee splat and splash on the floor.

The urge to do this becomes so strong I feel the bile rise in my throat. My eyes begin to tear. But I know it would make no difference. There would be no united façade of disgust at my rebellion against acceptable behaviour; at my vomit that would embody a personal assault on their cleanliness and tidiness, on the sterility of their existence. They would merely continue on their way, perhaps deigning to break their masks of über-worth for a few seconds to wrinkle their faces in repulsion, before very quickly resuming their previous cold-eyed expressions.

If I can just get inside a small space, I think, somewhere small and enclosed where I can lock myself in until they are all indoors, I will survive this. I begin to search madly for a place, any place, that I could escape to.

It only takes a few seconds before I spot it – what looks like a tiny door, the size of a child – and I know this is the place that will save me. I rush over to it, bumping and jostling people on the way, mumbling apologies but not getting any response.

I reach the door and find it is covered in black velvet, so plush, so new and clean-looking. What is a door like this doing on a main city street, I wonder. I have no idea. I have even less of an idea as to what could be beyond it.

As the bile rises in my throat I realise I don’t care and I push it open. It is dark inside, but I can see the inside is also lined in velvet, red this time. I climb in and close the door behind me. The sounds disappear instantly.

Total silence.

Well no, not total silence, there is the sound of velvet but if you know what velvet sounds like you will know also that it is a sound of softness and comfort, like the sighing and snoring of a kitten as it sleeps.

The door has led me into a small room, a space bigger than the door itself, which is a relief as the door was a tight fit, me not being child-size and all, but aside from one large cushion and the velvet lining, there is nothing else I can describe.

It is silent. Not one sound penetrates the room’s interior. I lie down against the cushion, in this red velvet room. I begin to breathe more deeply and the feelings of sickness dissipate. And so I calm myself, and I try to pretend the swishing and whooshing and clacking didn’t make part of me want to die.

...

One single moment

There was a time I honestly thought I would shatter into a million little pieces. A moment so sudden and unexpected that I didn’t see it coming, like crossing train tracks and not checking for oncoming trains, looking up and seeing the lights in my eyes just before impact, realising far too late that oblivion is upon me.

It was late at night and we were in bed. Our breathing had slowed and the intensity of our heartbeats, so fast and hard just before, quietened bit by bit. You lay behind me, my body folded into yours so perfectly, as though our two shapes were created with each other in mind.

After a while I know you thought I was asleep. I wasn’t. I was only pretending. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop my mind running around thinking about you. The curve of muscle between your neck and shoulder, the line your collar bones made that I loved to trace with my fingers, the way your skin always had a hint of tan despite it being winter and the insane softness of it – softer than a man’s skin should be, making me insecure about my own.

I don’t know why I pretended to sleep. It was as though I believed that if you thought I was asleep things would be different between us. It’s something I would do often, lie in bed and go through the motions of pretending to fall asleep next to you. I know you thought I was sleeping. It isn’t just that I’m an expert sleep-faker, it’s that I know you would never have done what you did, had you known I was awake.

We lay there entwined and you moved slightly, lifting yourself up a little. I didn’t move. You didn’t make a sound at first and I wondered what you were doing. I realised then that I could feel your eyes on me. You were watching me sleep. My breath caught in my throat and I had to focus on continuing to breathe deeply. Lightly your fingers touched my shoulder, ran up and down the side of my throat. So lightly I almost didn’t feel it at first. You stroked my skin so gently I was terrified you would feel how fast my heart was beating, thumping against the side of my neck. I was so frightened that you would feel it and stop touching me.

But you didn’t. You leaned forward and whispered “I think you’re gorgeous” and I could feel the words as well as hear them, they made little shapes in the air and collided with back of my neck, each one tingling more than the last, landing on my skin and resting there, slowly burning into the surface, leaving warmth behind like day old sunburn. Then you kissed me on the back of my neck and shoulder, so softly I thought I was dreaming and each kiss sent small shocks through my bloodstream, again and again and again.

I wanted to cry. I thought my heart would explode. I felt like at that point in time I wasn’t really there anymore, that I had shattered into a million pieces, like a mirror dropped from high in the air, tiny shards flickering and scattering the light, as though someone had opened a bottle of glitter and thrown it up into the air. I thought I would die right then. But I didn’t. You lay back down, kissed my neck one more time, and then I listened as you fell asleep. Your breathing became heavy and slow, your body twitching a little every now and then as you fell into deep sleep.

I lay there for a little while longer, calming myself, coming back into my own body and realising I was still there, in bed with you. The moment was gone, it became a memory so fast that it seemed as though it had never happened and I had dreamed the whole thing.

You never kissed me like that again. You never said words like that to me again. I have never felt like that since and I’m not sure if I ever will.

…

Bathroom company

There were two green frogs, flat against the rotting wood of our bathroom wall. One with legs outstretched, the other with his folded underneath. Their bodies looked cold, damp and so small, quickly breathing, their slimy skins rising and falling in time to an inaudible beat.

Then there was a brown spider, long legged, big-fanged and furry. Its bulbous body rested on the wood, seeming deflated, depleted, unmoving. It was missing a leg.

The frogs disappeared. The spider went missing. No small damp bodies. No fur covered legs. The walls remained bare. It felt so wrong without them.

….

Deceiving lines

Sometimes there really isn’t anything to write.

The lines on the page become heavier with every second that they remain empty, lines that wait for the solid round point of my pen to glide over them, touching, crossing and dotting them, but never erasing them.

They are the lines that came before the pen. They insinuate that they will support the words that are written, that they might welcome and comfort them, give them shelter even.

But these lines are liars. They provide no inspiration. They contribute no content. They stare at me accusingly, creating obligation and arguing that there is a necessity that exists based merely on their existence.

Sometimes there really isn’t anything to write.

.…

Purple orchid

Grey sky heavy with cloud
The day looks cold but is not
Heavy air
Trapping stale heat
A purple orchid twists
Moving this way and that
Turned
By an invisible wind
....

A nice walk home

I was walking home when I saw a broken bottle on the road. It was lying in the gutter, a beer bottle of brownish gold glass. The neck of it was broken off. I couldn’t see the missing part lying anywhere nearby. Whoever broke the bottle must have taken it with them. All that remained of its mouth was jagged sections of glass. Someone wrapped their lips around that mouth once, swallowing what was probably cold beer, maybe at the end of a hard day, maybe while walking home just like me.

I stopped for a few seconds and looked at it. I thought about picking it up and using it to slit my throat. Not really, but, what would it be like if I did? I had a cartoon-like image of what it might look like. I wondered whether someone smashed it on purpose after drinking it empty and walked away with the neck of it in their hands. Perhaps that person used it to slit someone else’s throat. You never know these days.

A short while later I saw a dead animal on the side of the road. I stopped and looked at that for a while too. I couldn’t tell what kind of animal it was, all that remained of its body was mangled black fur with splotches of red and innards that had hardened and started to turn brown.

I’ve always loved road-kill. I used to take pictures of it, back in the days when I used to carry my camera with me all the time on the off chance that I would come across something I wanted to immortalise on film.

Although, film doesn’t really exist anymore in this digital age, but you know, it’s the thought that counts. And anyway, you can’t immortalise something that is already dead.

…..

Tread carefully

The plumes of smoke
Were not a hoax
Curling up towards the black sky
There was fire here not so long ago
And so much heat
If you listen carefully
The sounds still reach you
Crackling and splintering
Breaking and splitting
Pieces of wood glowing red then white from the heat
Crumbling and turning to ash
Everything turns black then red then white then grey
There are coals here that can burn tender feet

...

Grubby fingers

My fingernails are dirty. Really dirty. If I’m honest about it, they’ve been dirty for over a month. I tap them on the table. They aren’t exactly short either and make a hard clacking sound on the cheap and nasty plastic tabletop. Who am I kidding? These nails of mine are nastier than the table could ever be. What is it that I keep touching to make them so dirty for so long? The frequency and consistency of the dirt amazes me, I might add.

After a good cleaning, an under-the-nail-bed scraping and thorough scrubbing with soap – either before or after a shower, although the results appear to be better when this process is followed by a shower – a superior level of cleanliness is achieved. I think so anyway.

And then, without fail, two hours later (again, if I’m forced to tell the truth, I can recreate the pre-scrubbing muck in a swift 20 minutes) they are filthy all over again. The familiar dark coloured scum reappears, gathering predominantly towards the centre of the nail at first, but when left unchecked and unmonitored quickly and rampantly spreading across the entire surface. Yes I watch it, study it even.

Various shades of “dirty” are achieved. Who knew that “dirty” had so many different faces; a chameleon of sorts indeed. Sometimes it hints of gardening activities, gleaming a dark earthy brown. Other times, my nails whisper that I’ve been digging for treasure in an ashtray and show a dusty shade of grey. Finally, a disturbingly bright green suggests that I like to cut the grass using nothing but my bare hands on a rainy day. On the most interesting days a combination of all three is layered carefully, almost like a rainbow.

Whether the dirt is a cause for concern has not been determined by me yet. Sometimes I worry people might be staring, but I convince myself they couldn’t possibly be close enough to see what’s going on beneath my nails. The nature of the dirt and its origin remains uncertain, so I’m not going to make a decision on the level of threat. For now I’ll continue showering, cleaning and scrubbing, and I know for a fact that it will be met with unyielding stubbornness by this dirt that resides so lovingly under my nails.

...

Dark wood

I make my way upstairs, one step at a time. The staircase is built of wood, it’s wide and unlit. Each step makes a section of wood somewhere creak. It’s not creepy, just odd. Every little sound is a word uttered by the stairs, just for me. A light bulb hangs at the landing, casting a small yellow circle of light just beneath it but throwing everything else in shadow.


From the landing, there is a massive hallway that I walk down to get to my room. Mine is the last on the left, one of four, and it looks out onto the street. The hallway too is made entirely of wood. The doors to the rooms are shut by a small iron hook through which a padlock is looped.


The wood here, like on the stairs, is very dark brown. It has grooves and holes and shiny areas that have been worn away by repeated contact over time. The place must be hundreds of years old and yet the wood is so solid that it feels like it isn’t just holding the building together but it’s holding me together too. I feel a sudden certainty that if someone were to cut the walls, I would bleed, just a little.


The noises from the floor below me, where I had just eaten my dinner, are fading. I can still hear the people talking, laughing and eating, glasses chinking and cutlery scraping plates. There is music too, softly, from the television that plays in the corner. But with each step I take the wood steals the sounds away, absorbing them, slowly inhaling them from the air around me and hiding them in the walls and floor.


The growing silence gathers weight. A feeling of hollow emptiness resonates behind my ribs, little by little. As my feet pad across the wooden floor to my room a round space opens up right in the centre of my chest and every step opens it a little more. I imagine a tiny man inside my ribcage, a dirty-faced miner deep within the earth, working away with his pick and shovel, expanding the empty space around him bit by bit.


I insert the key into the padlock on my door, and it makes the smoothest sound, each section of the key fitting perfectly with the insides of the lock. I turn the key, click.


All the windows in my room are open and the thin curtains are flapping, letting the air in. The night is hot, the air is thick and I’m sweating just from this short walk to my room. I sit down on the edge of my bed and listen to the noises that come into the room, floating in the windows on the breeze and hovering around me like ghosts.


Despite these noises coming up from the street below, I am silent and empty. The miner continues to work away, happily oblivious and absorbed in his work. The sounds fade away and I’m left with nothing. And yet, this nothingness has sound, it's like a rushing vacuum in my ears, in my head.


I know the sound well. It only takes a second or two. Like spotting an old lover on the street, for a split second unsure if you know the face in front of you, then realising there's no doubt; not only do you know the face, you know it almost as well as you know your own. I know this sound, this silence. It is the sound of loneliness.

...