pathetic poetry and patterns (30.09.2021)

on the last day of September I don’t know what I’ve become

I slipped and missed the boat and now I can’t be anyone

is there something else I should have done?

do you know why I’m here?

on the last day of September I’m a little worse for wear

I’m losing everything I love and don’t know if I care

is there somewhere else that I can run

without so much to fear?

and here we wander in illusion

until oblivion is proven

this blissful hologram is home

if you think so too

and here we wait for more until

there’s nothing left but time to kill

this blissful ignorance is home

and every word is true.

on the night before October I don’t think I want to live

another dream of all the joys this silly story cannot give

I don’t know if there’s more to say

do you know why I’m here?

on the night before it’s over I remember I’m alone

I cry a lot but sometimes I still see you on my phone

perhaps I’ll make some sense someday

October’s nearly here.

and here we wander in illusion

until oblivion is proven

this blissful hologram is home

if you think so too

and here we wait for more until

there’s nothing left but time to kill

this blissful ignorance is home

and every word is true.

the tapestry needs stitching

in the hours of the witching

on the last day of September

I’m not much more than my lost temper.

the tapestry needs stitching

and the hologram is glitching

on the night before October

it’s safe to say the joke is over.

and here we wander in illusion

until oblivion is proven

this blissful hologram is home

if you think so too

and here we wait for more until

there’s nothing left but time to kill

this blissful ignorance is home

and every word is true.

armour or a shell

I work away the hours of the last day of the month. the tedium is an armour or a shell that keeps me safe from thought. I read the headlines and they’re saying more about the rallies than the genocide that prompts them. today they bombed three countries all at once. I watch from my desk as I scan the web for papers I don’t understand. the skies are grey and then they’re not and we have to close the blinds.

on the train home I read rhymes I wrote three years ago. I laugh at my unchanged obsession with what I lack. the reflection in the pathetic poetry is clearer than the monster in the mirror. three years and not an inch of movement. I breathe the same today as then. I’ll have to wake up soon.

fake plastic world

at the rally a child holds a sign that makes me cry. there are shouts for justice in languages I don’t understand. on the sandstone steps they tell stories of their families and friends they’ve lost to the greed of white men chasing land that isn’t theirs. there is weeping and the shouts grow louder. the crowd is told to contain their rage and march with dignity for fear of arrests or what they’ll say about us on the news. we live in a world of lost sense: in which we keep shopping as the bombs drop, and demands for peace or waving a flag is condemned as dangerous by those funding the massacre of babies in hospital beds. displays of outrage and fury are more newsworthy than the genocide that stirs them. tens of thousands of innocent martyrs are no match for a dead dame and a football game. I laugh at this fake plastic world we have made, and yet every day I don my robes and play my part in the farce. I wake to the facade of stability and sunshine and I am ashamed of the peace I am afforded because of where I was born. I wash every inch of skin and it’s never enough.

I moisturise my face

with open eyes I make the choice to focus on the time and love I’ve lost. tomorrow there is more and I can take what I want from the oxygen and hours that come with the rising sun. tomorrow is a gift that I can choose to love or loath. there is a luxury: to take for granted the safety and every comfort I’m afforded by wanting more. on my phone I watch buildings flatten and children crawl through mountains of rubble in search of their parents. I try to understand why security is not enough. in the mirror I see the lucky hypocrite for whom nothing is enough. outside the world is burning. he knows he’ll never have to face the flames and still wants more.

before bed, I moisturise my face and brush my teeth. I imagine breaking out of the body I’ve grown in forever. what would freedom feel like? every day I seem to spoil more time thinking about this assortment of bones and vital organs. the skin that houses everything I am expands and I want to be more and less than what I see in the face of my reflection. there is another luxury and I entertain thoughts I shouldn’t to make myself more miserable. with nothing real to hurt me I fear the frame I need to learn to love.

I pull words from the stream and try to make something from nothing that matters. I search for sense in empty thoughts that never meant anything all.

too loud

in my dream I am driving at night through a city I’ve never seen. the car is full of people I don’t know telling me where to turn. I want to listen to what they’re saying but all at once they’re too loud and I don’t ever catch more than a couple of words. I wind up onstage behind a flat taller than my home. there are girls from my high school singing their revenge plot for a packed house. the stage lights stream through the gaps in the plywood frame and the band swells under my feet. I recognise the song they’re playing and realise I should be wearing more than just my pyjamas. from behind the set I spy the ensemble lining the wings side stage. I draw looks of concern from unfamiliar faces. I don’t have my costume and I’m trapped onstage.

when I wake I mostly want to sleep again. awake is dangerous. the bombs that drop in dreams mean nothing. the day waits and I am ungrateful. on the screen I lose myself and whatever energy I’ve harboured for change that I need in a spreadsheet that will never end. there is a photo of my family on my desk. when I look at their faces I miss what I take for granted in their presence. I am the ultimate investment of their love, lingering pathetically on the periphery of movement. I am the shell of the vessel of potential they built. my hull is home to an unwanted ecosystem of algae and life under the sea I can’t control. I am docked at a port I could have left with the drive and faith I once had in the thought that I can be fixed. the waves lap at my side and I rust.

a needle I’ve dropped

the heat gives way to showers. at my desk I sit by the window and listen to the water meet the glass and the pavement. the sounds are safe and I am warm inside. every day I count new privileges I’ve never thought to question. at night I’ve only ever slept in tents by choice. when I sleep, I do so without fear of storms and what they might mean for tomorrow and the days to come. I can love the rain for how it looks and sounds through the window. I can love the rain without knowing how it feels.

outside there are sales and storms. bombs make graveyards of buildings that should still be schools. there is a part I am playing as I watch from my window. but I am inside and nothing is moving. every thought is a needle I’ve dropped on the floor in the dark.

before I need to

I wake to silence before I need to. early morning light touches everything and I turn to face the wall. the day can wait until the keys ring through my phone. when they do I ask for more time with one tap. everything is blurred and I can’t recall my dreams. I wonder who or what I saw and if I’m better off not knowing.

off the train I join the current into the belly of the station. the procession is somber and swift. in silence we all move as one: the same pace and purpose without a single word. every one of us is loved and loathed and wishes things were different. on the platform there are pigeons and tired and empty faces. in the bathroom mirror I am somewhere in between. 

at my desk I tend to tasks I don’t quite understand. the day is heavy heat without a glimpse of sun. the faithful coward is an empty page fit for filling in. he thinks about the end of days and his taxes funding genocide. he writes about himself instead.

in windows

at my desk I welcome another day and the silent invitation to forget about everything I am and lack. I punch keys and slip in and out of meetings wearing different faces. there is time for laughter and serious business and I am good at playing along. when I lose focus there is a world outside my window. I see it through my phone and read about it on the news. the figures are devastating and I feel the weight of anger grow. when I want to cry I remember I am lucky and there are tasks to tend to and spreadsheets to hide in. I seek refuge from reality in windows that mean nothing.

the sky is grey and I close the screen to empty time and space. with a million ways to fill my time I choose to fall into myself. inside there is nothing new. everything is too familiar and I feel restless in my resentment for the way I’ve slipped and let the weeds take over. the garden is overgrown and I continue to disappoint myself. were there flowers to be found, they’d still die at my hands; too much water or thinking or something. the weeping tree in my parents’ garden blossoms for one week each year. I curse another spring of not being there to see it.

change is a memory of a dream I try to paint. the colours blur and I’m still here but the thought should still mean something.

bugs need fixing

when I leave the day behind I sigh into the pillows. there is relief: I have conquered the hours of light and every hill they had me climb. I wake to the feeling of falling behind. it lingers, an itch on my every thought until I’ve done it all again. if I do well and finish with time to spare, I’ll try to sit in stillness until new bugs need fixing. I find ways to spoil my time; and if I can’t, I create them. there are rituals I can’t explain, the echoes of an anxious child I hardly recognise in photos on my parents’ mantel. the habits transform and fall in and out of significance. I don’t have the language to address them. I’ve put them on the list.

on the phone I hear voices I miss. when I’m asked about myself I feel tired and reluctant to try to find the words that would make some kind of sense. the asking is a generous invitation and I am an ungrateful recipient, though I know I am lucky and should confide in those I trust. it is easier to listen.

I talk to colleagues about stress and not enough time and do nothing about it. I watch parents pull children from crumbling buildings destroyed by bombs I funded and I need to check my emails.

the exploding phones

in my dream I walk with my brother through the rain in the dark. at some point we help an elderly man of distant relation up cobblestone stairs. in his corner of the crumbling castle where we’re staying I walk him to his wheelchair. he needs to see the doctor and I take him, pushing up further flights of stairs, in and out of rain pouring through the holes in the ceiling. by time we reach the doctor the man is better and I’ve lost my brother. I scale empty hallways without candles, lit only by glints of moonlight and their shadows pouring through the leaking gaps in the roof. I find him collapsed at the foot of a couch. overcome with panic, I haul him over my shoulders and retrace my steps to the doctor’s office. he is heavy and choking but I am determined and manage up the stairs, despite my fragile frame. once I lay him on the bed, the doctor tells me we’ve lost him. I remember forgetting how to speak and not wanting to leave the room.

when I wake my body is aching and I feel the build-up of tears behind my eyes. I realise I can never see a world in which I can’t see my brother anymore. I run past the scene of the crash from a couple of mornings ago; the uprooted fence hanging precariously over the courtyard it was placed to protect. a trail of black oil tarnishes the grass and the pavement over which the van had lost its bearings. I think about the lady and wonder if she slept okay.

at the rally they talk about what the news had to say about the exploding phones that injured thousands. a dystopian act of terrorism lauded as tactical and clever by media funded with the same taxes fuelling the ongoing massacre of children. I think about my dream and can’t forgive myself for my complicity in the same nightmare for tens of thousands of families I will never know. we march the streets and chant about resistance and justice for the martyrs. when it’s over we fold the flag and leave as we arrived: strangers connected by our shared concern for what this means about humanity and the path we’re slipping down.

I buy ingredients for a recipe I can’t remember. I think about a surprise I wish I could forget.

with more meaning

there are moments I choose to weigh with more meaning than others. there are patterns and I draw lines between days that mean something as the tide washes over everything. memories emerge vaguer every time, the water smoothing every edge and texture. I forget so much of how I used to feel, and will continue to do so - though right now and forever, feeling feels like everything. tomorrow I will remember less of yesterday, and the next day even less, and on and on. the bank of empty memories fills with a whole lot of nothing.

but some days mean something. there are feelings I remember, but also numbers and patterns between the figures with which forces beyond my comprehension determined how we should order the time we’re forced to spend. the 21st day of September offers a claustrophobic host of meaning to me and people I have known and loved. there’s a friend I had in school and still think about most days. were she still alive, she would have celebrated 27 today. time is unforgiving and people pass in and out of our paths and I wonder if we’d still be friends in a world without the crash. would I have ever started folding cranes? could we recognise one another now? would she be happy? there is no way of knowing and though I have learnt to live without answers, I still carry questions I can’t ask in the yolk on my shoulder as I’m pushing my boulder.

my friend in the clouds shares a birthday with someone else. we met far from home in a world that no longer exists. when we shared the same roof we told each other everything. when we had to leave and return to languages and hemispheres that didn’t match, we held on for a while. calls and messages and then nothing. I still try to reach her, unwilling to let embarrassment keep me from reminding her that I’m still here with the same love I held for her since before we left. I wonder why she disappeared. on the bus a stranger compliments my style. her accent reminds me of the friend I wish I still knew as well as I worry about her. I hear from her on birthdays and I never know how to respond. I wish I could hug her today.

the day has been heavy, even without any reminders or space for thought or conscious reflection til now. I cancel some plans and push myself to those I think I can manage. I sleep through most of the afternoon. when I wake I am more tired than before and laugh at how the meaning I give with my heart seems to weigh back on my body. it has been half a decade since I moved into a crumbling shell of a hotel in a haunted village. I found a part of myself there in the family I made for the three months we shared in laughter and tears and cups of tea. one of us is a parent now. most of us don’t talk anymore. still now, I feel the absence of what was mine; the things I took for granted and the rest. we met around tables in a kitchen none of us loved but all of us needed. I close my eyes and see the faces of those I wish I still called home. if I try hard enough, I can still hear some of the voices. I hold on to what I can from photos and phrases I remember, choosing to cherish what would be easier to forget.

I think about these things most days. they linger safely in the web of currents cradled in my skull. my heart has learnt to hold them. my body has felt them today.

record time

on the phone to my brother I walk through the supermarket and look for food I don’t need. I forget to respect the sanctity of public spaces and update him on my health and what the doctor said. it feels small and insignificant to me and on reflection I find it strange that it should mean more than facts and figures. he tells me he wishes we could live together and it’s funny because we did for so many years without really understanding how lucky we were. I think of his lens and how he sees the world around him and wish it was at least a little less like mine. I buy cashews I’ll floss out of the corners of my teeth whenever I remember they’re in the cupboard.

they asked me to take the day off. I woke before the keys of the alarm and made myself run. along the way - just past the point I cross the eight lane road by the park - I pass a van obstructing the path, dents on the side and an uprooted steel fence crushing the front. a woman sits at the foot of the scene. she wears a beige cardigan and listens to a police officer leaning in her direction. I catch a glimpse of the eye not covered by the hand holding her head and feel ashamed. I can see her problem and run. I wonder what she’s feeling and if she has the money to cover the damages. she watches me pass and the cop keeps talking.

my eyes are heavy and I fill empty hours with none of what I told myself I’d do had I the time so spend. the laundry dried in record time and everything is clean.

glaring gaps and wonder

sitting in the waiting room I hear an argument escalate from the reception desk. one of the doctors growls at the admin staff for not keeping them in the loop. a member of the team notes that the message in question had been communicated through email and letters in the pigeon hole. the doctor shakes her head and sharpens her tone and though I appreciate the brief distraction this affords from me and the state of who and how I am, I feel angry. after my appointment I make a point of apologising to the staff at reception for having to deal with such unpleasant displays of insecurity. they are taken aback and claim to not know what I mean, but thank me for my feedback.

the doctor writes too quickly and squints at words on the screen. I leave her office with papers that make me someone else’s problem. when I read through I laugh at the mistakes and glaring gaps and wonder if I’ll ever be free to enjoy the same carelessness for my own duties under the rule of this mind of mine.

after work I lose the blissful freedom from thought that keeps me efficient and so very faithful. I escape  the clouds in my room and the last of the sun is spoiled on me; reading the parables of another mind that thinks in ways it shouldn’t. I see myself in the absurdity and wish I could live in his words as one of the clowns that he fools. when the time comes I will try to write like him and for a moment entertain the thought that telling stories makes me special.

after the sun there are empty rooms and dishes to wash. I clean the floors of a home that isn’t mine.

fuel

some nights I can’t catch the sleep I need to fuel my body for the day to come. instead of dreaming up days that never were and never will be, I lie awake and count the dreams I shouldn’t harbour but can’t quite help bringing to boil. the faces and figures of those I love and shouldn’t are tapestries I can’t quite tear,  hanging on the underside of closed eyelids. by my pillow I listen to the faint hum of the current of energy running through the cord and pumping charge into my phone like a bloodstream I can hear.

on the bus in my dream the boyfriend of someone I know plays a piano track from my new favourite film over and over. in the movie the melody plays whilst the heroine recounts a dream she had about a world where dogs ruled as humans and humans were dogs. I laugh at the pathetic thought that my hearing the keys play the same tune in my own dream might mean something.

at work we reach a milestone. we thank the corporate card for drinks and cheers to another boulder rolled. I leave with less days ahead of me, gaining little more than a headache. at home I’ll think about the phones that blow up in people’s pockets and the bombs that flatten schools because my taxes still charge a war machine my country calls a friend. I want to dream of you and when I do I wish we never met.

tragic toys

my vocabulary consists of words that tick boxes and mean nothing. I say ‘framework’ and ‘indicator’ more than the names of people that matter to me. when I listen to my own voice I am bored and disgusted. divinely uninspired and as stale as cardboard or the adult I promised myself I’d never grow into. is it better to read the news and be angry?

my friend sends a photo of what she found in the second hand store: twisted children’s toys we once displayed proudly on our bookshelves, now rare as diamonds even on the internet. I was a child then, and their features scared my parents, which is probably why I liked them. at eleven I tried to order more that never came. tonight they’ll watch over her sleeping from their perch on the shelf. the mould on the ceiling lingers like clouds obscuring stars and dreams. we make plans to write our wills together and pledge our trinkets to each other. I like the idea that my pin cushion queen will someday rule her vanity cabinet.

toxic thoughts I should leave to the stream feed on what little energy I can find like parasites, crawling into crevasses to set up camp. they are sticks of gum chewed into balls stuck under chairs in every lecture hall I’ve tried to learn in. was there gum under your seat today?

to paint with oils

in the queue at the departure gate I feel a tickle in the back of my throat. my nose starts to run and I laugh without making a sound at the thought that my body knows that leaving isn’t what’s best for me. my ticket doesn’t scan correctly and it’s late and people are tired so they give me an upgrade without checking. on the plane I sit in one of the spots with more leg room and notice the different tone the flight staff use with those of us in the first three rows. in the air I listen to fragments of voices I used to know and read my way through ancient message threads like some sacred scripture. by time we land my head is heavy with unanswered questions for ghosts I’ve loved and lost. the terminal lights and sounds offend my senses and I lose the scent of what I felt and sober to the steps between me and sleep.

the tickle becomes a scratch that keeps sleep at bay. I try to focus on the tasks thrown my way, but looking at the screen is a chore and I feel dizzy. my brother asks me how I’m feeling. I tell him that I am in love with an idea that will never take life and my taxes are used to build bombs 3 km from my pillow to drop on children because of where they’re born. he tells me he doesn’t think anyone can be a good person anymore; that we can only live and die on the spectrum between being aware of the pain we are causing and blissful ignorance. he is learning how to paint with oils. I am learning how to listen to myself.

I catch myself

I sleep through the time I had set aside to spend with a friend I miss dearly. she is understanding and I catch myself as I often am at work: apologetic and in a frantic state of unrest as I try to find words to emphasise the weight of the disappointment of the error on my end. she spends the day fending for the joy and needs of three children she is raising, in a world that is impatient and in which I know she too often struggles to rationalise waking up to. I pack my bags to return to the life I keep in a room too small for the thoughts and ghosts I carry unchecked at the departure gate.

there is cheese and chocolate in the fridge. my friend cleans her face to brace the day after swearing we’d live and die alone in my room if we could. I catch myself crying as I spread peanut butter on her toast. in my house she is my home and I will not hold or see her until I return to crumble in a heap at the foot of another year. we try to predict what life might look like then, if we act on the changes we say we need to make, well aware of who and how we are as children in these shoes, incapable of seeing beyond now or doing what’s in our best interests.

the sad girl sings about somewhere in Germany and fear of God. I wind down the windows when she tells me to as I fly down the highway. she screams and I join in until my voice is gone. tomorrow I’ll wake to another week of more and nothing will have changed. there will always be ghosts in my dreams and words I can’t say. I will read the news tonight and tell myself to picture them happy.

the front of a bus

I only see people I miss in my dreams. when they appear before me with open arms it feels real and I forget they’ve been gone for so long. when I wake I hate myself for not holding onto them longer. in my dreams I don’t miss them because they can always come back.

before I stir to the day and the boulder I clasp on to the front of a bus. the road ahead is dimly lit as we fly down the streets I’ve learnt to call home since leaving the home I knew before. the turns are sharp and I clasp onto the windscreen wipers to avoid falling prey to the wheels and the asphalt. the night is cold and my heart is racing. I am scared and I smile.

I press buttons and the lights turn green. the cat sleeps through my phone calls with voices I’ll never tie to faces. I let myself wish I could be more like him.

a chance

I wake from dreams I forget too quickly. in the shower I cut my jaw and the water runs a little pink at my feet. by time I’ve passed over the summit of the day I am exhausted from taking myself too seriously. the distance between life before the contract and how things are now is insurmountable. I admit to losing patience with myself and those expecting me to want to give more to what they won’t make time for themselves. dad reminds me how hopeless things were before my church gave me a chance. I boil the kettle and wonder if it’s worse to have no hope or time. there is a middle ground but I can’t quite see it yet. give me time. I will look for the liminal again.

craters in the earth

I spend time with friends I’ve known a whole decade. they feel out of reach until we remember how to laugh together. for friendships sustained on the unfortunate foundations of grief, the joy I feel in their presence is remarkable to me. I ask about their work and relationships and marvel at just how different their lives are to my own. they talk about former school friends getting married and the next trips they want to take. I try to picture waking up in their shoes. in the morning, one goes to work to tend to the administration of a middle class country club. the other goes undercover to investigate crime across the city in which we’ve each grown and sobered into adulthood. I wake up and open my screen and forget about my friends and anything else until now. they both want to buy houses and wait for proposals from the men they love. I want to run away and never catch sight of a mirror again.

I draw boundaries I don’t enforce and take phone calls I don’t want to answer from a church that creeps its way into my sleep at night. in my dreams I am running from one task into another. there are craters in the earth caused by bombs and shells burning children alive. there is rain on the window and I want to do more than work today.

other ways

I listen to my friend on the radio. she speaks with authority and I feel pride and tell myself to remember these good things. there is warmth in her voice when she talks about her brothers before reading the news. I hear her laugh in the handover back to the morning show presenter and hope he realises how lucky he is to occupy the same spaces as her. there is cause for me to reflect on the fact that I am connected through this feeling to so many people I’ll never know, all of whom take pride in loving the friends and parents and children and partners I work with. there is cause for me to think kindly of those who keep me on my toes or on the fringes of comfort, frustrating or patronising with their demands and assumptions as I try to keep up with the rhythms they set for the hymns I’m still learning. there is cause for me to think, though I am tired, and find myself thinking enough about matters more important. there is life beyond my screen and there are other ways to be.

basque cheesecake

at the screen in the house where I’ve almost always lived I pour my hours into something that means nothing once the sun disappears. important people use big words and I listen and sometimes find the right words to say in response. the cat chases glimpses of sun through the windows and sleeps til the shadows pass with the day, forcing him to seek refuge in some other shred of sun. between meetings I hang laundry on the line on which I used to swing before I could reach it without the shoulders of my older brother. I sleep and I breathe in the house I was raised whilst I jump to the tune of the hymns of the new church. I am home but not all there at once. my days are sold and I am one of many bowing to the contract.

at the end of the day I sigh and complain about petty emails and tasks I don’t want to face tomorrow. the new friend living in our spare room lends a sympathetic ear and offers me a slice of basque cheesecake. locked out of his homeland by a war he would be forced to fight if he returned, he sits on the couch and finds new ways to make me laugh. far from the people he loves and a home he may never see again, he greets my presence with joy and empathy. not once has he complained about the existential dilemma that keeps him limping through the liminal. I think of my own plastic problems and I am embarrassed. through his eyes I see my own short sightedness of the privilege into which I wake each day. I am ashamed. we eat at the same table and laugh at the same jokes. he knows nightmares I could only ever live in dreams.

wake again

I collect dirty dishes discarded on cushions and stools on the outskirts of conversations I lack the will to engage with. in the kitchen I run warm water and play with petty resentment as I hear laughter from the other room. I take for granted the privilege of turning a tap and knowing I’ll have water to clean with, not to mention the family I too often forget to thank. in the pew in front of us I see my eldest cousin watching over his daughters, who seem to have grown full faces of hopes and doubts in and under their eyes. I admire him despite how far I have disconnected myself from those relationships in the past. I have no doubt he’s an amazing father. the priest soliloquises about being more than lip service to what we claim to care about. I watch my father rub his eyes and wonder what he’s thinking. I listen to the prayers and try to make sense of the words from the perspective of someone to whom they are foreign. this goes nowhere and I laugh at the fact that I tried. there is no unlearning the script or the scripture in which I was raised to believe. I take communion and tell myself I should pray more.

I show my brother a film. he didn’t like it like I thought he would, though he’s zoomed through the play I let him borrow. we feel things in similar ways but don’t find the time to share them at the moment. I look for understanding in different places and find some kind of peace in the weight of the day on my eyelids. there is rain and then there is not. I will work until I don’t. until then, I sleep until I wake again.

scrambled eggs

the cat wakes on the couch in the sun. he stretches off the fatigue that is only rewarded to those who have slept for too long and makes his way to the dish on the floor in the kitchen. if it is empty, he pleads for biscuits, rubbing up against the legs of those in the house, well aware of what they’re willing to do to win his affection and company. sometimes they don’t catch on and he needs to cry. sometimes they know just by the jingle of the bell round his neck that he is looking for something (attention or food) that they will happily give. I pour another cup of biscuits into the dish on the floor and refill the glass he drinks from. tonight he’ll sit by my side on the couch to assure me that he appreciates what I do, that the care and the love is reciprocated. tonight I’ll hear him meow outside my parents door whilst mine is wide open and waiting for him.

on the stove I make eggs, which I scramble and serve on toast for my parents. I still don’t like the taste and I still love preparing them.

due on the weekend

a dear friend called me last night to tell me she was due to give birth on the weekend. I spent more time today thinking about the unspoken impatience of people I don’t even know. I need to wake up.

repent

I make mistakes by not saying anything. the people in charge are frustrated and their patience is waning. when they ask me what happened I don’t try to hide - there are no excuses and in my embarrassment I claim all responsibility for the actions that were never made. for an hour or so my head is heavy and the day is tainted by the disappointment of those I answer to. I apologise profusely and make myself even more of a mockery than I had been on the basis of not opening an email. only after closing the screen do I laugh at the fact that I felt so afraid and believed I had caused harm and done something wrong. I confess my sins and plead for forgiveness and I am a pathetic pawn for the church on whom I depend for myself and tomorrow. I’ll laugh about this to myself until I’m on my knees again tomorrow.

everybody idles on the platform playing leading roles in films nobody will ever care to watch or even ask about. I think of something I want to say and never write it down. 

all the same tomorrow

I am told that my passion for the work can be felt through the screen by someone on the other end. I wonder if they don’t mean what they say, or if the smile behind the pixels on their screen is enough to conceal my blissful detachment from what any of this means. they ask questions with big words like parameters and frameworks and internal compliance. I nod when I should without knowing the answers. it’s enough and they buy my performance of feigned understanding and care for the bucket of checklists and forms that I’ve rolled up the hill. I log off and laugh in the face of the fact that tomorrow I’ll wake to the same bucket spilt at the foot of the hill. 

hairs and habits grow and the little control I have over the latter only shrinks the deeper I slip into unwanted rhythms of being. I look at my screen and think I only ever bore myself or wish I could disappear. today I used ‘thus’ in a conversation and wanted to flush myself down the drain. tomorrow I’ll do the same without realising. remember when I didn’t know how to talk and all I did was cry? neither do I. how did I think and feel before I this was new? when do I forget who and how I was before? I entertain the thought of a tiny ribbon of possibility that any of this matters. I open the door and my lungs and my mind and it’s all the same tomorrow.

tasks and dreams and grocery lists

there is a rule for everything, and if there isn’t, there is only a matter of time until we’ve made one. as disappointing as it may be to acknowledge how hopelessly we depend on codes and bills to frame our every day and very being, it makes some kind of sense. I think of myself - no matter how hard I try not to - and how much my fickle sense of stability relies on the illusion of order presented to me. in communion with those around me, navigating their own assortment of tasks and dreams and grocery lists, I learn to wake and face the reality of my own insignificance each day through the structures that neatly package every breath and break. the predictability is upsetting and pathetic, though it is through order’s imitation that I reclaim my days from the storms.

I curse the very patterns that fuel my pulse. on my phone there are hospitals without power and school walls painted red with the blood of their students and the privilege of stability is lost on me. to hate what I need and not see the good it affords me: could ignorance be any more clear?

look away

the winds shake my window into making sounds like on the creaking boats in pirate films. my parents said that they were lucky they didn’t lose power over the weekend with how strong it’s getting down south. my laundry dries quicker than ever and if I close my window I can work from my desk undistracted with no reason to complain. a package arrives in the mail - the new shirt I ordered online to have something to wait for. I’ll wear it on the street after work as though anyone cares what I buy from the shops. in a week or two the newness will have worn and I’ll want something more and play the game again. there will be something new to need, upon which satisfaction will depend until it doesn’t. I will look forward to something that means nothing until it means even less in my hands.

I lose the day to digital threads that unravel back into themselves. by time I close the screen I can’t remember what I’ve done or if any of it really went anywhere. there was a mistake or two and though I recall apologising I don’t know what it was I did. I wonder if I was really sorry if I can’t remember why. I leave my prayers and guilt at church and find something else to think about until the morning. there are films I’d like to watch and there are fears of how they might taunt the dreams that follow. there are more books I want to read than days I want to spend awake. I think of the reasons I smile between everything else. on the street by the station I pass somebody sleeping on the pavement and decide to look away.

I swallow a fly

before bed I watch part of a movie by the director that I’ve grown to love like a friend for our shared cynicism of the human project. it’s scary and though I’ve seen it before the blood and black humour echoes in the dreams that follow. I stay in a hotel with four strangers, all of whom know only one of us can leave alive. there are waves and visions of meals at long tables lit by grey skies through windows and of taking tin boats around the island where they’re keeping us. the sea breeze is calmer than it should be and I feel the heavy dread of knowing when we return to the table one of our strangers will have killed the other and had the chefs disguise them as dinner.

there’s another dream somewhere about the one I say I love onscreen because it’s safer to long for something you’ll never have than what you could but never will. I surround myself by strangers and the rituals of a group that stray far from who I am. the actor I love is doing the same, and so I do what I think I must to draw their attention, surrendering what parts of me I need to put on hold to find a path to them. we end up in the museum in the city where they live. I’ve seen it before but everything is new with them there with me. they take my hand and we run through the galleries. in the face of the work of the artists that decorate my bedroom wall,s nothing means more than the actor I will never meet. they take me in their arms and I could be anywhere and feel the same. they pull me behind statues and kiss me like I’m the reason they woke up. I want to buy their groceries and wash their face. they say they want to take my picture in front of every piece they love.

when I wake I am tired and sore from the gore of the dreams of before. at the end of my run I swallow a fly. I cough for the first time in months.