We Cleave and we Cleft

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Every weekend its the same
We halve and divide
There is only enough for one of us

To get through

The other sits inside
Chained to the mast
Trying not to catastrophise

We are two sides of the same whole
Like a coin that is flipped
One of must land flat

And the other must squeeze her nose into the floor

And sniff the carpet
I wished it wasn’t this way
I know it won’t always be this way

One day she will stride out of here without me

Proud and strong
And she will vent her anger
That I held her back so long

She will want me to explain
How whilst I walked in the sunshine
There was so much rain

Because they are never truly real

They never become new
Until they make themselves
Separate from the parts of you

I try and hold her close, but it is never enough

They don’t want.
I never wanted her to be
A mirror image of me

We must divide and separate
She must become her
And I must stay as me

We separate and come back together

We cleave and we cleft
We go right
Then we move left

We dance this dance together

One day she will be fully grown
And I will dance this dance
Alone

Dismembered and Unjoined

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

The noise of the train is a kind of silence.
We have to lean forward to speak
Strain to hear each other

I think its deliberate

I can’t be this person today
The person that I normally am
She has up and gone away

I have disconnected
Dismembered
Unjoined.

All the things that join me up

I have let them go
To run amok on this train
Without consequence

I have released my fingers for example

Released completely
From their obligations to obey me
They are splayed knowingly somewhere else

Strung out on the seat next to me
Pretending to play a piano
That does not exist

Taking up a space that is not mine

A woman looks at me.
She wants to sit down
But I have ceded control

They can do what they want.

My toes, my feet
Have simply walked away
Gone into the next carriage

They have left my shoes
Along with my socks
Astray in the aisle

My lungs are heaving in great chunks of air

They hate the train smell
They are hanging out the window
Sucking in the moist morning fog

My heart is beating to a tune I have never heard

Thumpedy, thump, thump, thump
And thump again
I think about my liver

It might have remained loyal

But my eyes are resolutely closed
I am in a darkness
Against my will

My mouth is making shapes
My ears are on my knees
And my nose is running

It is more of a jog to be honest

But it is unpleasant.
For me
and for other passengers

My elbows are poking people I can’t even see

It is one of those journeys
Where I just don’t feel like me
The shapes don’t fit

Nothing makes any sense

My body has run amok in the carriage

And no one will speak

Train noise is a kind of silence.
It hypnotises.
Its a kind of social blindness.

As we pull into the station,
I put out a call to arms
Thankfully my arms respond

They collect all my pieces
Put them back where they belong

I may not be me

But I will be whole again

At about midday
I wonder about my liver
I wonder, is it loyal?

I am still not sure about my liver

Every word I’ve ever known

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I have cut my nails
I have pulled out all my hair
Slashed the bottoms of my feet
And let them bleed on the stair

You have to look it in the eye
You cannot back away
You have to look straight at it
Say what you have to say

I pricked the end of every finger
And every single toe
I climbed into the bath
I am letting it all go

There’s no other way to get it
You can’t let yourself obscure
You’ve got to know you’ve got this
Rather than half sure

I looked at bloodied water
And out loud, I said my name
And then I simply began
Because I will never be the same

You cannot hold back
Give it half of what you’ve got
You’ve got to give it everything
If you want the lot

I just said them all
Every word I’ve ever known
And when I was finally finished
I was finally alone

I rounded them, caressed them
I let those words go free
Sent them out into the world
No longer part of me

Then I closed my lips quite tightly
I let my tongue finally rest
I am wholly ready now
I am at my best

I go back out into the world
Scarred yet fully formed
And I live my life

In silence.

In total silence.

And in my silence,

I will deafen you.

The ‘Me’ Muscle

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I spread wide
And then I contract
Like a muscle

I release
Then hold back

I command the room
I take up all the space
I expand

Next day
I cannot find my place

I ebb and I flow
Then I flow and I ebb
I hide behind the sofa

I sleep
Under the bed

None it makes any sense
None of it feels really me
I’m never really sure

What you get
Is never what I see

I hear my own voice
I hear the words I say
I say them out loud

In my head
The voices never go away

I am not completely sure
If I am ever really me
Is there someone

Somewhere else
And I’m just pretending who I’ll be

Divide and multiply

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I want to know why
When I undivide
Pay my full attention
I don’t multiply

I am simply whole

I unseat myself
I stand up
And shout out loud
No one hears me

I don’t under-stand

I stand up really straight
I don’t slouch
I make noise
I yelp, I scream, I call

No one responds

I unkind them all
Repaying all the kindness
I take it back
And pay it over

It does not work

I unhinge
And take the door with me
When all I had to do was
Was turn the knob

I want to fly

I need to resole
To find my spirit again
Not a simple make over
I don’t need to resurface

I dig deep

I decry
Let the pain slip away
I unwind
Closing the door to the breeze

Yet still I am ajar

A bottle
On a window sill
Liable to fall
To break

An infinitely impossible number of glass pieces

I recede
Plant myself firmly
in the ground
Hold back, then go forth

Redouble my efforts

I redouble
I multiply
And there is the answer
I spread out across the universe

I come apart

And I spread out across the universe
And it is joyous
To see the world again
To re-view

I give it my undivided attention.

I Drew Myself

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I remember when

I became

Definite lines

Before then I was a half sketch,
With holes and gaps
Things could easily seep out
And they did.

Horrible residual bits of me left on the floor

I was a blur
I appeared at parties as a set of double lines
Nothing held me in
And people saw through me

And around me

I was small floral patterns on a pale background
A little bloom, a potted plant on a brick structure
The sunflower seed
The one that germinated in the shade

The spindly stunted one

Spreading spiky leaves
Out in the semi darkness
Clasping at drips of water
That were absorbed into mortar

But somehow between the dance tracks
And the last track

I formed

And maybe some of it was you.

But I drew the lines.
Real and definite and clear.
I dredged them out of alcohol sodden carpet,
And blood stained sheets,

As fingers clasped at my neck

I made my lines hold firm.
I took a bruise or two
I stole a brick from that wall
And replaced that flimsy stem

I shed those useless leaves

I stole every brick,
Every strip of wall paper
And my brightness shone out
above the wall

Clear, definite and real

And you

The sight of you,
the smell of you
Became a blur
Off in the distance

A faraway spot on a fading horizon

I can barely see it

even if I bring my hand to shade my eyes

A strange sooty spot

on the heel of the shoe that is my life

I clean you off.

I am definite and real.

Lines coloured in, and you?

You, I have forgotten,

Left behind on the doormat of life

A poet in the mirror

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Today I met a poet
I don’t know her name
I saw her image in the mirror
I am not quite the same

When I read her words
They tore me apart
Thundered down the hallway
Stabbed me through the heart

Do you think its possible
That I might not be here
I dissolve into the wall
I might never reappear

I want to make as if
You can never truly see me
To go into the silence
And not exist completely

Because I have read her words
They echo in my head
I don’t know why she wrote them
They were not words I have said

And yet they came from somewhere
A place that I have been
I deny understanding
They are not words that I mean

Yet still she keeps on reading
At the top of her voice
Shouting ever louder
And I don’t have a choice

Today I met a poet
And I cannot pretend
The words that she shouted
They were mine in the end

Exo-skelete!

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Rhythm

Beat-beat-beat-beat

Heart

Beat-beat-beat-beat

Have been thinking
Turning it over

In my mind.
The outside
Covering.

Soft and permeable
No use
In this harsh world

I cut myself

Bleed.

Drip-drip-drip-drip

Like a dodgy

Tap-drip-drip-drip

To prove my point
I want to-I
have made the word

up-‘exo-skelete’!

To go from this
Soft outer coating
To something

Armoured

To bury my pulse
Beneath a heavy
framework

My pulse

Dot-dot-dot-dot

You are questioning
my idea

dot-dot-dot-dot

Sat in my chair
this afternoon
I thought my bones
outwards

I expanded them
I thought them out
in fragments

Out-out-out-out

Through the pores of my skin

Out-out-out-out

Armour, body armour
On the outside

And now I sit here
Enthroned
Resplendent
Complete

An ivory tower
A tower of bone
A hardness
Worn on the outside

I wake from dubious
slumber
Assured of who I am
What I am

I stand to shout

But

Crackcrackcrackcrack

My bones are brittle
Old
It is not how I thought
It would be

I am a seething mass of blood and organs on the floor
The dog comes and licks me away
The rug is stained forever

And I am gone

Gone-gone-gone-gone

Self care and the zip

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I look at my hand
Freshly washed
The faint smell of soap
I waft it through the air

I don’t want the faint smell of soap

I sit down
I am old
Tired
Yet here I am

I should have long since passed from this earth

I lay out on the couch
Prepare myself
I reach my hand
Forward, up, back

It is a violent action as I shove it down my throat

Deep inside
Down, down, down
I have made a cut
Fitted a zip

I pick out the food scraps caught in its teeth, let them slide down into my stomach

I momentarily,
Panic!
I always do
It is my hand

But its like there is something foreign inside of me

I unzip
Reach out
Through
Into where my organs sit

Down to my stomach, I have not been able to chew my food for a long time

I mash it with my hands
Squish and squeeze my innards
I feel my kidneys
Press them hard

They are calcifying in old age, All these things I must do

To stay alive
I push the food
Through my intestine
Its like making a sausage

Because that is how you make a sausage, squeezing it through an intestine

I consider
Should I ?
Will I?
It is possible

To pleasure yourself from the inside, but not tonight

I tickle my lungs
Smile
They still work,
Breathe in, breathe out.

My heart long since past its best, withered and drawn, pulsating to a soft dignified, dying beat

It is my heart
It will fail me soon
I squeeze, release.
Squeeze, release.

It is too old to do it all the time on its own anymore, I must attend to it occasionally

Squeeze, release
Squeeze, release

Squeeze

Release

Squeeze

Release

I find a rhythm, I pump it for maybe an hour or more

Then I pull back my hand
Fumble with the zip
Wrench my hand
out of my mouth.

I will live for another day, there is a secret to eternal life. Now I sleep

And come back as a man…

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I try and breath fire into my words
I try and find it deep down inside of me
As I hang the washing out

Again

You have to pay your dues they say
You are not a prodigy
There is no big break coming

You are just an oddity

Those people are truly talented
They spent time and learned their craft
In the hours you spent washing up

They were making art

You’re never going to make it
There aren’t enough hours in the day
You should just give up now

You should walk away

They sat at their desks
Pored over every word
You were doing ironing

They were being heard

I know you think you have a voice
You have something to say
But trust me when I tell you this

Housework doesn’t go away

The dinner it needs cooking
You need to clean their shoes
There’s no time to be a poet

You ‘re always going to lose

You should resist the urge
To put your words on paper
Theirs cleaning to be done

And it won’t wait til later

There isn’t time to write
Forget that funny life plan
Perhaps you’ll be lucky in the next life

and come back as a man.