This girl thing, its not easy

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

And I scream out loud
Writing is performance art.
Being a girl
Is conformance art.
I shave my head
Cut off half a leg,
And still its not enough.

It is never enough.

The words they,
Obfuscate.
And I obviate,
any need for their guilt so pleasantly
Out in the yard
Dogs howl in the night
I remain out of sight

This girl thing is easy.

Makeup is like grammar
If so,
I write with a stammer.
A road full of rules
But nothing can stop me
Then, life, I am shackled
And routine has taken my-

I look for a saviour

Tall, dark, handsome and strong
But the things that he told me
Turned out to be wrong
I needed the money
I took the cash
I left him in limbo

I still, have a rash.

How did I get here
I’ll never know
I lived in conformity
But society bored me
I ran and I ran
But I never ran far
I ran in a circle.

What was I meant to be?

This girl thing, its not easy.

A stump of a girl, like me

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

And it felt like raindrops on my skin.
Until it blooded, bubbled, burst

Outwards.

Into raw, red, angrified pustules
Covering every speck of habitable skin.

Only to fail.

Fade!
Freeze!

And in its wake,

A

Seething,
Slithering,
Slime ridden,

Stump

Of a girl

Who? Me

Ate her peers for breakfast
Dined on her tutors at dinner

And ate the stars at supper

Spitting out the sun at the end
Cursing it for its vapid uniform intensity

A wrath enduring to infinity and the end.

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

The Riddle Child

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Hers is a passion
For things she doesn’t know
A curiosity philosophy
That helps her to grow

Mine is a caution
A safety net from strife
That somehow keeps her grounded
While she lives out her life

In a wonder world of knowledge
She seeks out the unknown
Looks for the answers
Unearths every stone

I sit in the corner
Looking out for danger
She strides right on by
As if I am the stranger

I’m not sure what she’ll find
I will never really know
She doesn’t share it with us
She discovers it alone

I want her to be careful
But my words don’t resonate
She doesn’t ever listen
She doesn’t stop or hesitate

In a world built by men
We sometimes meet in the middle
We talk and talk and talk
But still she is a riddle

Its been a privilege and an honour
As I have watched her grow
I love her more than words
But she’ll probably never know

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.

Mort-i-fied

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

I feel like an outsider.

In my own skin

As if I tugged it on over my organs this morning

Fresh and new.

I don’t recognise the face?

It is peaceful and calm

But there are parts that are not mine,

The nose perhaps.

Perhaps I will own the nose

But the rest cannot be mine.

I look at the wrinkled hands

They should be red from years of washing up

The water was always too hot

Red from detergent overuse

Flaky from hanging out wet washing

Yet they look pale and unyielding

The hands I decry as not mine.

The legs, more stumpy,

not long and elegant as I remember.

The toenails,

a variety of yellow and greens,

browns and grey.

Those are not the colours of a rainbow

the colour of toes worn down

years of shoes that never fitted,

shoes that were damp and fusty.

Before trainers were de rigueur.

I want to look at my breasts

They are covered by the dress

but I can see they are sagging

down and to the side.

These flaps of skin that once affronted me,

both literally and in metaphor,

they were so often in the way when I was young,

These saggy heaps of flesh are not mine.

I wonder at my ability to look so calm.

People mill around.

They are looking at me,

but not really seeing me.

I can hear them talking.

they are all talking about me.

Nice words.

None of it is about how I look.

I wonder what crazed event this is.

Is it a dream?

A place where everyone talks of how much they like you.

This is definitely not the internet.

Then someone hands me a program

I look carefully at the words.

‘Oh, I see,’

I say loudly but no one hears.

This is my funeral.