And then I Flew

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

The beginning

I cling to the tree. A spindly, sparsely leafed whip of a thing that is no taller than me. I’m not sure I should call it a tree. It’s a cluster of gnarled branches with the odd bit of greenery. Its central stem only slightly thicker than the rest of it.

Its roots can’t go that deep. The top of this cliff is sand and dust and beneath it is the stone that is this edifice. The tree is the nearest growth to the cliff edge, a brave little soldier that clings on to life, much as I cling on to it. Sometimes I pour the remains of my water bottle on it. I like to think I am keeping it alive and not vice versa, or at the very least our relationship is symbiotic.

When I let go of this tree, there is nothing between me and the edge. I come here often. And I cling to the tree. I feel its papery bark sticking into my fingers. Sometimes I get splinters, small grey bits of  tree that I take home. I dig them out with a needle. Little specs of blood and bark intermingle on a tissue on a table in my lounge.  

I am scared of heights. Or edges, maybe edges.

Some people are scared of heights because they are afraid of falling, others because they are afraid they will jump. That last one has a name, that fear of jumping,  High Places Phenomenon.  Apparently its your brain misfiring, misinterpreting the signals, that’s the science stuff. In literature when its described, its more about freedom, about the void, about flying, about wanting to know how it feels. A few seconds of absolute freedom, of falling.  Its hard to describe why its so attractive as an idea.

That’s why I am here again clutching the spindly tree. I am back from the edge. I am not thinking of the landing, just wondering about the sensation, the feeling of those first seconds, milliseconds. How will that feel?  To just go over the edge, to know that sensation. I cannot control it, that urge, desire.  Not easily. So I hold the tree. I let myself imagine. Close my eyes. See it. Guess at the feeling.  But not too much. After a long time I let go of the tree. I turn around and I go home.  

I do not think it is healthy for me to live near here much longer.

The middle

I moved away. Down along the coast. Somewhere flat.  The highest rock on the beach, about 2 feet, most I could do was jump onto sand and sprain an ankle. I swam in the ocean. I drank in cutesy coffee shops. I had long lunches with friends. I held a job, bought a house. Years passed and I thought it was gone. That feeling in my belly. That thing I was never quite in control of.

And then one day I was swimming in that ocean, and I felt it. The lump. I thought a lot of things, and I thought of that again, of that sensation, of free falling. Of not ever knowing it, well at least not in a physical sense. There was a visceral sense of falling but not a physical one. I went for tests, there was a treatment plan. A diagnosis. A prognosis. A life, a future, curtailed but there behind the meds. Hope. And I went back to the ocean, to its coldness, to its salty embrace, to prepare, to deal with it all, to get my brain in gear.

But I knew. I knew the end.

The end

The day before treatment started. I packed up the car. I drove. After 20 years the old town looked different. I went to that car park, which was now much closer to the edge. They moved it, but my beloved little tree was still there. Not much taller, still spindly, still clinging on. I booked into the only hotel in town. I slept. At 6am I got up. And then before daylight came I drove back to the car park.

It was empty. I got out of the car. I took off my boots and socks. This was a bare foot trip. The car park was gravel so the first few steps were not pretty. After that it gave way to dust and sand.  I went beyond the barrier to the tree. That wondrous, spindly, spiky creature that had held me steadfast for so long. I high fived the warning sign as I went.

Danger beyond this point. It should have said freedom.

I grabbed that little tree like I had so many times before. I spoke to it softly. Remember me. And I’m sorry.  And there’s a lump, they say I will get better but I don’t want that. I asked it for forgiveness, like it was a God. And just to bear witness. I felt its bark dig into my hand. It had not changed in 20 years and deep inside I hadn’t changed that much either.

Then I looked into the sun that was emerging on the horizon. I peeled each finger off the tree. I stood beside it briefly. I didn’t scream or yell. I just ran. Only a few steps. I felt my feet pound into the ground. The dust being kicked up.  And then there was no more ground. And one foot felt the air and then the other foot.

And then I flew.

The Line

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Its us. And them. There is a line. Its been that way for awhile now. My mother talked of it. And after she was gone so did my father. Now I talk about it. To my children.

We watch from one side of the boundary. They feign ignorance on the other. But there is a line, there is even a physical line. Its a skinny strip of land with a muddy, dirty waterway running through it. The water way is artificial with a cement bottom. Shallow. It separates us from them.

We hardly ever cross it, traffic is mostly one way. I do go over sometimes. I look at them, clutching their phones, clutching, scrolling, scrolling, clutching, scrolling as if you can eat pictures. You cannot eat pictures. Or phones.

‘Hey, wanna buy a phone.’

‘No, I don’ wanna buy a phone.’

Its better if people don’t know about us. I’ve been offered a lot of phones. I know the value of a cow and it is not the value of a phone. A phone is not worth a packet of seeds, not a single seed for a phone.

They don’t say it out loud. They mutter it under their breath, AI, its AI, its AI that’s done it. Its not AI that’s done for you, it’s the system that’s done for you. I don’t say that out loud. The phone tells them otherwise. If they just got a new skill, if they were more positive, if they got rid of the toxic people, if they were thinner or had better hair. That phone that tells them all of that, but not how to live when there is no jobs and no money. Telling, telling, telling them it is all their fault.

It is a scrappy bit of land between us, unusable, plastic polluted, smelly. The cows won’t go near it. It takes courage to cross it. They come. As a last resort, to this place which looks lush yet frightening. The insects horrify them. The plants terrify them. They are stunned by how chickens actually look and smell. The chickens I own are layers, they are not picturesque. They are not on social media. They are chickens. We eat them.

It used to be the other way. We’d cross that scrappy bit of land, looking for jobs and education and money. How did it reverse, fall apart, how am I to know? I just hear their whispers, some days when many have lost their jobs simultaneously it’s a chant, AI, AI, its AI that’s done for us. But they cannot rage against something they cannot see for long and their phones tell them all the time, eat better, work out, feed your mind, up skill, down time, it is you that is the problem.

I had a phone once. I buried it in the sand a long time ago.

And so they come.

‘My designer trainers for a meal.’

Designer trainers are no use to me, they get muddy just the same.

‘Here, here is a tomato, enjoy it, it’s the first of the season, I will take one of your shoes and you can bring me the other tomorrow and you can trade for something else.’

I do try and be generous, but I cannot save them all.

They slink away in hunger, one shoe on and one shoe off. I think I am generous, perhaps it is humour. I do smile to myself at the one shoe on, one shoe off.  Perhaps it is cruelty, but I only have two feet. I often wear mismatched shoes. I don’t really like tomatoes.

They’re too frightened to fight. Then too hungry and then they are dead. The dogs. The dogs are a problem, the other side of the line.

There are some that still live well. Some small few. Or so I hear.

It has been this way for awhile now. It will be this way until the last phone flickers out. Not the end of the world but the end of any number of lives. Do not confuse the two things. It might be the end of the them but the ‘us’ are still here. The platitudes and clichés will pass, no more pastel painted plywood signs saying ‘Love’ will hang on walls. I am not living my best life. I am just living an ordinary one.  My advice to my children, the best that I can give, ‘learn to grow potatoes, keep your chickens near, start tomatoes off indoors, and when you milk the cow, side on, further from the front, closer to the rear.’  

Fisher woman

Posted on by tuesdaylatte

Its common knowledge that you should not fish at the mouth of the river. I did it anyway. It’s how I ended up in the water, although the exact sequence of events is a mystery.

I thought I could swim. That was just the waves teasing me, tossing me back and forth as I lay submerged in the early morning surf. I was trying to gasp for air because I did not yet understand that my lungs were full of water. I wasn’t sure if I was dead. I felt I was mostly dead but not completely dead. Just a bit dead, if that makes any sense.

It was a flounder who told me to relax, really just a pair of eyes poking through the sand, the occasional flurry of shell flakes announcing a presence. I don’t remember hearing fish talk before.

‘Is this death?’ I didn’t ask that question out loud but I guess flounder are clever.

The flounder laughed a sort of raspy laugh, sand at the back of the throat I guess, ‘Not quite, this is near death.’

It wasn’t painful, I was just a little bit alive throughout my body. The flounder was gone.

I felt the next fish nibbling at my flesh. I wanted it to go away but I couldn’t say it. My mouth was salty and dry, but really my mouth was wide open and full of water. I couldn’t see the fish. I wanted to close my eyes. Because of the sand. I could smell the sand, it was in my nostrils.

The fish stopped nibbling and spoke.

‘Fish know a lot about death.’ The voice was deeper than I expected, ‘because we are often pulled into your gaseous atmosphere and suffer gill collapse’ (fish words not mine), ‘near death, close to death, dying, maybe dead, only to be plunged back into the water, still near death, still dying, and eventually dead even though we were meant to be saved.’

I always thought they survived. The fish I put back, I thought they just swam away.

I felt something bigger tugging at my leg. It was an octopus. I could hear my leg calling to me saying goodbye. I wanted it to stay. Fortunately the femur held, disjointed, unjointed but attached. I heard the high pitched giggling of the octopus, as if being able to keep your limbs in situ was a funny thing.

The sky was darkening, I had been rolling under the surf the whole day, dead, not quite dead, some bits dead, other bits not dead, talking to the fish.

In the darkness I felt air on my back. The waves had rolled me to the beach. I thought I could expel the water from my lungs and live again. I felt the tickle of a crab. Then another. And another. I wanted to laugh. I felt their pincers, expecting sharpness but instead soft, gentle, tickly tugs. My skin gave way. I was coming apart, finally I was coming apart and the fish would be quiet again.

Unbeing

Posted on by tuesdaylatte 
I am unbeing
I have thought myself into it

Into unbeing

I am like flotsam
Floating out across the ocean

I am real, not real

You can try and pluck me from the water
But I will slip from your grasp

Because I have ceased to be

I hide under the duvet
And there is form and shape

But there is no matter here

I puff and I pant
with my hand between my legs

Just so I feel something

But if I touch no one
And no one touches me

Am I real

In here, in the morass of
Nowhere and everywhere

I have somehow made myself disappeared

I am unbeing. 

And I cannot find a way back. 

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Resonance

				

			Posted on  by tuesdaylatte		

			


	
	
			


	

		






There's an echo of movement, 
In these tired limbs
A sense of where they've once been
Of maybe what they once did

We are wedged here in limbo
Between the living and the dead
Between the dead and the nearly dead
We struggle through the day

Buoyed by a silence
A screaming moment
Free of the sound of sirens
Before they blast out into the night again

And then 
In the darkness of the Autumn
All of it
It, Re-sounds

The noise again and again
Louder
And loudening
Out across the landscape

An echo of a time we thought past
But the dead are walking towards us again
Silently, fearful,
Clutching at breath

We are bound, gagged, chained
Enslaved to these silent horrors
They happen outside of us
Yet stain the inside somehow

Scarring us in words we cannot find
The tap of keys on a keyboard
That is not a voice
It is an artifice

Without being heard
And somewhere a heart beats
Beats
Beats
Beats
And stops
And its not the noise that resonates with us
It is the silence
Echoing outwards
Ever closer
Towards us.
And we are not delivered.

















































































	


	



					
						


	

		
Sometimes it feels

				

			Posted on  by tuesdaylatte		

			


	
	
			


	

		
Sometimes it feels as if


We live in a dark place

A moment in time

 

Where there are more tears

Than laughter

 

More clouds over head

Moments when the sun 

 

Won’t shine

 

There is before 

And there is after

 

They knit together

Imperfectly

 

There is a tear

And a tear


I close my eyes

 

When all is nothing

And no one seems to hear

 

In the hours of darkness

And there have been a few


Look deep down inside yourself

On the inside there is you

 

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Compressing Water

				

			Posted on  by tuesdaylatte		

			


	
	
			


	

		
And I just 

 

Stepped 

 

Out

Into the world

 

That looked the same

But was somehow

 

Different

 

Straggled hair

And dusty shoes

 

I wasn’t sure my legs would even carry me

 

I stood in the takeaway

And I felt 

 

Normal

 

How it used to feel

I closed my eyes to 

The stacked chairs and tables

I didn’t look at the shiny new stickers on the floor

 

I pretended not to see 


Haggard tired eyes

Or hear the fraught 


Kindness in the voices

I smiled

 

My face unused to the exercise

 

I went back 

To a different time

In my head, 

There was noise and laughter

The ghosts of happiness 

Footsteps, light and free

Haunted the tiles


Where I stood


Adrift in a fantasy world


I sucked in air

It was like 


Pressing down on water


My hands dripping wet

With nothing to show for the effort

 

Because whatever was here

Is gone now

 

I could only remake it in my head

I clutched a bag 

Of soggy, greasy food

All the way home

 

I wafted the smell of hot chips 

Through my kitchen

With tears in my eyes

I fondled polystyrene

Lovingly looking at the limp cheese

And chewing on cardboard meat

 

I remember this

Gone are the days of everything

I settle for less 

When I buy toiletries


In half filled streets

Pale, sunlight starved, stupefied masses

Are making their way out

As if the zombies have been 


Re-lifed

 

What happened when I was cocooned 

In lockdown 


Maybe it wasn’t real

Real was somewhere 


Outside 


I think I have cabin fever

But no fever 

Because then I would need a test

My words run on and on 

For so long there has been 

Nothing to say

No self improvement

 

For so long there has been 

A quiet waiting

The only voices

The ones in my head

A quiet piece of music

A stiltified song unsung


Like pressing my hands 


Down through the 

thick 

deep

water


A noise, lyrical and loud


But not a song


The world off kilter


And I feel all wrong


 

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Look Away

				

			Posted on  by tuesdaylatte		

			


	
	
			


	

		
You think there is a time

For going back

A way of looking over


Shoulders


Seeing the past

And figuring it all out

Accounting for the loss


The losses


A time to measure

To recalibrate

To understand


Grief


But it is all just lost

To the lords and ladies of time

They are dancing in a room


Without you


You can look behind

To the side

Up, down


Askance


But it is a dance

A slow summer waltz with demons

Only you can see


The past


But most often

It is best to shut it out

Close your eyes


Look away


Because the losses are

Enormous

And real


Be true and honest


The incalculable number of coffins

Hang your head

Look carefully at your hands


Your hands


Look at your hands

Are they stained

Or are you imagining


It


Did you dream


It


Wake in the nightmare

Before

Or after


It


It is real

It happened

But its easiest not to look


To look away


Askance

That slow summer dance

When you think of


Before


That was just different

Different

A different day


Downtrodden


We the foot soldiers

Tired and weary of war

Have to look


Forward


We have to soldier on

Like men with guns

Shuddering in the wake of the bullets


And the bombs


There are no guns here

If there were

We might turn them on


Ourselves


They tell us

Its not so bad you see

We all wake to a brand new day

We’ll move ahead

But in a different way

Look forward

Not back

Look ahead

It’s a bright new day

A different way


But we can’t look ahead


We can only look away

	


	



					
						


	

		
Crowded Out

				

			Posted on  by tuesdaylatte		

			


	
	
			


	

		
Atmosphere!

 

I am,

 

Crowded out.

 

There is space

 

But I can’t seem to fill it

 

There’s a lot of noise 

Mostly in my head

 

Its there when I wake

And when I go to bed

 

I can’t discern, decipher

Its like a jack hammer

 

I reach out


But I falter, I fall, I stammer


I try to take hold of time


To hold it in my hand

It slips from my grasp

In ways I don’t understand


My words don’t flow


There’s a lot of thinking

But there’s nowhere for it to go

 

What we’re going through is 


Monumental


Stuck in a room

It feels a bit less 

Fundamental

 

I haven’t done what I intend

I didn’t do it now

I didn’t do it then

 

The list just grows longer


And time just seems to bend


The tunnel ahead seems more narrow

I forget yesterday

Before I’ve done today


It has passed into tomorrow


I wake in the dark

Convinced I’m under water

I sit with my head in my hands


I think I drowned 


And haven’t noticed yet


I wander in the garden

Wondering why I’m wet


In the dead of night

I tell myself I’m healthy

So I should be alright

 

I kneel by the pond

I want to swim in a river

Its cold outside

 

But I can’t seem to shiver

 

The world just started slipping

It kept on gliding by

I turned away from the window

Stared at the sky

 

Its all gone now

Everything  was yesterday

I cling onto my sanity

 

I hang onto my brain

I’ve stopped waiting for the sunshine

And learned to live in rain. 


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Unwild me now

				

			Posted on  by tuesdaylatte		

			


	
	
			


	

		
In the dead of night

Fingers,

Unfurl 

In the darkness

Eyes open and close

 

This is a world on its knees

There are lights here 

But no one can see

 

She says who are you?

In the dusky gloom

Comes an answer

Fully formed



Out of my mouth 

Before I can think

I don’t know

 

Anymore

 

I am no longer a fixed point

I live outside my body

Twixt

The rooms, the furniture

The functions

I am shrunken



I inhabit the world around me

But it has faded

And I have grown

 

Smaller

 

There is no one here

I must have misheard

That was a voice 

On the edge of the darkness

Was I awake or

Asleep

The words came 



On the cusp

Of consciousness

So they seemed real

 

And the answer was true

I don’t remember who I am

Only the furniture I use

 

Unwild me now please

Give me structure

Give me bars

Paint my cage with rules

Pedicure, manicure

Haircut

Tim, taut, tan

Make me up 

Because

Turns out

I was made up




The trappings of being 

Somebody

Civilisation




Are gone

 

There is some- body

Left here I suppose

Arms, legs, 

A vague idea

Of being

But me has floated away


Downstream



I lie here in the early dawn

Firm in the knowledge

I am not any- body

Yet I am not anybody

 

Anymore

 

It takes my breath away

But no one sees

So still I breathe

I wake to routine

To tapping on a keyboard

In an airless room

And I am still unsure

If I don’t touch the keys

How is it words still appear

 

How do I know

How can I tell

If I am even here

 

And then the groceries 

Arrive

And there is reprieve

Real people eat

I must be something

Sometime once

I am sure now

But I was half this morning

And I remember now, 

Once I was complete

 

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