Creak

by

Imagining the insanity of a billow-cloud eternity

Over some uncertain undefined finality and ending

Years of a life summed up in a pop-up book pages

Peekaboo

Open/close, one page to one year

Or like a bleak puppet show in a tired amusement from many years ago

Playing the part of a character, dusty with age and wear

going through the inevitable rituals and motions then put back

The sense of an air and time I recall but never experienced

Spines of books upon books upon books

every word, page, chapter worn and pressed from age

There was joy there once, words that came to life from the page

I was spellbound by the colour, the vividness and opportunities they bought

impressed by the almost infinite time in them

yeah I could be absorbed, transport myself into them through some unspoken vortex

become someone else somewhere else some other time some other universe

some kinda parallel – I’m gone but only next door

I’m not here but don’t worry, I can just step through this vortex portal again

and be with you in a flash, in a shout, a blink-you’ll-miss-it moment

and be with you

But these games don’t work, they’re slowly fading, degrading, rusting

and these books, well

they just seem like redundant blocks of paper standing still like Easter Island stones

looking wistfully and mockingly at me, sighing through years of history, some mine, some not

And it’s

like

if

I

knew

which

page

to

start

with

Maybe I’d be eyes open, kaleidoscope colours, spinning round the room laughing

camera looks at me, summer orange light shards through dust

smile now smile now smile

spin spin spin as I stare into the lens

played back years later click-click-clack of tape

wondering how seconds minutes hours became foggy dusty days weeks

months

years

decades

Trying to break down the code of every decision as it branched out into my life

building up these useless diagrams

mental blueprints of a life

mental

blue

Intricate

by

The hard-wired habitual loneliness of one night

Safely contained in one room [door bolted]

There’s a perverseness in the safety I feel

I mean it’s not safe

Lonely isn’t safe

It’s grey-wooly-can’t get out

It’s not a gilded lullaby sung to me as a wide-eyed child

Not the comfort of a warm embrace in winter

Lonely offering safety is lying to me

Lonely knows I know that

Lonely knows I know they know that

It offers joyous solicitude, quiet, peace, hear-the-clouds-moving-in-the-breeze

But delivers stillness, sadness, stifling to get air in a hot room

Sometimes I don’t know what I’m craving

The buoyancy and agility of a speedboat on the glitter of some sea abroad pock-marked with sun specks

Or the emptiness of a breeze through a valley where no-one treads

It’s the not knowing

The changing, flip-flopping, push up then shove down

The fragility of brittle glass being hammered by a storm

The lack of stability, of golden contentment

Watching the shadow of some ancient sun-dial move fast, faster, faster still

Day into night into day, circadian

I’m stood static in the middle of the scene

Colour of city scene around me fast-forwarded

All this there and I can’t grasp it

Because I reach [out] to touch it feel it experience it

And all I feel is air [or maybe sand] slipping between fingers

Slips away into cracks and crevices, imagined hills and valleys

Slips off from me as it has nothing tangible to hold on to

Winds away into the river, into the ocean

Where the drop of something turns into a blue-black mass of disarray

Like it never touched or knew me

—

I’m not sure I’ve ever known real sunshine or vibrancy

Was it just sugar-sweet-sickly-coated dreams that one sunrise brought

Was it just the vulgar gloom-aggression of the storm that day

Am I just frittering, flitting, fanciful

imagining some neon-bright, ultra-vivid dreamscape where I

walk, jump, dance, fly into the night

absorbed completely with nothing to frighten me

—

Did I tell you I once felt the wind go through me, like every molecule felt it

Did I tell you I once felt the leaves in the tree make movements so small in the air yet I felt them tickle ever atom in me

Did I tell you I once felt birth, life and death all in one beautiful, fractured azure day

That just for one second, minute when time stood still

just me air, the universe, the glittery promise of my next breath

how it felt like everything in that moment

everything

Did I tell you I understood, I understood how everything worked and came together

That there’s gold, glitter, shine, an unspoken whisper of unity and solace

Did I tell you for that tiny fraction, that tiny soft silver fragment of time

that it all made sense

—

but then quickly [like a sun setting on fast forward x 100] it went

it left me

and it left me so confused, so empty

Like I’d been touched so gently so powerfully

that I felt it there after for so long

but not long enough

Did I tell you how I craved that crystalline clarity of knowing

knowing for sure, with summer-day sureness and conviction

of what life meant

of what I mean and will have meant

—

If only, oh if only I could explain

how the light feels

how the darkness feels

how they entrap me and entwine me, every fibre of my being

kidding me I’m in control or sated

with the inevitability of the impact of a no-grace fall

with the absolute certainty there is no clarity, no magic-pill

—

But I felt it still

head to toe to head

Felt it fizzle up like static

wind its way through my soul

and then it left.

All the things I can’t remember

by

I take a mental tour of the house I grew up in

Some of it detailed, oozing with colour

others blurred or pixelated out

memories worn down by years and decades

replacing items with ones from my schema

I watch my feet walk but they make no sound

An absolute stillness, everything frozen

a whole world of memories but noone to share them with

going back in time just to find nothing there

just static, empty air

everyone’s walked out of the room and they’re not coming back

so I’ll just sit here in this timeless empty memory that it feels I’m the only one chasing

like if I could just fill in the gaps I’d be fixed [at least, no longer broken]

like I’m chasing something that might not be there

but regardless it pulls me in its mouth, devours me

so I keep on chasing

visiting

remembering.

The Cold Step

by

There’s a itch that, no matter how much I scratch it

Or try distracting myself

It’s there like omnipresent-won’t go away-just-you-try

And no matter how many steps (quick footstep watch the ground)

It won’t

won’t

A splinter I can’t find so I start digging away at my skin/flesh

It’s there I swear it is

I can feel it, experience it, it absorbs me

But I can’t

see

it

So it’s back to

step, foot, foot, step [footstep]

over and over, just to distract

just so something else in my head is there

otherwise I’d just feel

the tick-tick of inveitability

of this stupid pain

sensation

overwhelem

And you know it’s so frustrating

because if I could just find it, see it, touch it, locate it

I’d rip it out and discard it

throw it a million billion infinite miles away into the sky

into space

where it would shatter, disperse into the void

never to

be

seen

again.

Orange

by

Stepping off for what feels like the 100th time into a sudden vacuum of noise and odour and

hard to explain but almost angry

There are seemingly thousands of routes and subroutes and fork-split-decisions-make-memories

And I overthink each and every one of them

So it

slows

down

so much that I

lose time

lose

lose

lose

And I’m well aware that I’m gaslighting myself

as no, I can’t control time or space at will

No matter how hard I try to pry back the inevitable like a weakened bar in a cell

worn down by effort, frustration and anger from years and year

I can’t

it won’t budge

That ever-present permanence, in-yer-face you can’t change it

So I just

stop

Spiralling

by

After 112,892 rabbit holes

Body zapping me awake over and over and over

Color all gone to monochrome

Heart rate raised but entirely useless

Dopamine all wrung out and dried in the sun

Thinking of 100 different ways to piece together one million fragments

Using no glue or tools or skills or reference or assistance

And just staring at them laid there on the floor

Some shiny in the sun, some dulled with dust, some just beyond repair

Thinking to myself, how do I piece these together so this time they just stick?

How do I take all these fragments, make them whole but make them strong?

And maybe I can’t

Maybe I’m chasing a strength I can’t have or figure out

Maybe there are so many hairline cracks that one day I’ll just

shatter

and just be looking up to the sky, evaluating and over-analysing the way the clouds are moving above me

Maybe it’s so fragile I’ll just

smash into countless pieces

and then at least have some integrity of not pretending I’m not a mess

gradually decaying and becoming one with the ground, the soil, the earth

just a speck of dust that caught your eye when it reflected in the sun

just for that split of a split-second moment

then the angle of the sunlight changes

and I retreat into shadow

The Zoom In

by

Looking through a box – tiny hole [think pin]

All the way inside – white, black, red – only little world

Magnified and distorted, bending of ligh

I could reach in and pull myself in and live there

But I can’t, so I’ll just

Eye wide open against the glass

Side to side and up and down

A little tiny world I created

But it’s static and I know it’s not real

There isn’t even any pretend people in there

Just some walls.

Divider

by

It’s simply something I can see out of the corner of my eye

You know, when you think you’re seeing it but you turn around and – voila, it’s not..

And then I turn back and it’s there

Compelling me to notice it

Opaque, tugging for my attention

Look at me, look at me, look at me

But I can’t because it’s not actually there

It’s almost dormant

But when I try to switch of

It’s look at me look at me worry about me worry please worry

It’s entirely fallible logic locked away in a huge piece of amber

Granted

by

I know it might not seem much

Just a tiny fragment of a memory in a box

Not even wrapped up, just sat there lonely with some old documents

The ones that smell of old books, of long-gone DNA, of happiness, of sadness

But it counts for a lot, more than I bargained for in fact

It’s like time is looping in on itself, and I can sense on the object your touch, your breath, your thoughts the last time you touched it

I think about how you probably weren’t aware it was the last time

And yet here we are, we fast forward, still frame like a movie

Me opening the box and holding this little treasure

It’s not valuable, there’s no exchange for currency

Even if there was, I’m not selling

I don’t want to hold it too long, I don’t want its magic to evaporate into the air

Into the air, out of sight, into the universe until it’s just microscopic specks of your memory

Nope, I just want to hold this tight, be cocooned by your memories and legacy

I wish you knew that although you’re gone, it’s these little pieces of you and your life that linger and keep you alive in my heart and mind and soul

I wish

Passing It Over

by

It all feels very, very sudden.

Like when there’s a storm, when it’s raining and raining and raining and it suddenly stops.

I’ve got all these years and years of memories of you.

To be honest, they’re slipping away like sand through my fingers.

I felt you move on to another stage today.

I could see it in the sky and I could sense it in the air.

I can sense it in the ground underneath my feet.

That passing on of heritage, of history, of family and love.

Or maybe it was just my mind playing tricks.

Maybe it was me trying to find meaning in the rainbow I saw.

I don’t know, maybe it was you, maybe it was you both.

And that’s where it’s confusing, right? –

the ambiguity, the chaos, the not knowing.

So now you’re gone, I just have to find beauty in the confusion.

After holding on to the thousands of memories I have.

Knowing that someday, when I pass, those memories will pass too.