If you think you’ve had enough
perhaps you have
If you think you’re not enough
perhaps you aren’t
If you think something is impossible
perhaps it is
—
But if you think you’ve had enough love
ask an old person if they feel they ever have
If you think you’re not brave enough
look at the scars in and out of your heart
If you think life is impossible
water the grass coming out of the concrete
And you will see
I didn’t know but letting go of someone I’ve never met is the hardest thing to do on this dratted planet. I’ve let go of ghosts, friends, demons, good habits, bad habits. I’ve let go of memories, dead people, distant people. I’ve let go of parts of me which I thought were innate, but ultimately were inane. I almost added an ‘s’ in there. Of all the toughest decisions I’ve had to make over the years, this has got to be the most difficult one. Letting go of someone I have never met.
I had an ideal, once, and once only, and it was taken away from me. She was all I didn’t know I needed, and she had stepped into my night like a dream. The day I met her was daily nondescript. No buildup to this day, no chance of me thinking I’d meet my ideal person. So when I did, Death was amused, and after a time adorned it with tubes and a ventilator, and tied its life to a thin green line drawing mountains and abysses at irregular intervals. That erratic horizon of a line had to settle between those two, where the ocean meets them, and became as still as the doldrums.
Now we’re drowned among 8 billion individuals. We’re even specked into oblivion by billions upon billions of stars and galaxies we cannot possibly ever explore. Yet when I look at her, her uniqueness shines brighter than quasars, weighs more heavily on my mind than black holes on the fabric of the universe, appears more majestic and terrible than neutron stars. This is what I feel when I think of her.
Ultimately, our lives may not matter and our decisions only affect a fraction of whatever we call the reality around us. Yet I will not get to meet her; and surely Death wouldn’t be amused again because that is not how Death works, yet it feels right all the same. Yet I cannot shake this feeling that I have that it could be she, again, even if it’s not how Life works. I didn’t know but now I do, that letting go of someone I’ve never met is the hardest thing to do on this dratted planet.
One day, he picked up a shard of glass.
In the street. It wasn’t anything special
but it had a nice sheen in the sun.
It was flat, for the most part
glittered like the lake in summer.
It brightened his day.
He wasn’t doing too well at school.
Hank and his clique had stolen his lunch.
Again. Stepped on his shoes. Again.
Miss Atterby said he was slow,
he overheard her at parents’ evening.
Said he would struggle his whole life.
Later that night he heard his dad say
“What we going to do with him?”
His mom didn’t say a word.
Life was like that.
His dad drank and shouted and punched.
His mom didn’t speak, cried and made dinner.
He liked to watch the grass grow
and the sun make shadows
and sometimes glimmer on raindrops.
He wasn’t too bothered with others,
except when they stole his lunch.
He liked playing with his shard of glass.
Sunrays made it gleam real pretty
especially near the edges.
He liked it so much that he kept it in his bedroom.
Never brought it to school.
He didn’t want Hank to lay his filthy paws on it.
But he missed it every minute.
He rushed home as soon as the bell rang.
Sighed with relief unhiding the shard.
As even on rainy days it would sparkle.
One day he found another shard.
This time near the grocer’s.
When he picked it up the fat man
who always winked at his mom
with saliva at the corner of his mouth
said “You going to cut yourself”.
He knew adults were always right,
like the time he was told not to climb the tree
in the supermarket parking lot.
He fell and broke his collarbone.
That day he thought this was death.
And then his dad beat him more,
and he knew death was worse
than breaking his collarbone.
This was just pain. A lot of it.
So he pocketed the shard of glass
making sure he didn’t cut himself.
At home he cleaned it in the bathroom sink
with some soap. Delicately. Delicately.
The light coming through the oval window
made it shine so bright he closed his eyes.
He could still see the shard shimmer.
Then he put it in the box, with the other.
He played with one at a time only
because he didn’t want to cut himself
like the fat greengrocer has said he would.
It was like playing with the surface of the lake
every glint weaving around his fingers.
But one day he tried playing with both
and he saw they kind of fitted together.
They fitted so well he couldn’t pull them apart.
He couldn’t even see the line between them.
It was easier this way to play with them,
he thought, so he left it at that.
The glisters like liquid light
bright, bright
the only flicker in his life.
Life had no flicker for him, though:
school, no school, lunch, no lunch
dad drunk, mom crying
him crying because people were mean
torn jeans, getting beat, getting more beat,
and the fat one smiling always.
Until he found another shard of glass.
And another. And another. And another.
Over the month he pieced enough
to make something
he didn’t know what it looked like
but it was like a big hollow box
with one large hole and three smaller ones
and it spangled and glimmered
like a puddle of rain with petrol in it
in the sun so unbearably beautiful.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off it.
The box was getting bigger and bigger
with things like branches popping out
and it grew bigger and bigger and prettier
so he hid it in his cupboard instead.
One day, Hank got him good though.
His clique had cornered him near the bins,
he couldn’t run any longer.
They beat him and beat him and beat him
and a rage in his heart began to grow
his mouth tasted like metal and he smelt it too.
He thought he could engulf the world in fire.
When he spat his blood on the ground
he saw swirls of colours streaking across
like mad butterflies, purple and blue and green.
His dad made fun of him when he came home
black and blue and his heart beating in his face
the rage gripped his stomach and twisted
he got so mad that he took a map of the city
in the chest of drawers in the corridor
marked all the spots where he had found a shard
so he knew where to look for new ones.
It took him a week to find as many pieces as he could.
It took another week to assemble them all together
connecting holes with holes
making a structure which eventually
looked like a costume made of glistening water
When he was done the glass
all shimmery and smooth
was flexible like his clothes
with no seam or holes but somehow
he knew he could put it on
his face still contused hurt him when he smiled
as the glass costume fitted him like a glove
he became so sheeny that people winced
and looked away, hand spread before their eyes
the sun turned him into crystal
clouds in a grey haze
on rainy days he would be imperceptible
and Hank wouldn’t come near him
and Miss Atterby stopped saying he was slow
his dad shrugged and watched the match on the telly
his mom sort of looked and didn’t look
her eyes in the distance and smiled
One day he decided to go to the lake
and if the people picnicking there had looked
they would only have seen the surface
go crazily on fire, spangling like a night sky
like a shower of meteors glitzing the blue air
like a thousand suns firing up at once
like a million dragonflies’ wings flapping
as if all light and no light in a blend
Everything within a fraction of a second.
The surface of the lake, after the explosion, was undisturbed.
Be safe home, my friend.
– but home isn’t what folk think
home, my friend, is neither
the start- or the endpoint,
nor is it the journey
– home takes you to a port,
a door, a heart, a book
– where you hang your hat
for a single night
or a lifetime
warm like a hearth
– where you sit down
in good company
exchange news about
the world and the other homes
– homers nodding in agreement
sharing bread and broth
– where you replenish
your food stores
your memories
your laughters
your hopes and dreams
your itinerary
– where you renew the caulking of
your boat
your boots
your body
and set out again
– on your own but not alone
carrying with you
things you didn’t know you needed
things you didn’t know you had
– home is the slow filling of the void
more and more complete
as your journey unfolds
– and at some point you realise that
a mountain ridge beckons like a lighthouse
a friendship guides like a compass
a smile is a cross on a treasure map
like a familiar forest or a river bend
– and when one complements the other and
together becomes the place called home
you understand it is both
the movement and that which moves
– that is what folk really talk about
when they talk about home.
– So,
Be safe home, my friend.
I
The flesh, failing – failing –
raging against the years
renewing cells – renewing again –
against the inscribed odds
relentlessly flayed – decaying
constantly torn – remade
II
We seldom catch a breath
wrestled against the ground
face first – the years applying
their entire, smothering weight
“lovingly, in our best interest”
we’d hear if they could speak
III
The years ploughing, scooping out
handfuls of good will at a time
hollowing the heart out
altering down through memories
– leaving us more different than ever
IV
And us swearing we’re yet the same
our senses inadequate to deal with reality
the years unkind, brutal
ununderstood –
sibylline –
V
The years coveting prizes
– heart, brain, soul –
carving out a passage from within
– towards the light
which is anything but
covered darkness and
gravitational subjugation
VI
We fight back with gentle moves
and absurd gestures
towards eternity
– to ward loneliness off
and the despair freedom brings –
– to balance chaos and beauty –
– to stave the years off
hoping for a shred of dignity when
time finally comes –
VII
The years ahead – the years behind
matter vibrating into arrows
– all-encompassing discs –
desperate to prove it has
some measure of meaning
beyond these years
VIII
– there will be time –
– there won’t be time –
The years won’t matter when
howling like a dying animal
– whimpering and wounded –
we finally let go of the flesh –
and see the darkness
and the light
for what they are
to not see the darkness
not the darkness
– please –
– just the flimsiest of lights –
– only an eyeful of light –
– hollow out my eyelids
so the darkness escapes –
the scarry place
– the why we invented fire
and bay windows –
– the night we can handle –
not the darkness
– the darknesses of the heart
we have learnt to endure –
not the dark of the dark
that which thrums in our heart
silhouettes shadows over shadows
– so our eyes will choose
a greying of the unsight
over the blind nothingness –
too deathlike not to be it
not to wreck all senses
– so we wait for daybreak –
– flickers of light –
– floating afore our eyes –
– in the eigenlight –
You said it was the way I looked at you played with your fingertips drowned in your eyes starving your skin you felt happiness again your ...
