The day I became a woman

The day I became a woman

the heat sizzled up from the ground

blurred over the tarmac

of the dark blue driveway

the cloudless sky clearcut

neatly at the horizon

Dad said they’d barbecue 

steaks and sausages 

with the neighbours

in the evening

, when the air’d cool off

the crickets made such a racket

trying to find one, lying on my belly,

the ground’s warmth under it

watched their legs crisscrossing

making anodyne songs

to anybody who would listen

but the lawn needs mowing

, dad said to no one

put on something decent

ladies don’t stay all day

in their undies

, lady, he said to me

so my brother took the grass clipper

out of the shed so old it shed

brown, curly, paint-shavings

he was panting, sweat-pushing

the heavy blades spin-shearing

the shiny green mantle

perspiration drawing cityscapes

on the back of his undies

I didn’t like that boys could

wear what girls couldn’t 

he could stay in his underwear

I stood up, arms akimbo,

about to protest

Then I must have done something

it must have been the blades

of grass sticking to my chest

for dad looked up at me

transfixed, then

ran in slow motion

towards me

did I need to be saved

? were the grassblades cutting

into my flesh

? his gaze zeroed in on my belly

So I looked down at my panties

there was a ruby mountain, inverted,

right where my legs converged

like the reflection in a lake

right when sunset hits the top

I dipped my hand in its waters

a vague feeling of old pain

like a cold, hazy memory

In a blinding flash

I imagined the evening talk

around the chromed barbecue

the little one is a woman now

, they’d say

they grow so fast

lose their innocence so fast

, someone’d add

when I took my fingers out

glistening crimson

the urge came

to lick them

I knew that taste of metal

but wanted to know mine

but dad held my hand

my brother’s petrified eyes

at my gorgon-crotch chimaera

while dad washed my hand

in the sink outside

called out to mom

somewhere in the house

, the little one needs attention

, he said rather tersely

swiping his own fingernail

under mine to clear the clots

Am I in trouble dad

, I asked

no of course no you’re not

, he said ruffling my hair

, but now you can’t go about

strutting in your undies

, but why I asked

, because today you’re older

than you’ll ever be

, decide and guard

or decide and give

, he said

, he looked sad

his eyes slanted

handing me to mom

, yes I’ll do that dad

his big green eyes

shot into mine

, keep that fire up

, he said, and smiled

his back looked sadder

than I had ever seen it

The day I became a woman

the summer warmth

sizzled up from my stomach,

the crickets, the grass clipper,

my brother’s sweaty undies,

the smell of my own blood

as dad washed it up

all this fired up my soul

and burns bright still

so I decide

who to share

this fire with

and guard

and give

Trust

The drivers will trust the plastic-and-metal hull

to protect them from other masses of metal

hurtling down the road at 60 miles an hour.

The alpinists trust the asperities will hold their weight,

trust the ropemakers who threaded their fate,

the villagers trust the snow up the mountain will stay.

The lovers trust their hearts will withstand the blows,

those which sear the body and send down the throes,

dying of a soul ache is no longer in fashion.

Parents trust no funeral card will reach them at all,

and trust never to receive that midnight phone call.

Workers trust never to become superfluous,

trust colleagues to do their work and not shit on us.

The dancers trust everyone hears the music inside.

The musicians trust everyone sees the dance they hide.

Friends trust their friends to pick up the fucking phone,

no one this depressed should be left on their own,

they trust that ready-to-snap bootlace to hold

because they need to catch this last train

to help their friend as their forces wane

thus straining the very fabric of the world.

We trust hundreds of small things, every day,

we even pray for storms to pass overhead,

to hold and to let go, to leave and to stay,

we need to trust when all hope has fled

and black, menacing clouds come our way.

They

They fake it till

they forget they’re faking

over time become evil

and forget they had a soul

hack away at it until

none’s left and

evil turns natural

They forget they can’t have

more without the pain

always wave reality off

for a mockery of love

hate always a trade-off

hate always a gain

The rage they feel blinds them 

makes them think hurting is caring

and human swiddens collateral

They smile through the chaos

and when gifted the heart

they request the soul

carve it out themselves

and swallow it whole

They drive with no brakes

hurtle through like meteors

down highways and streets

cutting corners until one of us dies

until one of us cheats

They drain time like a black hole

smother all light until

nothing’s left

but empty shells

cracking underfoot

in the darkness

They do not stop

and never give in

until the fire without

echoes the fire within

The rest is not silence

"Je rêve d'un jour où l'égoïsme ne régnera plus dans les sciences, où on s'associera pour étudier, au lieu d'envoyer aux académiciens des plis cachetés, on s'empressera de publier ses moindres observations pour peu qu'elles soient nouvelles, et on ajoutera "je ne sais pas le reste"."

Évariste Galois (1811-1832)

The damning

If I can’t love in full, I can’t love at all.

As then my love dies like echoing footfalls.

But you, you let it die. Conscientiously.

I can’t do half-loves found on rebated shelves. 

Nor can I do small sex like some do small talk.

But you, stifled it, with a pillow, slowly.

Feigning ignorance isn’t my strongest suit.

But you, you asked me. I tried. I did. I failed.

So you took my love, crumpled it, and burnt it.

I stared at you while the flames consumed it all.

Not with rage, nor with hate, nor with disbelief.

I didn’t stare with love, or disappointment.

I watched you as I have watched so many leave:

bruised, battered, confused, happy and unhappy

to leave yet another soul scorched up, writhing.

Your tone and words more chilling than the blizzard

always, as if gloating, as if satisfied.

Ashen prize in a smouldering, ashen land.

You brought many, down in your personal hell,

so that love looked worthy and achievable.

Thus I looked, found my ashes, took them, and left.

Not that you faked your feelings and sentiments:

there simply was no room for love among them,

and my own was too cumbersome to carry.

There is no vow to never do it again:

there will be other people falling with you;

there will be other times when I give my love.

But one thing more certain than the next sunrise

is that your soul dims as your fire brightens

is that my love whole always shall be given.

An old couple

Cooking he was. Like always.

Chatting with the wife. Like always.

Watching dumb shows eating crisps

by the fake crackling fireside,

the dog curled up at her feet.

Her presence, unenviable,

Slightly passive-aggressive, always.

The grim stare. The unanswered

“What’re we having for dinner”.

The evening going to bed alone,

waking up she there already,

pulling the long face already.

He didn’t hate her, nor did she.

They grew to unlove, listlessly.

Two kids, that is all it took

to kill the little joy in their life.

“I don’t hate you, just so you know,”

he said. It fell in dead ears,

both hers and the dog’s, unmoved.

He hated when they did that,

giving him the cold shoulder

“I’m heading to bed then.”

He got up, thinking of their sons:

none of them ever came home,

or called for birthdays and sad days,

or sent postcards, wedding cards,

or just… existed after they left.

“I’m heading to bed then”

he repeated – to himself this time.

He got tired, suddenly.

Sat back down, a knot in his throat.

Come morning, he would call them.

When the police came a week later

they found the old man slumped on the couch

next to a mouldy, empty armchair,

an old dog mat with half-chewed toys

dinner set for two in the kitchen.

The neighbour said the old widower

didn’t have all the lights on

that the dog had died years earlier

was buried in the backyard.

Nobody ever came home.

Fragment #81

The day the storm hit the coast

he drifted along the shoreline

looking for trouble in her jade eyes

– see-through waves through

the discoloured sun –

chaos and fury in his heart

hoping to find her of the pale eyes

forever resting in the waves

Loved

Folk who say it will be the same

when the two of us are done here,

when we part ways for good,

don’t know that we’ve built something,

something worthy of the name ‘love’.

When this love will have run its course

it’ll have nowhere to go, no aim,

and it’ll take way too much room

– it’s grown quite big, didn’t it darling.

So we’ll have little choice but to drown it,

pull it head first down the bathtub

and keep it underwater for a while

– until its lungs fill up and swell

and we need to dry it up 

before we can burn the carcass

– until its legs form odd angles

underneath its slouched body

Darling, maybe we’ll need to tie its hands

so it doesn’t scratch and grip,

– and its feet too, no nasty kicks,

just its belly doing its dance,

and its hair like Medusa’s

– it would be a good idea, we think.

No, we won’t look at its bulging, bloodshot eyes,

or at its snakey, purpley, swollen veins

– for we want to sleep at night, don’t we darling.

Maybe it’s easier to do these things, darling,

because we were selfish and trampled it

with both feet on its chest, caved the ribs in,

and still called it ‘love’, lovingly, 

because we stopped caring as much.

Maybe it won’t fight back when we strangle it,

accepting its fate with open wrists and throat

– we slowly choked it with our lies, didn’t we

– faking interest and orgasms and conversations

didn’t we darling, patient in our rage,

meticulous in our vivisection,

methodical lovers-turned-skinners surgeons.

Folk who say it will be the same

when the two of us are done here,

when we part ways for good,

don’t know that we created and killed

something worthy of the name ‘love’.

Something on the mind

Something on the mind

chipping away at the heart

clipping crevices smooth

seeking diaphany 

nagging the tip of the tongue

not quite unright or unthere

Something on the mind

thinning the eyelids

spurring pins and needles

tightening frumpled fingertips

Something on the mind

that behoves death to endure

weighing a goliathan star

pullgraviting everything about

alldreading void and longing

Something on the mind

spirating slowly into stasis

sunstilled dust particle

snapshot into existence

In one last, contorted pulse

something on the mind

flashflaring like a supernova

tesselating the seen and felt

fractalled into sense

Something on the mind

opened eye and hand

and fell out of both

in the sharp, exacting light.

Fragment #71

 

acutely cut-chaining daisies
hovering over catastrophes
sowing clover until hollow
daisy-cuttering hearts in the
unjust absence of tomorrow