Fragment #196

The long and short of it lasted more so

than anything she'd seen, and it left her

– panting – sweating – and looking up at him –

both still slightly discombobulated –

A middle-class death

When are we supposed to reach

the age at which our rest is due?

We are tired

– tired of looking after others,

our elders and youngers –

– the first bailing out as soon as possible – 

– the second deferring for as long as they can –

We are left with the toil and the sweat,

the emptiness of our feelings and of our lives

– the very subject of the shows we watch –

We are tired of stretching ourselves

across such vast distances,

our minds numbed with pain

and impossible tasks.

We long to rest – perhaps even

waste our lives, unoccupied,

unaccompanied, slothful –

for the prospects of being too frail and sick

to be able to rest when our work is done

– out of breath and having achieved little –

– unable or unwilling to have sex, do sports –

– life suddenly just a distraction,

death the justification –

– and endpoint:

bedridden, committed, parked and underfed:

how could we escape this middle-class death,

we ask you – the answer more deafening

than the fucking Big Bang

– and we’re expected to go down

with a barely-heard whimper –

>TI<

 

Si demain tu te sens seule

pense à moi

et embrasse-moi

comme cette nuit-là

si demain tu te sens seule

cherche-moi 

au fond de ton cœur

au fond de ton corps

et embrasse-moi

tous deux à portée de mots

à se perdre dans les sens

enlacés, éternels, sans maux

pendant des milliers d’instants

perdus, retrouvés, ancrés

en chacun, insoucieux

des autres, des années,

dans l’échancrure du temps

dans l’absence de lieu

ici, ailleurs, partout, présents

à CMA

Luck

 

eyes-spangle meteor-like

gyres souls and clouds effortlessly

yet it landed next to me

Soon, you said

 

‘Soon’, you said, but soon never came.

It died in the next day’s dust.

‘Soon,’ you said, ‘I’ll get better’.

‘Soon’, you said, and soon did come.

Like a tornado levelling towns down.

‘Soon,’ you said, ‘I’ll show you my heart’.

‘Soon’, you said. It meant all, and naught.

You knew we would never meet again,

but keep each other where we keep secrets,

where truths streak like lightning bolts,

outbursts of brilliance in the night sky.

‘Soon’, you said. But the rain came first.

Summer and snow followed suit.

Seasons passed sooner than your ‘soon’.

And years later, like a remanent déjà vu,

soon happened, for you casually forgot.

‘Soon is an aurora in broad daylight,’ you said.

Except it wasn’t. I lived for that soon

like others pray to an invisible god.

Soon is a strip of land on the horizon,

soon is a shaft of sun through the clouds.

Yet this is what you meant all along.

I read what my heart yearned for,

not what yours couldn’t possibly give.

That ‘soon’ you said was a memory

etched on the wind of your breath,

a whispered reminder to hold on

or to let go, for this ‘soon’

you’ve now placed it in my hands.

Dandelion

 

I am a dandelion in the sun

waiting for a

sudden gust of wind

to blow away

any minute now

I seem to remember

a memory not my own

nectar stuck in the stem

for a spell, unstuck

any minute now

The wind in the trees

traces rays of dusk

on the grass

last chance to belong

any minute now

I wish oh I wish

time slowed and sped 

the hands on the clock

moving sunward

any minute now

I am a dandelion in the sun

lest the nightdew

petrifies images

of heartbreak

any minute now

Embrace the wind

be done with it

any minute now

the sphere perfected

only to disperse

any minute now

I am

echo

 

happiness happens when

we’re the least capable of seeing it

—

in faint microbursts of love

—

unrecognisable until years later

when looking back polishes the moment

removes the grain and the dust

—

its lustre gently caressing

both mind and heart

—

then happiness is felt

and rewards the bearer

with a loud, unexpected echo

Together is a space

 

"Oh, the comfort – the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts, nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them – keep what is worth keeping – and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."

 
Dinah Mulock Craik (1826–87) A Life for a Life (1859)

 

Fallow

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

Letting go

 

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.