"Come again to me. I will wait beneath the silverside of
trailing ivy at the ice house." Surely you cannot resist a free taste of
abandon. It was our first meeting place, do you remember? Why do you
not hold it in reverence and wonder as I do? Escaped from Cook's all
seeing eye I had dawdled over the task of fetching the ice she needed
and then, there you were, talking to me as if I was the only one in the
world who could know you.
"Can you speak in sign
language?" you had asked, but I did not know what you meant.Your touch
had played me like the notes of a music box, each finger stroking a
delicate note from my virgin drum. You were the Tutor of my desire and a
fire awoke in me, Pandoras curiosity, and unknowing, I became your
plaything. You made me swear an oath before the Green Man, knowing I
would not risk his displeasure.
" I am the secret keeper, and I hold my secret dear."
I came often to the woods with a ready catch of words and
gestures hoping to please you then and you had teased me out of my stays
with your gentle words and insistent fingers
" What lies
beneath the earths mantle?" said your sly fox smile, and then you warmed
me with your probing fingers and other objects of curiosity. We learned
our love through the seasons, mixed fire with ice, rolled in the
bluebells, crushing their scent to our bare skin, the barley turned its
ears to the music of your quickening groans resonating again and again
rising in duet with my own, Wheat bowed in longing towards our snatched
frenzied exertions under the bruised lightening skies of late Summer.
You planted a seed of longing in me then, but now do not tend it. Why?
Your marriage is a sham, you said so. You are a mirror of discontent,
yet cool disdain is all I see in your face now as I bring breakfast to
you and your new lady wife.
"Ah, you
are come. Into my arms, my Lord, complete me. Can I guess how much you
want it? I see your stiffness salute under the strain of silk. Fish deep
into my cave of wonders and I will show you what it feels like to have
molten glory at the core. She is ice and cannot melt for you like I do.
The fire you laid in me burns still, if only you will stoke it my Lord.
We are one, a beast with two backs that must be united in praise of The
Green Man. He blessed our union of secrets.Why do you hold me at arms
length Lord?"
"What is the code to creation?" you ask
me. In the glowing dim light of the ice house I step back, confused,
and look to you to teach me again while I hold steady to the saw blade.
"To hold safe your vows, your rings, your babies teeth. My loyalties lie
elsewhere now Martha, you must understand. My lady is with child."
"No matter Lord we are still one. Hold my eyes, my hands. Don't
turn your back, don't look the other way I beg you, you cannot know what
I am capable of. This love will turn on itself. No!"
Why did you not heed my warning? I cannot be held responsible for this.I
see the life drain from you and know that the flames of passion are
extinguished. We are both at peace then.
Is there blood on the knife? I wipe the serrated edge on your sleeve and sink to my knees in the crimson ice.
The copyright of this post belongs to Holly Khan
Friday, 8 May 2015
Apple
My dad used to eat the entire apple: core, seeds and all.
He’d chuck the stem—the only sign of it ever having been there.
If the seeds contained cyanide, it was of no consequence—
A tiny poison within a fruit of life was a metal heirloom etched with flowers—
An image of a thing that dies on an everlasting object.
He ate pears the same way—in their entirety—
Not to be smudged with sloppy, clumsy fingers,
Nor soiled with stickiness.
With a plum, he would suck the stone—
yearning to exact every last drop from the crevices,
polishing it to a shine.
Had he been Adam, he would have beaten Eve to the apple,
Not sit passively as a dining servant, observing and patient for table scraps.
I have inherited this passion. At birth, I signed my name to the document;
Nourished in youth to spell in his elementary ways; nurtured as a messenger of his words.
For a bond of family is as strong as steel—
Made of Earth metal and made to last.
Like a blood-sister bond, his bloodprint remains upon my thumb,
And will remain after that life that I celebrate is gone.
I celebrate life fully—engulfing it as a whole fruit—
Allowing it to flow unfettered to my core and return to its source.
Like a cavern, I will be carved by the ebb and flow of the currents of experience
Until I am egg-shell thin,
Buoyant,
And carried along to the foot of the broken cross—
To lay dirtied and disregarded—
Humbled and fulfilled.
The copyright of this post belongs to Monica Jenkins
He’d chuck the stem—the only sign of it ever having been there.
If the seeds contained cyanide, it was of no consequence—
A tiny poison within a fruit of life was a metal heirloom etched with flowers—
An image of a thing that dies on an everlasting object.
He ate pears the same way—in their entirety—
Not to be smudged with sloppy, clumsy fingers,
Nor soiled with stickiness.
With a plum, he would suck the stone—
yearning to exact every last drop from the crevices,
polishing it to a shine.
Had he been Adam, he would have beaten Eve to the apple,
Not sit passively as a dining servant, observing and patient for table scraps.
I have inherited this passion. At birth, I signed my name to the document;
Nourished in youth to spell in his elementary ways; nurtured as a messenger of his words.
For a bond of family is as strong as steel—
Made of Earth metal and made to last.
Like a blood-sister bond, his bloodprint remains upon my thumb,
And will remain after that life that I celebrate is gone.
I celebrate life fully—engulfing it as a whole fruit—
Allowing it to flow unfettered to my core and return to its source.
Like a cavern, I will be carved by the ebb and flow of the currents of experience
Until I am egg-shell thin,
Buoyant,
And carried along to the foot of the broken cross—
To lay dirtied and disregarded—
Humbled and fulfilled.
The copyright of this post belongs to Monica Jenkins
Tuesday, 5 May 2015
Musical Memoires
We complete the magical jangle in the choir. You and I, pristinely attired in our royal blue and white school uniform, arrange our brightly coloured glockenspiels with anticipation. Considering that Ronnie and I must have been asleep when the angels were handing out harmonious vocal cords, then we are even more grateful of having the honour of our involvement. My little brother, Rueben is quietly scanning the crowded hall for my black haired braided face. He hopes, crossing his small fingers, for the wish to come true. With utter passion, I can imagine him inwardly praying for our group to win.
“Everything counts on this”. This thought floats above me, like a pink-lilac bubble. It hovers over me, suspended and shared, just like the bubble-gum I used to blow, before bursting the sickly sweet gunk over my braced mouth. To my practical and no nonsense natured mother’s dismay, this used to result in my little brother chortling uproariously until he broke wind or wet himself. However, it was worth reciprocating the sharp sting on my wrist from her firm hand and her even sharper tongue just to bring an up sided expression to his normally confused and anxious face.
My mother was the most treasured gold nugget in the whole of New Zealand despite her strict and orderly manner. Before Angela, three years my senior, came along, followed by myself and Rueben, Rueben, Mum had been a full time Senior Ward Nurse. Her meticulous and somewhat domineering manner had not been ironed out, just because her offspring had halted her career. This part of her persona remained with her, but I cannot complain, as I feel certain that she made us stronger. Josephina Hillcroft was right there behind him, holding on to his reins, which must have appeared slightly odd on a child of that age. Now, I must not let this bubble of opportunity pop, I instruct my eleven year old conscience.
So, here we all out, Dare the Dynamics from Blue Ridge High, assembled in this competition, awaiting the accolade that everybody has been painstakingly practising for since January 1973. Ronnie Walters’s endearingly dimpled chin is raised and his hands poised with readiness. I can’t help noticing how the golden shaft of sunlight is streaming onto his freckled and suntanned face like a spotlight. My knees tremble and my throat feels like a pebble is lodged in there, as I remind myself to breathe deeply. A sea of glassy eyes gazes at me, watchful and expectant. My furrowed brow is full of concentration, as my fizzy rush of adrenalin is tempered by my higher self.
“Be calm and carry on”. Suddenly, I spot Uncle Tom, as Mrs Winterbourne clears the way for him with a goldfish expression, as she dutifully scuttles towards the side of the red brocade curtains. My heart is then in my mouth as he steps on to the podium facing us, our bated breathed group. He was meant to be convalescing from shingles for another few days. Apparently, Posy his adopted daughter had been the guilty contagion, as we had all endured the chicken pox several years previously. With typical green eyed jealousy, I had bemoaned to her of the fact that she should have been in quarantine, because we needed Uncle Tom for this very evening. With calculative retort from her acid voice below her buttercup topped head, she informed me that he was not my Uncle Tom, and I had no real aunts or uncles.
“You don’t deserve any anyway Judy. And what sort of name is that for a girl, and where was Punch today?” She paused for a moment for me to witness her curled tongue to rudely protrude from her ten year old mouth. Considering I had addressed her as Rosie Posey, I suppose this quip was richly deserved for me, and before she skipped away back towards the cottage, two evenings’ before the concert, she called out with a most painfully sharp witted and wicked comment.
“You’d better go back home Judith Hillcroft to play nursemaid to that sad excuse for a brother. Oh and good luck for Thursday. I hope you lose with flying colours.” And before I could run after her in anger, Auntie May had appeared from behind the hedge, gripping her ear, as she was unceremoniously escorted back towards their cottage.
My addled mind was then whizzed back to the present, as Uncle Tom arranged his composure, as he displayed his trusty square jawed stance, and with a brief toothy grin and an acorn hued twinkle in his intelligent eyes. Our rather pale faced mentor is today wearing his trusted pea-green tweed jacket, despite the sultry warm air pouring into the hall. Only a few of us are aware that this is his lucky item of clothing, and I am now buzzing with the determination to deliver. He then began to raise his hands with majesty and delightfully calm control. The spicy aroma of his classic aftershave permeates in front of us, thankfully masking Mrs Winterborne’s overpowering stench of parma-violet toilette water.
How could this ever be complete without you, Uncle Tom? I had wondered with admiration to myself. Two weeks ago, before he was confined to his cottage with his illness, he phoned at my parents’ house, just so that he could speak to me.
“I’ll be laid up Judy-joy, for a while, so if I can’t make next month’s concert, then just remember this, my little ray of sunshine. Without you and Ronnie on the glockie, the choir will be as lost as sheep out of a pen. You must lead them, just as you always do, little one. I know you all can nail it. Just focus on the sounds at the carousel we went to last weekend. Just imagine yourself riding the golden mare, and bobbing up and down with the music, with the entire choir following you and Ronnie. Become part of that music, dissolve in it, and forget everything else. That’s all Judy. Promise me that.”
“I promise”, I pledged to him with a watery voice, before we bid each other good evening, as Rueben watched me with awe, his face once again creased in confusion. Gripping his trusted and damp comfort blanket, he clumsily manoeuvred his walking frame, with his eight years of struggle for survival, most poignant in my memory of that evening. Then, remembering dear Uncle Tom’s earnest warm words, which he shared with me, I prepare myself. All of the tumultuous gnawing in both my head and tummy dissipated, and discarded like unwanted ghosts into the ventilated evening air.
Ronnie and I then begin, after what seems like hours, as we tinkle the metal bars into life.
“Yesterday”, the choir commences, singing with mellow and honey combed notes. With increased gusto we then continue flawlessly, as we live, feel and breathe the words and notes into our metal bars.
“All my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.”
Our almost deliriously spirited choir’s voices fill the room with vigour, as our chimes and clangs complement the undertones with pure synchronised magic. Only after we finish and remove our instruments from their harnesses, do I allow an errant tear to drip down onto one of the purple bars.
* * * * * * * * * *
GOOD FRIDAY, 2015
Now, as I glance at Ronnie, as he wanders into the living room, clutching a tray of tea, my reverie is broken. The last half hour, after my strong medication caused my afflicted mind and body into almost soporific oblivion, I gaze with oozing fondness at my husband. The opiate which masks the pain from my op after chemo has finally won the second round of battle. In fact, only yesterday morning, we’d received the tearful and liberating news that I’d been diagnosed as cancer free.
Unfortunately, Ruebin cannot be here to raise a toast to our wonderful and touching news, as his rare congenital illness, which stunted both his mental and physical development, and resulted in him losing his short fight against this condition in his twelfth year, just three springs after our pivotal school concert. This was undoubtedly an extremely bitter pill to swallow for all our family. Mum only survived another two years after the loss of her only son.
Dad, therefore had to begin working from home, changing career as a journalist to become a writer, which incidentally he became very good at. His eight novels, etched graciously in gold lettering now grace the bookshelves in the study. I am proud to state that John A Hillcroft had consequently, been nominated the most outstanding author of Ghost Story publications. Although, previously, in the background he had since Rueben’s death become very much in the forefront with my elder sister, Angela sacrificing her college course, which she managed to return to later, in order that she could help look after Dad and I.
Dad met lilting voiced and County Mayo born Kerry two years later, whom he lived with before getting hitched. Free spirited and alarmingly spontaneous, dressed in floaty bohemian dresses, she complements my father as the other half of a contented and interesting couple, most refreshingly. Now both in their eighties, the still animated pair live in a warden controlled apartment ten minutes away from our house. They will not be able to join us this afternoon, but we will film our outing, take pictures and upload them onto a disc, for them to appreciate when we visit them tomorrow, Easter Sunday.
I hope God will be looking down on us and smiling with pride, as he witnesses us in our celebrations of my saving grace, that I have won the fight, for now, that is, at least. This evening we will light 2 candles in the church, one for Rueben and one for Mum. I hope this makes up for us not being able to attend the Sunday Service, as I am not physically or emotionally strong enough to sit or stand for long periods in the draughty church with the hard seats, and withstand the sea of eyes at St Saviours.
I promise you God, that I will visit your house soon, just as soon as I am able to, and continue the charity work called Rueben’s Appeal. Ronnie will also help me, and has promised to continue his support for Ovarian Cancer too. Incidentally, it was his idea to sponsor our concert towards Rueben’s charity. Such maturity in a boy of twelve is very rare, and I can honestly declare that in all those long, long years he has been my most solid rock of stability.
Looking in the cheval antique mirror, bequeathed from my late Uncle Tom and Auntie May, I thought I saw him again. Uncle Tom sported the warmest smile, which reflected the welcome relief, as I nostalgically conjured up this mental image. My guardian angel, along with Ronnie, my children, Zack, Zoe and Angel had been the main driving force to spur me on through this challenge from living hell, and I thought of them too.
Zack and his wife Jenna with my six year old twin grandchildren, Thomasina and Libby, as well as Zoe and her expanding bump along with her partner Kai were due to arrive two hours later for a last minute celebration picnic lunch at Blue Ridge Brook. Angel, the last fledgling to have flow the nest for a gap year in Tanzania, has been home with us for the last three months, cutting her working holiday short, by staying with us and being at close hand all the while. She has been a godsend, not that my other two offspring have not been lacking in support in between school runs, work, and antenatal classes. With only one month to go before her due date Zoe has decided on the name of her unborn child already. Rueben, if he is a boy and Ruby if she is a girl.
“Still comely”, I quietly appraise myself, as I gaze at my sparingly lined face, after Tom had returned back into his other, pain free world. My mind then returns back with fondness, to the day the choir joined together, April 12th 1973, over forty years ago. After being rightfully awarded the Bronze South West New Zealand Choir medal, we burnt our bridges, or at least I did with regards to Posy.
In fact the very next day, after our debut performance, which had been televised on the local TV Station, and which resulted in the Blue Ridge Observer Press captivating our school grounds and our group, Posy apologised profusely. Although somewhat instigated by Uncle Tom and Auntie May, the white flag was honoured by me with newly found maturity, and we actually hugged each other, and she shed some heartfelt tears of remorse.
Not long after this, it transpired that Tom and May were soon to become my real Auntie and Uncle. Thomas Hughes-Barton, both the Head Principal of our school, and my Mother’s half-brother, had finally decided to tie the knot. Therefore they would soon, no longer be living in sin, and Posy, May’s natural daughter, would officially be adopted by her step-father. Consequently, our friendship flourished, as she became a very companionable but highly spirited cousin. She now lives two streets away from the cul-de-sac bungalow which Ronnie and I dwell in.
After never marrying or having children, Posy inherited the grand multi bedroomed house where my Uncle and Aunt resided in, before they passed away over ten years ago. Posy, my sole cousin, as well as best and lifelong friend, is also joining in with our celebrations, along with her long term and twice divorced partner, Miles.
Displayed proudly in the glass cabinet, with our school photo mounted next to it, I swivel my head back to my precious and iron-willed husband. Snuggled in between this memento and 1970s photograph, are the heart shaped collages of pictures which are framed with pride for me to admire all our children and two grandchildren. If you look to the right of the display cabinet, you can also see the miniature of Posy, next to the blue ornamental vase, and all our family degree certificates laminated underneath. Ronnie’s PHD for Music, which resulted in him aspiring into Elmbrook University’s leading lecturer of Music, and chiefly the piano for many years; my First and Masters for English Lit and Drama, which successfully assisted me on my way to become a script writer for several significant plays, and Posy’ paediatric counselling certificate is graced next to the green and whiteToby Jug.
I will now stop there with this description , as my legs begin to buckle underneath me, as Ronnie rescues me from my wobbling spell, supporting me gently from behind, as he steadily steers me towards the settee.
He is now seated next to me on the red leather sofa in the sunny living room. He takes my shaking hand in his with his strong but gentle spatula like grip. His breath is warm and his butterfly touch healing as he speaks, ever so softly next to my silk scarfed head.
“Judith Walters, (nee Hillcroft), we complete the magical jangle in the choir”.
The copyright of this post belongs to Deborah Stokes 1 May 2015
Saturday, 2 May 2015
Wardrobe
The wardrobe door was jammed. Gripping the handle more firmly and
bracing the soles of her slippered toes against the wooden base, she
tugged. The heady scent of cedar wafted out, tailing a tattered cobweb,
lifting it into the air in a circle, then dissipating—to leave it
parachuting crookedly to the floor.
Unconsciously, she wiped her face, as if to remove the invisible residue, and she peered inside. Woodlice carcasses lay along the bottom—like mica in the rain, silvery and grey. She stood motionless, momentarily dazzled, but then shuddered. Was it narcissism that caused this sudden surge of disdain for these brittle, faceless insects?-- scurrying about in dark places; burrowing into dead wood with an industry that could feed an empire. They would just as readily nibble at the rotting limbs of a dying tree as they would her aunt’s coffin, freshly interred, ignorant of any associations. Born of death and sustained by it. Inhabitants of an autumn world of fading life; dim-sighted oracles whose very presence announce the approach of a life’s winter. A prophetic industry, leaving but a trail of fine sawdust in their wake—caked along the joints of the wardrobe walls.
The copyright of this post belongs to Monica Jenkins
Unconsciously, she wiped her face, as if to remove the invisible residue, and she peered inside. Woodlice carcasses lay along the bottom—like mica in the rain, silvery and grey. She stood motionless, momentarily dazzled, but then shuddered. Was it narcissism that caused this sudden surge of disdain for these brittle, faceless insects?-- scurrying about in dark places; burrowing into dead wood with an industry that could feed an empire. They would just as readily nibble at the rotting limbs of a dying tree as they would her aunt’s coffin, freshly interred, ignorant of any associations. Born of death and sustained by it. Inhabitants of an autumn world of fading life; dim-sighted oracles whose very presence announce the approach of a life’s winter. A prophetic industry, leaving but a trail of fine sawdust in their wake—caked along the joints of the wardrobe walls.
The copyright of this post belongs to Monica Jenkins
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
The Price You Pay
I complete mindless puzzles to distract me from the dead hours of your absence.I just want you to come home. You did warn me you'd be away a lot. "If you think it's worth getting involved with me at all, that is." You added, with that little boyish half-smile of yours, and an I-dare-you glint in your eye.
I dared. You were already my opiate, my straight-in-the-veins, high-as-a-kite, mainlined habit. I am a junkie, doing sudoku, and screaming in withdrawal.
I'm sweating and moaning for my next fix. A text would do. Anything.But my phone stays silent and unused adrenaline eats away at my gut.
This is the price you pay for passion.
I can imagine my mum and all my most sensible friends shaking their heads at my most foolish choice of a globe-trotting aid worker. I can also imagine, only too well, the kind of man they would consider suitable for a woman like me, with a divorce and an (unmentionable) breakdown already behind me. And, of course, the little incident with the sleeping pills. They would set me up with some reliable divorcee, home by six every night, DIY and garden centres at the weekend. He would be content to sit around watching 'Top Gear', and picking his nose, before dozing off in his favourite chair by nine-thirty.
There's a reason you're gone half the time, my love.You're not this man and never could be. I love that you're always chasing manna from heaven to satisfy the needs that don't appear on the radar of most people's lifetime. I love that you live at the very top of the hierarchy triangle, seeking what can't be found in meeting mortgage payments, three square meals a day and a bit of sex on a Saturday morning.What most men of your age accept as their lives and are wearily grateful for it.
I've made my choice and I don't regret it. This is what I tell myself and anyone else who is listening. Day by day I keep it all tightly packed in, busy rationalising. I smile, I laugh, I function, knowing you're coming home.
But on nights like this I haemorrhage loneliness, my life blood a bright stain of protest on the carpet. And I stare at my silent phone like it's a grenade with a loose pin, to be put far away from me. Its silence is an ominous live ticking of threat. I snatch it up and run upstairs with it, sliding it into my undies drawer, where I can't hear its silence any more.
I was a mess when I first met you. My ex-husband had done a number on me, taking me apart over the five year period of our marriage so comprehensively there was barely anything left to identify as me. Dental records were required.
But you recognised the Self I thought had been lost. You put me back together, spent hours (and hours and hours) listening to me rehashing the past, 'processing' as the therapists like to call it. Long after all my other friends had told me it was time to be drawing the line and moving on. You held me as I sobbed, overwhelmed by the nightmare of my husband; a walking obscenity, a shadow of death pacing through my dreams. You mopped up the mess of my grief.
When I could give nothing back to you, you gave me everything. With your hours of devotion you opened me up to you, unlocking the barricaded doors of all the secret rooms of my life. Rooms of damage, rooms of treasure, you found them all.
You expanded my world, giving me eyes to see things I hadn't imagined. You patiently taught me about dark matter and quantum theory, about the nature of time and the possibility of other worlds, other realities and universes. You spoke about supernovas and black holes and what had to happen to determine which would be created from the ruin of a star. 'It's called the Chandrasekhar Limit.' you said. 'Named after the Russian chap who discovered it.' You talked about your recent visit to Cern, and I thought to impress you by vaguely knowing what the Hadron Collider was for. But the Higgs Boson was old news.
'They're looking for something else now.' You told me with one of your gleeful half smiles. 'It's called supersymmetry, the theory that every particle has a partner.'
'Ahh' I interrupted.
'A slightly heavier mirror image, if you like. If they can prove or disprove the existence of supersymmetry, then they may have a better idea of what constitutes dark matter. Which is a big deal, considering that dark matter makes up at least sixty percent of the universe.'
'It makes up about a hundred percent of my brain.'
You rolled your eyes, squeezing my hand. 'Don't put yourself down.'
the language of science fell from your lips and entered my heart like the most exquisite poetry (poetry that I didn't really understand, of course.)
You whispered to me your vision for my future, for the strong independent woman I was going to be, reaching out from my wounds to others whose wounds were still raw. You told me I was beautiful.
'You're a very special person.' You said. You slid your big warm hands up inside my blouse, along the length of my spine, and added in your best Devonshire accent: 'As well as being a propor comely lass my lover.'
You promised me intimacy beyond anything I'd known or hoped for. You tantalised me with a glimpse of your longing to be fully known, even while there remained something essentially unknowable about you. I told you one, teasing, that you reminded me of the main character in C S Lewis 'Perelandra'
'Sweetie, your eyes are impregnated with distance.' My teasing hid my frustration that they weren't more often focused solely on me.
I sigh and console myself with the thought that there might well be no-one who knows you better than me. My lips have worshipped every inch of your surrendered body; your flesh, my own, and in return I have unfurled in the fullness of your love, turned to face the bright darkness of your need, like a flower to the sun. I drink you in, take you down to the earth of me.
Restless, the sudoku numbers swimming before my tired, adrenaline-bright eyes, I look out of the window. Longing etches your shape into the descending mist. It's a grim pea-souper of a night, treacherous to drive in. You're not coming home tonight.
I think I can still hear my phone being silent on me, so I gingerly climb the stairs and root around in my undies drawer to switch the tiny object of terror off completely. I know you hate it when I do this, when you try to callme and all you get is my voicemail; but I have to protect myself from those times when you don't call. Times like tonight.
The phone rings from within my underwear, its tinny, glockenspiel melody making me jump. I fish it out, smiling with relief as your name comes up.
'Hello sweetheart.' Your voice sounds distant. 'How's it going?'
I try for lighthearted. 'I'm currently being defeated by a ten minute sudoku. So far it's taken me an hour and a half.'
A pause. Then you laugh 'Look, sweetheart, I know I said I might make it back tonight, but...'
'I know. You can't. I already figured that out.'
'Well, the thing is... I'm not going to make it back tomorrow either....Sorry, sweetheart.'
My heart turns to water and seems to drain out of me.
'Well, when, then? The next day?'
Another pause. the line starts to crackle and I just catch '...the end of the week...' before I lose you completely.
Silence.
'I love you,' I say to the empty line.
I should try and sleep. But the bed is cold, the memory of your body heat lost from the heartless sheets.
I remember our first night together. Stirring from shallow sleep to find you still there, your warm body in the darkness curved into mine. And I woke up to your kisses.
'Morning, lover,' You said, 'Looking gorgeous.'
I snuggled closer to you, whispering into your neck 'Yeah in a blearyeyed smellymorningbreath kind of way.'
You laughed. 'We can't all be perfect.'
I flicked your earlobe, 'Not even you my sweet. You know how I adore you, how I was born to kiss your feet and worship the ground you walk on, but you snore worse than anyone I've ever heard. Like a sodding pneumatic drill.'
You laughed and shut me up by kissing me.
I want you, now. I want you here with me. I'm tired of paying this price.
Like someone drowning, slowly lifting each loneliness-logged limb, I go back downstairs.
It's the not knowing that gets to me. I can't settle, can't plan, can't allow myself to fully look forward to anything or get on with my life, as I can when I know you're not going to be around.I mustn't let myself have expectations. You live your life every day for the needs of others and I can't be yet another needy person in your life. But sometimes I want to be. I want to shout and scream, stamp my foot, refuse to let you go. To face you with the question: 'What about me?' I want to confess that at times like this I don't care about the starving masses on some faraway continent or the victims of natural disasters. They don't need you more than I do.
And I think: Why can't I love an ordinary man? Even the nosepicking, 'Top Gear' watching type would be preferable to these nights of wall-climbing withdrawal.
Perhaps I should let my mum set me up with one of her safe choices.
Except that I don't want anyone else. I just want you.
I stop on the bottom stair, leaning against the bannister, trying to summon up the energy to go back into the empty, darkened living room and face the smug sudoku. Gazing wearily around, my eyes settle on the painting hanging in the hall, a present from my much-missed Granny. A sunset, an eagle, vivid colours; wouldn't have been my first choice. But underneath are the words 'They that tarry upon the LORD...shall rise up on wings as eagles.' Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31
And that's what you're doing my love.You are that eagle and you must be where you belong. I refuse to be the one who clips your wings, grounds your flight.
So I will carry on paying the price, knowing that you will come home to me.
I smile. It's ok that I miss you. It's ok that they joy of having you in my life comes with a price. And it's even ok that I complete mindless puzzles to distract me from the dead hours of your absence.
The copyright of this post belongs to Alisha Bailie 29.4.15
I dared. You were already my opiate, my straight-in-the-veins, high-as-a-kite, mainlined habit. I am a junkie, doing sudoku, and screaming in withdrawal.
I'm sweating and moaning for my next fix. A text would do. Anything.But my phone stays silent and unused adrenaline eats away at my gut.
This is the price you pay for passion.
I can imagine my mum and all my most sensible friends shaking their heads at my most foolish choice of a globe-trotting aid worker. I can also imagine, only too well, the kind of man they would consider suitable for a woman like me, with a divorce and an (unmentionable) breakdown already behind me. And, of course, the little incident with the sleeping pills. They would set me up with some reliable divorcee, home by six every night, DIY and garden centres at the weekend. He would be content to sit around watching 'Top Gear', and picking his nose, before dozing off in his favourite chair by nine-thirty.
There's a reason you're gone half the time, my love.You're not this man and never could be. I love that you're always chasing manna from heaven to satisfy the needs that don't appear on the radar of most people's lifetime. I love that you live at the very top of the hierarchy triangle, seeking what can't be found in meeting mortgage payments, three square meals a day and a bit of sex on a Saturday morning.What most men of your age accept as their lives and are wearily grateful for it.
I've made my choice and I don't regret it. This is what I tell myself and anyone else who is listening. Day by day I keep it all tightly packed in, busy rationalising. I smile, I laugh, I function, knowing you're coming home.
But on nights like this I haemorrhage loneliness, my life blood a bright stain of protest on the carpet. And I stare at my silent phone like it's a grenade with a loose pin, to be put far away from me. Its silence is an ominous live ticking of threat. I snatch it up and run upstairs with it, sliding it into my undies drawer, where I can't hear its silence any more.
I was a mess when I first met you. My ex-husband had done a number on me, taking me apart over the five year period of our marriage so comprehensively there was barely anything left to identify as me. Dental records were required.
But you recognised the Self I thought had been lost. You put me back together, spent hours (and hours and hours) listening to me rehashing the past, 'processing' as the therapists like to call it. Long after all my other friends had told me it was time to be drawing the line and moving on. You held me as I sobbed, overwhelmed by the nightmare of my husband; a walking obscenity, a shadow of death pacing through my dreams. You mopped up the mess of my grief.
When I could give nothing back to you, you gave me everything. With your hours of devotion you opened me up to you, unlocking the barricaded doors of all the secret rooms of my life. Rooms of damage, rooms of treasure, you found them all.
You expanded my world, giving me eyes to see things I hadn't imagined. You patiently taught me about dark matter and quantum theory, about the nature of time and the possibility of other worlds, other realities and universes. You spoke about supernovas and black holes and what had to happen to determine which would be created from the ruin of a star. 'It's called the Chandrasekhar Limit.' you said. 'Named after the Russian chap who discovered it.' You talked about your recent visit to Cern, and I thought to impress you by vaguely knowing what the Hadron Collider was for. But the Higgs Boson was old news.
'They're looking for something else now.' You told me with one of your gleeful half smiles. 'It's called supersymmetry, the theory that every particle has a partner.'
'Ahh' I interrupted.
'A slightly heavier mirror image, if you like. If they can prove or disprove the existence of supersymmetry, then they may have a better idea of what constitutes dark matter. Which is a big deal, considering that dark matter makes up at least sixty percent of the universe.'
'It makes up about a hundred percent of my brain.'
You rolled your eyes, squeezing my hand. 'Don't put yourself down.'
the language of science fell from your lips and entered my heart like the most exquisite poetry (poetry that I didn't really understand, of course.)
You whispered to me your vision for my future, for the strong independent woman I was going to be, reaching out from my wounds to others whose wounds were still raw. You told me I was beautiful.
'You're a very special person.' You said. You slid your big warm hands up inside my blouse, along the length of my spine, and added in your best Devonshire accent: 'As well as being a propor comely lass my lover.'
You promised me intimacy beyond anything I'd known or hoped for. You tantalised me with a glimpse of your longing to be fully known, even while there remained something essentially unknowable about you. I told you one, teasing, that you reminded me of the main character in C S Lewis 'Perelandra'
'Sweetie, your eyes are impregnated with distance.' My teasing hid my frustration that they weren't more often focused solely on me.
I sigh and console myself with the thought that there might well be no-one who knows you better than me. My lips have worshipped every inch of your surrendered body; your flesh, my own, and in return I have unfurled in the fullness of your love, turned to face the bright darkness of your need, like a flower to the sun. I drink you in, take you down to the earth of me.
Restless, the sudoku numbers swimming before my tired, adrenaline-bright eyes, I look out of the window. Longing etches your shape into the descending mist. It's a grim pea-souper of a night, treacherous to drive in. You're not coming home tonight.
I think I can still hear my phone being silent on me, so I gingerly climb the stairs and root around in my undies drawer to switch the tiny object of terror off completely. I know you hate it when I do this, when you try to callme and all you get is my voicemail; but I have to protect myself from those times when you don't call. Times like tonight.
The phone rings from within my underwear, its tinny, glockenspiel melody making me jump. I fish it out, smiling with relief as your name comes up.
'Hello sweetheart.' Your voice sounds distant. 'How's it going?'
I try for lighthearted. 'I'm currently being defeated by a ten minute sudoku. So far it's taken me an hour and a half.'
A pause. Then you laugh 'Look, sweetheart, I know I said I might make it back tonight, but...'
'I know. You can't. I already figured that out.'
'Well, the thing is... I'm not going to make it back tomorrow either....Sorry, sweetheart.'
My heart turns to water and seems to drain out of me.
'Well, when, then? The next day?'
Another pause. the line starts to crackle and I just catch '...the end of the week...' before I lose you completely.
Silence.
'I love you,' I say to the empty line.
I should try and sleep. But the bed is cold, the memory of your body heat lost from the heartless sheets.
I remember our first night together. Stirring from shallow sleep to find you still there, your warm body in the darkness curved into mine. And I woke up to your kisses.
'Morning, lover,' You said, 'Looking gorgeous.'
I snuggled closer to you, whispering into your neck 'Yeah in a blearyeyed smellymorningbreath kind of way.'
You laughed. 'We can't all be perfect.'
I flicked your earlobe, 'Not even you my sweet. You know how I adore you, how I was born to kiss your feet and worship the ground you walk on, but you snore worse than anyone I've ever heard. Like a sodding pneumatic drill.'
You laughed and shut me up by kissing me.
I want you, now. I want you here with me. I'm tired of paying this price.
Like someone drowning, slowly lifting each loneliness-logged limb, I go back downstairs.
It's the not knowing that gets to me. I can't settle, can't plan, can't allow myself to fully look forward to anything or get on with my life, as I can when I know you're not going to be around.I mustn't let myself have expectations. You live your life every day for the needs of others and I can't be yet another needy person in your life. But sometimes I want to be. I want to shout and scream, stamp my foot, refuse to let you go. To face you with the question: 'What about me?' I want to confess that at times like this I don't care about the starving masses on some faraway continent or the victims of natural disasters. They don't need you more than I do.
And I think: Why can't I love an ordinary man? Even the nosepicking, 'Top Gear' watching type would be preferable to these nights of wall-climbing withdrawal.
Perhaps I should let my mum set me up with one of her safe choices.
Except that I don't want anyone else. I just want you.
I stop on the bottom stair, leaning against the bannister, trying to summon up the energy to go back into the empty, darkened living room and face the smug sudoku. Gazing wearily around, my eyes settle on the painting hanging in the hall, a present from my much-missed Granny. A sunset, an eagle, vivid colours; wouldn't have been my first choice. But underneath are the words 'They that tarry upon the LORD...shall rise up on wings as eagles.' Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31
And that's what you're doing my love.You are that eagle and you must be where you belong. I refuse to be the one who clips your wings, grounds your flight.
So I will carry on paying the price, knowing that you will come home to me.
I smile. It's ok that I miss you. It's ok that they joy of having you in my life comes with a price. And it's even ok that I complete mindless puzzles to distract me from the dead hours of your absence.
The copyright of this post belongs to Alisha Bailie 29.4.15
Tuesday, 28 April 2015
A Game of Cards
Seven tropical fruits glisten in their massacred translucent spill of juice and dark ambition.
The King of Diamonds stamps his foot " I said I wanted bananas."
The Ace of Diamonds descends to hell, an awkward cousin sitting at the top table on a subterranean plot and whistles into the quiescent air following the King's outburst.
The Jack of Hearts dribbles into his mead, a dew drop hanging from the end of his nose,
living dangerously before the opium ball waiting for the Queen.
the copyright of this post belongs to Holly Khan
The Knave of Spades
The Knave of Spades digs with desperation to secure his foothold in
the kingdom. He digs in the seaweed damp of the night, the blood
dripping from his hand. He is aware of the metallic cordite smell
freckled to his skin and fights to ignore it along with the insistent
throbbing stump of his newly missing finger, a small price to pay for
duelling with that gangster, the Knave of Diamonds. Hearing of the duel,
The house of Diamonds would be on his tail as light broke but he would
be away with the treasure by then and they could do nothing.
Water drips from the walls of the cave as the wind stirs butterfly cobwebs, full of translucent dewdrops. The sand grits between his toes as they sink with the effort of his toil. The sweat is dripping from him and the cave once filled with moonlight becomes darker as she follows her path across the sky pulling the tide up the beach. Desperation beats loud at his heart and thrums in his ears at odds with the quiescence of the coming dawn. He urges himself on with every stroke of his spade. the shove and heave is a jolting pendulum in reverse.
He must reach the box hidden deep beneath the stalactite's point before the tide imprisons him or he will be left to sell his soul to the devil. There is no other way to escape with your life once the sea reclaims her cave.
The spade strikes the tin box, the clang of a gong a skylark ascending into the gloom and silence of the cave. He is released from poverty and servitude in an instant. There is enough power in this box full of diamonds to secure him an army. His destiny calls to him as the rush of water approaches the mouth of the cave. He will take back the throne of his father and throw the Diamonds to the dogs. There is sudden clarity to his thoughts: His fortune will change forever, the Knave of Spades will be King.
The copyright of this post belongs to Holly Khan
Water drips from the walls of the cave as the wind stirs butterfly cobwebs, full of translucent dewdrops. The sand grits between his toes as they sink with the effort of his toil. The sweat is dripping from him and the cave once filled with moonlight becomes darker as she follows her path across the sky pulling the tide up the beach. Desperation beats loud at his heart and thrums in his ears at odds with the quiescence of the coming dawn. He urges himself on with every stroke of his spade. the shove and heave is a jolting pendulum in reverse.
He must reach the box hidden deep beneath the stalactite's point before the tide imprisons him or he will be left to sell his soul to the devil. There is no other way to escape with your life once the sea reclaims her cave.
The spade strikes the tin box, the clang of a gong a skylark ascending into the gloom and silence of the cave. He is released from poverty and servitude in an instant. There is enough power in this box full of diamonds to secure him an army. His destiny calls to him as the rush of water approaches the mouth of the cave. He will take back the throne of his father and throw the Diamonds to the dogs. There is sudden clarity to his thoughts: His fortune will change forever, the Knave of Spades will be King.
The copyright of this post belongs to Holly Khan
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