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Get Published on Female First
Calling out the words vibrate dust and clatter down towards where you are –
You shout out and your light-step cuts through the anxiety of waiting.
What is it?
I need the loo
Looking away I see the heaviness of your commitment driven and etched in veins set firm within your hands. I cannot walk. You load me gentle you place me into a chair. I have dreams they are pointless.
Thank you
Is there anything more?
You wash me intimately but waist down I freeze even the soft rain talc does not touch.
That’s everything – thank you
Do you want a drink?
No
Boiled water
No thanks
You must drink
I do
You don’t smile you look the other way and I can see a crystal corner to your eye. I can see you hide yourself.
I ask for a glass of water and you turn, your shoulders tightening, say you’ll be back in a moment.
Moments string loosely. I don’t know one moment from the next. I’ve been in here for six months you tell me. Shadows slide either side of the thick curtains nonchalantly - all light is ambient here.
These legs look ordinary enough. Something somewhere shot through the communication board and when I say WALK they just hold still. When I say STOP HURTING they just hurt more. A frame holds the bed clothes separate.
You place the glass in my hand. I drink down a gulp or two. I see a small smile slide in your face. I gulp again.
Shall I read to you?
Please do.
Reading. You sit in the leather chair and fold open Ovid and I love it. I love the clipped way you usher in his passion. I close my eyes I run and swim love...
I’ve been sleeping you say - there’s sweat beneath my breast and I ask for a shower. You say I’m not dirty and I say I wish that I was. You smile. I love your smile.
I ask what you see when you look at me and you find it hard to answer. I know you find it hard because you grit your teeth and your mouth tightens. You say that you see ME wanting to find a way out of this room and into the light or the dark – just wanting a way out. You think I don’t eat or drink to find that way out, but I don’t. I eat little and drink less to kill the pain. I tell you that you must know that! You look away. I see the arch of your back curve as your breath is flung out with the words, YES I DO.
You place a small embossed book of early Wordsworth in my hands – I read a line or two a poem or two then ask for Ondaatje. You listen for a while then slip away, a low tide’s ebb unstated but in shale and sea, you are all colours, all. I read The Passion packed out in freezing; the comfort of hot words in ice cold moments.
Later you bring a bowl of tomatoes drizzled with mint and I eat all for your smile, for the red ripe pout before the smile, the after pout spiced red. You kiss my head through my hair. I stroke one finger along your arm. Eyes almost meet. The burning peripheral gaze aching for recognition.
After another skip through ablutions you walk away your hips fallen full and firm, framed by the empty space and open door. I feel warm tomato hot, wanting, waiting to feel whole again.
2
I am skimming stones. They hoop through the air play leap with the river. You leap to your feet and applaud the fifteen plus. I bow deeply. Just that moment a sun shaft lights your jaw and you ghost against the background - just then a swallow dives and soars dives and soars - charts vital to your heart beat.
Everything is demob happy. You billow kisses across scars seen, unseen, screaming and silent. I’d spend day on day hidden in sand hides breathing, barely breathing, burning up and closer to death. We were all always one inch closer to death. Your kiss maps moments. Moments when his chest blew apart and my pressed hands could not still the flow and my pressed heart could not save no matter how much love it held.
It’s okay you’ll be okay, I said softly my voice straining at the tether of control. You held my arm. You looked into my eyes. You looked into my eyes. You never stop looking.
We buried you in the shallow where we slept. We needed four and we were three. We were three and we couldn’t risk a satellite call.
We’re all here now. I hold your hands. I know that life ends suddenly but not forever. One day we’ll sleep in sand.
You kiss me softly stroke my face know there is everything to remember and forget.
We walk along the soft grass and sandy banks, your hand gripped quietly in mine. Midges mingle small tornadoes and I cut through to clear. A butterfly balances on a straggling buddleia branch, bends its wings in joy of nourishment found. You nourish me. I could not be happier. I try to fix this moment so it might last.
All moments are fluid.
3
There’s a street lined with shops and I’m holding her hand. She carries a basket and a linen bag. I’m looking for a lollipop and catch sight of a reflection – he stands in desert fatigues and looks back at me. He turns up his right palm and I follow but not then, not now. Some other future.
She has a large leather purse, my Nanny, my first love. The grocer loads goods into her basket and she hands him her purse
Would the little lass like a lollipop?
Oh’ how kind - I’m, sure she would.
They look at me smiling.
No thank you. That man outside gave a gift for later.
What man sweetie? You shouldn’t take from strangers.
He’s NOT a stranger. I’ll know him, one day.
My Nanny and the grocer look at each other, shake their heads.
Sometimes the sky looks yellow and green, sometimes it is red and black. When you make love with me you are all colours and I come and come in rainbows and clouds. Sometimes I wake and the sound sits just out of reach of my ears. Sometimes it shouts through my head. You want me to be everything I was and, I am only everything I am. Take me, just me, no matter the ambient light dancing with the past - no matter the ambient light sliding toward the future.
I cannot make it less or more.