It vibrates before it even begins.
The moping, stony chinned silence.

I anticipate nothing.
I anticipate what I am going to do next.

The void stiffens.
It has a way of causing hysteria.

I am too afraid to ask,
"How did we ever lose our way?"
"How did our love become a contest?"

I am no more than a mattress
on the side of the road, and I know it.



Sara Fielder © May 2022

may crosses the threshold;

still  in place despite being shaken,

things dangling in a state of shock, matters frenzied.

all i could do is stare at its tail ends, its ides, its roots, fiendish.



time is a quicksand, it has taught.

the month’s chasm i find myself suspended in,

as only half and in a room hellish, four corners built precariously

pent up dread *******.



breathe in breathe out



may leaves,

a sigh of only minimum relief

There is a cloud over Yorkshire...
it brings burst speech in the evening.

The grass is bending in the rain;
a fine fog slips goodbye like window fingers,

leaving behind a shining extract.
We're on the viscous edge of night,

straying into dim, broken hellos
that dissolve us like a companionable acid.

We cook our meals quietly tonight
in black aprons of lonely air.

The silver of the blade is dwindling.
Stars blink like vacancy signs.

I have stopped leaving this room
except for exigencies. Why bother?

Deadened clouds skate on the face
of the black rectangle every night

no matter what moves I make,
& somewhere up and out there

is a numb and strangely ovular moon.
It's all very far from me;

I wash my hands of all of it.
I watch the strange geometries

of strangers sitting tipsily
along the hypotenuse of Columbia Street,

laughing and singing happy birthday to Joan.
Joan is wearing yellow. While they all sing,

she gazes into the lush sinew of the trees.
A thousand years ago...

this street was just a brackish pool.
A thousand years from now,

serpents will bathe on the brick wreck.
But tonight... Joan and her circle

sag and slink into lavender flatness.
Soon they are specks, and then nothing at all.

suicide is not an option
suicide is not an option
suicide is not an option
suicide is not an option
suicide is not an option
suicide is not an option
suicide is not an option