The first time I swam in the sea
I got caught in a rip
Like a tourist
The current turned against me
and took me off the edge of the sand bank
way out of my depth
And all I could think was how stupid I must look
I tried to do all the right things
Not fighting the current
Swimming at an angle
But it was like I was on a treadmill
Paddling hard and going nowhere
Frustrated to see people yards away
up to their waists
where I had just been
walking

When my mind turns against me
I don't notice until I'm off the sand bank
Out of my depth
I am a tourist in my own life
I don't know these waters
and no matter how hard I try
to do the right things
I can't make it work
I'm fighting just to stay in the same spot
just to keep my head above the water
unnoticed
while everyone else carries on walking

That day in the Indian ocean
I came so close to saving myself
minute by minute
inching closer to the sand bank
But as I tired
I started to fall back
and I asked a man to grab my hand
and pull me the last metre
onto solid ground
I felt so ashamed
for needing three seconds of a stranger's time
when I got myself into that rip
and I should have gotten myself out


The day I signed up for therapy
I felt that solid ground come up to meet me
but that same shame
that I hadn't reached it myself
Maybe I could have made it to the shore
if I just kept trying
But I was so tired
and I was falling back


My dad has never reached out a hand
never spoken up and asked to be pulled
the final metre
He stays in the rip
to fight the current alone
He's become a diver there
and learned to breathe underwater
While we walk on our sand bank
and don't notice his bubbles

Sometimes I can't help but wonder
if it's worse to have a skeleton in your closet
or an urn full of ashes

These bones outlasted Halloween
My everyday is October
My ghosts follow me around the world

You may rave about spring cleaning
but some doors are best left unopened
These secrets have a stench

I've heard all the horror stories
All those bones hanging
The silence could wake the dead

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever grow up
and stop being afraid of the dark

When I came here to Australia
they warned me of the sharks
They warned of the spiders
you can step on in the parks
I was told a lot about the snakes
They were so quick to advise
But no one said a ******* thing
about the ******* flies

Now the flies are in the bathroom
and the flies are in the hall
They're buzzing round my bedroom
so I cannot sleep at all
There are flies inside the garage
and there's flies inside the bin
and when I open up the door
another fly flies in

There are flies down at the playground
and flies outside the school
and in our own back garden
they are drowning in the pool
Flies are tangled in my hair
and flies are buzzing in my ear
and I'm wishing for a spider
so they'd ******* disappear

The moment that I step outside
they're crawling up my nose
And if I wear my sandals
they're all in between my toes
The flies are darting in my eyes
so that I can't see a thing
At home we'd say a pestilence
but here they call it Spring

The flies are in the streets
and they're droning through the air
I already can't remember
what it's like without them there
I'm getting sick of walking
with my hands flapped round my face
So what silly sod was mad enough
to colonise this place?

If I had told you
that I was made of mud and soil
and grass and sea water
combined over two decades
you wouldn't have understood.

If I'd said my bones were branches
my hands blooming nasturtiums
my toes pebbles on a beach
on the east coast of England
you would have rolled your eyes.

If I'd said your skin after a shower
smelled like warm ground after rain
and your voice was honeycomb
your kisses strawberry jam
you'd have found it strange.

I've known you seventeen years
yet we don't know each other at all.
If I'd told you everything I believed
you'd have thought me childish.
You never did like poetry.

When I was six years old
you took the stabilisers
from my bike, for the first time

You knew I was ready
You gave me a push
and you let me go

Two months ago
you took me to the airport
to catch my flight

You knew I was ready
to cross the world alone
and you let me go

Sometimes I wobble
But I haven't fallen yet
You taught me to balance

You prepared me for this
then you took my stabilisers
and you let me be free.

I opened old scars for him
because I loved having someone
to kiss them better

His love was a bandage
tenderly dressing my past

I wish I'd known
How much more it would hurt
When he peeled it off again

The lorikeets gather behind the house
A chattering flock that strips the seeds
from the trees
I cannot feed them
Crumbs from my table would be ignored;
they know what's best for themselves

Their flashes of green and blue
yellow and red remind me
that I'm far from home
The birds of Ireland
do not come in primary colours
though they welcome my bread

The girl I met on the beach
told me the lorikeets
are a symbol of hope
Like Noah's rainbow
said "Your journey has ended;
you need no longer be afraid."

She came here from South Africa
but could pass for a local
I am still new to this place
The lorikeets still stop me
in my tracks with their beauty
They aren't meant to live here;
they were introduced

When they flew over us
we both turned our faces
to the Australian sun
Both quietly respecting
any creature that survives and thrives
in a foreign land

He tells his daughters all about you
My nieces, they're three and five
They call you Grandma
They know your name
and where you lived
Things you used to say
They've seen your photos
and they know you were sick
and you didn't get better

Last year he planted primroses
because he knew they were your favourites
They have their own house now
with enough room for five
The little one was born in August
A boy to play in that garden
where the flowers will bloom
every Spring, the season you loved
and which was your last

When that child is older
his sisters will teach him
The answer to Daddy's question:
What were Grandma's favourite flowers?
And Auntie will hold her tongue
and never correct him
that it was bluebells

If my life were a recipe
I feel like every ingredient would be followed
by the word "optional".

8 hours of sleep (optional)
Two to three meals a day (optional)
1 social life (optional)
1 job (optional)
A handful of friends (optional)
A pinch of creativity (optional)
One cup of laughter (optional)
Three heaped tablespoons of positivity (optional)

You get the idea.

But you're different.
You're the one ingredient I can't do without.
You're the one thing that matters
when I can't be bothered with the rest of it.
When all the chopping and sautéing and boiling
and grilling of everyday life
seems like too much hassle,
there's always enough time for you.
You're my quick-fix meal on a weekday evening.
You're a mid-morning snack
snatched between errands.
A quiet evening in on a Saturday
with a bottle of wine and Joni Mitchell playing
"I could drink a case of you".
I could cook you every night.
You're comfort food at its finest
unpretentious, convenient.
Never bland and never tiresome.
You're the one ingredient I'll always have in stock,
that one I'll never let myself run out of.
Because you cannot be substituted.
You, and only you, are not optional.

I can no longer feel a sense of achievement
asking politely for a salami roll at the bakery
Taking in a package for a neighbour
Thanking someone for holding open a door
I can speak my mother tongue here
Recycling the words I've spoken for years
My days hold sentences I've used before,
phrases that were surely among my first handful
Worn out, dulled with age
unlike the shining foreign treasures I left behind
I used to feel a thrill with each new noun
collecting them on the street like a child
picking autumn leaves from the pavement
I found vibrant colour in the commonplace
die Gabel, der Löffel, das Fenster
Observing each syllable, noticing details
that I rush past in my own language
Every new feeling or thought I hadn't the words for
a chance to learn to express them
I navigated my way through conversation
without the map we have here
that allows us to take short-cuts
I listened harder than I ever had before
taking in every single word
Gestures filled the gaps in my vocabulary
A change in expression
Using my whole body to tell my story
to people who appreciated the effort
that went in to making a connection
They took the time to slow down to my pace
over the months, as I learned to communicate

Here, it is easy to make myself understood
But so much harder to make myself heard