gnarley fingers 
veil his face, 
skin thin and crusted 
at certain spots: 
splotched parchment 
of years in the sun 

moistness 
cascades 
from his forehead to 
his chin 
then meets gravity; 
raindrops 

through his soil-grimed 
singlet, jeans and boots; 
hours of toil 
simmer away 
in rivulets 
of forgetfulness.

You aren't ready for the day until you've visited the bathroom and spruced up, groomed up, and psyched up.


Mirrors.

Mirrors are not my favourite bathroom fixture....or anywhere else. I must have been somewhat scarred as a school child to feel this way about something as silly as a mirror. 'Mirror, mirror on the wall....' so goes a wonderful phrase in a familiar children's story. Is it not logical to have handy a magical mirror?

The only time a mirror finds any usefulness to me is when I need to keep my hair in place or pick out some zit or the occasional comedo. Otherwise it is, I find, something best ignored or avoided.

Weighing Scales.

Weighing scales are another bathroom item that give me that slightest flutter in the tummy of a morning. Having always been just a hair under the average height and weight has given me a momentary dread of using the scales. The school nurse would queue us up and then take our vital statistics and that was by far one of the cruellest and most excruciating of annual reality checks. Scales..... comparisons... mirrors.... horrors.....

Denial is far more comfortable a choice.

i have a little dog he just loves to dance
when the music plays he just loves to prance.

shakes his little **** to a steady beat
he just loves to shuffle with his little feet.

nods his little head when its rock n roll
nodding side to side clever little soul.

when the music stops he takes a rest and then
until the musics back then off he goes again

So carve my name into your chest
and send me pictures, dear.

Write me letters in the red
and bottle all the tears.

Call me an angel.
Tell them I'm lying.
Scream it 'til your words make sense.

Fill your lungs with hatred
and spew out penitence.

Because you know with all your silent flames
and pledged ambivalence,
You know with all the months and years
of burning my pictures as incense.
You know that I'm your demons.
The burden that you bear.
I drove you to hysteria,
you say I brought you there.

So discard your kilogram of flesh
to punish me, my dear.
Leave it at my doorstep,
sweet nostalgia for my tears.

Tell me I tore you apart.
Whisper that I ripped out your reason.
And I will say I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.
I will say this.

But you never voiced your anguish,
your complete disappointment in me.
How was I to know that it was I
who drove you to insanity?