‘how are you?’ they ask

‘fine, thanks’
I smile.  Because my face does that. That’s what it is meant to do. And my outside and inside are not connected any more.

‘do you want to talk about it?’ they ask

‘It’s a lot’
And I watch them wait. See them watch me smile. Watch them try to connect my outside to my insides.

But they can’t do that.
Because I can’t do that.

Sometimes I say the words out loud.
Pluck them out of the blank space inside my head and hurl them out into this normal world.
They are an act of violence.
Dressed in my normal speaking voice.

‘my daughter tried to **** herself’

In the hospital, they called her ‘the overdose in bed 16’
As if the method of it mattered.
As if that was the part that needed healing.

And they ask her why.
And she tells them.

‘He left me.
Without him I have no reason to stay’

And I reach across this endless space and hold her hand.
And I hang on.
And I try not to feel my insides.

I woke up this morning and
I had been made blank.
The colour and texture of me erased.
Even the hollow and empty were gone,
and what I have been left with
is this quiet stillness

this seems fine

my life plays out, a vintage home movie in
the distance of my mind, in faded
colours, with muted dialog.
There is an echo of a laugh-track
that does not hold my interest.
I’m not sure if that’s important.

but it seems fine

like my guilt and want and need,
my desperation,
were ropes that bound my ankles
that wrapped around my neck
and I have been cut loose.
to drift away in this quiet stillness

and this seems fine.

I think it is science, or art, or nature?
maybe there is no difference,
but when it works, it is beautiful.
Not like kittens in a basket,
but like a Mandelbrot set;
intricate, nuanced and perfectly balanced.

it is the balance that is my undoing.

In the beginning I was meant to hold her close.
gentle, warm and welcoming.
until that welcome and warmth reached
all the way inside her.
Like charging a battery for the first time.
but nothing comes from nothing,
and I ran dry.
too soon.

So now she wears my damage
like a wound, an accusation,
a plea.
and I want to make her whole,
but giving feels like punishment.
Like I have to choose; who will get
this oxygen? her or me?
and will everything I have ever be enough?
to fill either of us?

today I took the phone off the hook,
then I wrapped it in a heavy jacket
and hid it in my drawer.

the drawer where I hide my candy.
so, I swapped them.
I let the rich, sweet colours
take my focus and forced the world
to hide beneath my tastebuds

so now the world, the phone and I
do not exist.
for this little while

I think I’ll leave my glasses on my desk today.
I’m not sure I want the
world in focus and this
gives a simple reason for
the pain behind my eyes.

there is no point
in brushing my hair. my lips
are too heavy on
my face, and my eyelids only
seem to bother with every second blink.
or maybe third

I do not really understand
how this numbness feels just like burning.
or why nothingness weighs heavy
like wet wool.
and I don’t really care.

‘remember’ she said
like it were simple,
painless, clean.

‘why don’t you like to remember?’

and it oozes in, like the stench of rotten flesh
uninvited

too much
too close
too close
too close

and I remember;
I am not allowed to stop this
not now
not then
this flesh of mine belongs to someone else,
again

and I know, this is not the same.
but I am stained with this debasement
and you must suckle from my shame
can you taste it?
That I don’t want this.

Can your newborn eyes see how ugly that is?

and I remember;
how I want to sing hymns to you.
to fill your world with pink and purple sound.
to wrap you whole in clouds and sunshine
I want you to be safe here

and I remember;
how you are bare, defenceless
tender like the flesh of ripened fruit
and mine are not a mother’s hands

because mothering is lush,
endless and unstinting
sincere and welcoming

and I am dry, barren, wrong
miserly and empty

this is not mothering
this fear
this resentment

your need is a question I do not have the answer to,
huge and terrifying,
it will swallow us both whole.

and I remember;
how I want to run,
I want to put you and your hunger
and your greedy ******* want
over there.

To keep space between us.

Because you want more than I have.
Need more than I am.

and the only thing that hurts me more than remembering,
is the idea that you might remember too.

my world is a life boat,
a nursery rhyme construction
of wood and tired paint;
almost safe
almost stable
almost dry
almost real

I have crafted it from pure will
and grip tight with aching fingertips
even as I stare over the edge
at everything I want to know.

Everything I fear.

because the ocean makes no promises,
it is a story told in real time,
destination unknown

and I sip at the flavour of it,
let the rich and briny thickness
of it coat my tongue
and dry crisp against my skin.

And I pretend at understanding

With loving reverence, I curate tales
of its inky black mysteries
and full spectrum shining life,

I watch it flash and froth beneath the surface.
out of reach.

But I have never let it take me whole,
never let the rhythm of it press against my flesh,
never danced with waves from the inside,
never dared to open my eyes in salt water.

And I wonder
if I have resigned myself
to growing old here?

I want to label this wound
with a single word
but I cannot find one that fits

I wanted to call you Father,

but you would not have stood for that
you would have seen my intent,
tasted my defiance.
you understand the power of our names
you scent it in the air,
primal,
an instinctive predator.

Father, would have given me space,
the first step towards an open door

Dad, bound me close
with coarse, abrasive rope
that you called
love and loyalty and family

it would not hurt me, you said
as long as I kept still

so I hid my heartbeat from you
in the steady thrum of others'
because there is safety in a crowd
I offered you Father-in-law
I let you have Grandfather

but I cannot do
what is second nature to you,
I cannot look at family
and see prey

so I ran
I took what I could carry and I fled
I chose my own name for you

I called you no-one
I called you my past

but a letter came today
registered post
and you have signed it
Dad

humanity is a vast palette
many hued and multifaceted
all soft, rough, violent textures

we are slow burning sunset skies
we are roaring, diamond waterfalls,
and whispering heat haze

we are blood stained hands
and gentle, searching lips

we are chipped paint
and red petalled window boxes

we are straining, sweat slicked lust
we are the gossamer silk of an age worn cheek

we are brocade and velvet
we are beard coarse, dusk hued wool

we are furnace forged knives
and blades of dew strung grass

we are broken signs and rotting leaves
and endless, frozen white expanse

me; I am loose woven cotton
I am eighteen percent grey

I am enough.

I resent apologising for something so central
to who I am.
and that means something,
because apologising for who I am is what I do best

but this part of me does not feel wrong
or ugly
and I do not want to fix it

I watch the world from the outside.

it is not voyeurism,
I do not lurk or creep
or prey upon the world.

I watch, from the edge of others' experience

because the world is beautiful,
even when it’s not
and people are incredible,
even when they’re broken
and I revel in your joy
and I weep for your sorrow

and I will see you

when you take a breath and step towards your fear
when you blank your face and give selflessness in love

I will watch you dance and twirl
and almost feel the wonder in that moment that you do

and perhaps some things can only be seen fully from the outside.

therapy is hard
Somehow I had not expected that,
I was aware that I am damaged,
broken, not fit for purpose.
But I did not go to therapy expecting to be healed
I went to confess.
to show the world that I understood
that I was not made right

to offer them my shame

pain, when you live in it,
can feel ordinary,
familiar
and when the whole world feels cold
and unsafe
it becomes easy to mistake
familiar for comfortable
and comfortable becomes home

and it is instinctual to head for home,
to search the world for a place
which feels familiar.
a place where you feel you belong
exactly

but I am not purely instinct
and my mind and eyes can see
the filth that I called home for what it is,

mostly

so I give time and money and blood
to learn the differences
but it will mean forever leaving home
and that is harder than I thought.

I think my doctors are killing me.
With good intentions and Austrian dogma
together we examine my pain.
Neither nature or nurture have served me well,
I am the disease and the patient.

I am not sure you can fix both

It sounds reasonable;
find the rot and chop it out.
But I think we are cutting into viable flesh now

I need to shift the focus
to look outside myself
this introspection is a feedback loop of hate
but they say I am contagious
and I am hamstrung by that
robbed of agency
because I can walk away from my pain
but I cannot walk away from theirs

so we go back
to the panoramic vista of my damage
label each part of it
cause and effect
but I do not understand how
steeping me in this fetid stench will cure me,
or them
and I long for fresh air.

I don’t want to measure this in words
I don’t want to explain or understand
I have been breathing in pure chaos
and there is no oxygen in it

I am dizzy with it

my insides, my outside
my life, my mind
we are tangled Christmas lights

a Gordian knot
but the knife never cuts deep enough

I self medicate with distraction
I drink too much
I think too much
but always end up here
with the bottle too empty
and my head too full
and I don’t have the energy that this desperation needs

I should feel more than this
but as a legacy from you
it fits

empathy and anger are concepts to me
puzzle pieces I try to fit in the hollow inside me
but they do not feel like mine

you do not feel like mine

and the truth of that is jagged
rough and corrosive
because it has more flesh to it than anything else between us

but emotion is hereditary
I must give to mine what you gave to me
and I am empty handed

but not empty
which counts for nothing when all I feel is locked inside me
wrapped up in words and handed to strangers
who cannot understand the weight of them

and now my children bleed
from wounds no mother should inflict
and I watch their pain and I am
frozen

because I have no language for this

and I realise that maybe this was your truth
that this was all you had to give me
but not all you had

so maybe this empathy and anger I hold is yours

but emotion is hereditary
and I do not want these words to be rewritten
by those I love the most
so I will learn to give my words to those who need them

because I do not want emptiness to be my legacy

I wish I could draw
with soft dark lines on perfect white
I would sketch a woman
sitting in a tub
knees tight beneath chin
hands unclear

she would be nothing but an outline
stark and vulnerable
colourless

then with gentle flickers
of stop-gap movement you would see the blade

not menacing or sinister
a scalpel
and my simply drawn woman
would ease the blade into her side
and you would see that there is no destruction in her intent

this is to cleanse

and I would bring the image close,
so you could see the gentle weeping wound
watch toxicity leaking from her flesh
and it would make sense to both of us

since times of leechings we have understood the dangers of letting ugliness fester inside our skin

but then we would step back
as the bath around my woman filled
red and toxic green
the simple lines of her submerged slowly by the ugliness from within

and you would look at my pictures then
and understand my meaning
that sometimes poison cannot be cut out
that you cannot give clean skin to someone made of scar tissue

i cannot touch the world skin to skin
i am not built to withstand such intimacy
the violent burn of it takes my breath and makes my hands shake

and yet, I am touch starved
hungry for skin privileges

so instead I touch by proxy
I dress my love and care in pragmatic gestures
I reach inside and pick out the raw elements of who I am
and pin them to the page with words

I hand the world rows of text and hope someone will notice me between the lines

And then I run back to the shadows and hide
because that is me there
naked and exposed
and my hands shake
because real intimacy must reciprocate
and I have no language for it.

standing side by side we are a Venn Diagram
the only point of overlap our need

we call it friendship
but it is corrupted
moulded through necessity
and lack of choice

the need came first
who was just an afterthought

we are rent-a-crowd
rhubarb, rhubarb white noise
in the silent spaces of each other’s lives
props to distract the eye from empty chairs

it is greed and empathy in equal measure
we see each other in third person
both broken, complicated and difficult

but I see all the shades of you
I see your greens and browns and harsh yellow

You are tiger’s eye and opal
Not to my taste, but beautiful

I am rough quartz
unremarkable but solid

you want a dance partner
someone to sing with
I fold your laundry and water your plants

you have derailed me
you handed me flickering pictures of
sentiment and golden innocence
and now I am wrecked

sliced open
watching myself bleed with indifference

I cannot shape this wound with metaphor
It is too vast to fix that way
And I cannot see the reasons why I should from here

so now I am stumbling in the vaulted rooms of my past
with my eyes grimly shut
fighting off the smell and sound of it

but the flavour of my own inadequacy sours my breath
and pills and wine and darkness
will not remove the taste

Head and shoulders back.
Staring down the world over the bridge of your nose.

That’s the why of it;
you are framing the vista with your own experience
inserting yourself into the centre of every landscape you admire

I however, fold inwards
Protecting myself from a violation you don’t even believe in.

You are crushing flowers into the sidewalk.
i am desperately avoiding standing on the cracks

this is not despair
this is weariness
the simple truth that

there is no weight to darkness,

i’m not reaching for it,

but for fleeting moments it is necessary.
to catch my breath and let the
vibration of my skin
subside.
i can’t explain the energy required to remain whole
when the
light and bright and noise of the world
presses in to me.
my eyes
my skin
my nostrils, are full of it.
it demands that I provide a constant counterweight
just to stand still
just to breathe and stay awake
and remember that
this is not despair.

i want to know my shape
but i am made of vapour
I have spent a lifetime draping myself in shrouds
so that i cannot see the edges of myself
I am hazy and undefined,
desaturated and without contrast
my flesh is a metaphor for everything i am
and it terrifies me.
i have given all my energy to crafting myself from disruptive camouflage
so i would not need to apologise for,
so I would not need to know,
the contours of who i am
so I would not take up space
but i want that
now
i want to find all the parts of me i do not recognise
my spine
my voice
my worth
my shape
I want to look at a picture of my life and for the first time
see me in it

it hooks in sharp between my ribs
and twists.
crushing my ribs against the
Bang. Bang. Bang.
of my heart it,

leaves no room for air

it’s the sort of feeling that needs drowning
in whisky and gin and
oblivion

but I’m being good.

I have my fingers in my ears and
I’m humming tunelessly
as it grips me by the back of my neck
like a cat grips a kitten
limp and powerless,
hanging
jaw clenched in impotent fury
as
it
fills
up my
skin.

we scream in harmony
silent

I lay the table in its formal best:
mahogany, silver and candlelit.
Then in separate bowls, each coloured rich and warm
I put the pieces of myself

and offered it all, banquet style
to you
the rank and sour smell of it heavy in the air

‘they’re miserable’ you said
I know.

and we were both shocked
because I thought you knew;

that’s why I need you

because we both understand darkness
but yours is not inside you.

we live in delicate balance, the universe and i
from time to time I steal myself to look
breath held and shoulders tense
cynicism brandished in anticipation

I look because I believe you when you tell me
there is beauty out there too
I look because I believe in you

but when it gets too much I fold back inside myself
and leave the fight to you

because you were made for it
in a way few people would see or understand

because it is not the cold bright intellect
that you hold, a tempered shield, against the world
that keeps you safe

it is the core of you

where anger, love and innocence burn white hot,
fierce and beautiful.

and so real that even when I am crushed and lost
in my internal black,
when I have no lightness of my own to keep me whole
I feel the light of you

and I believe you
when you tell me there is beauty
in and outside of me
even if only you can see it.

I have been living here for years
quietly
gently
in the cage of my own dysfunction

I have let the soft abrasion
of how we think
slough off the edges
of myself

the me I did not have the strength
to scaffold on my own

the me I did not want the responsibility
of defending from the world

so now,
I will not tell you the cage door is open

I will draw your attention to
the bars
and roof
and floor

to how calmly I hold fast to my perch

but I feel the open space

I feel the air come in and
I can taste
who I am
on my skin

and it brings me joy
and pain

because this is beautiful
and maybe, I am beautiful

but I cannot share this with you
yet
maybe, ever

because if all you see is what is not the same
then it will feel less

I will feel less

and I need to see the whole of me
to see all of me through my own eyes