I feel you
in my bones.

All 206 of them.

“Perfect,
Get it perfect.”
What was ‘perfect?’
Perfect grades? Perfect manners?
Perfect charade…
Charade?
I never knew it was pretend…
Just thought fighting and lying and leaving
Was completely normal…
Felt like a broken cocoon with a beautiful butterfly
That’s too scared of the outside world to emerge.
“Perfect,
Just perfect.”
Broken chairs, broken walls, broken hearts.
Fighting wasn’t an ideal perception,
It was everything I breathed, all that I knew.
Strangling the idea of perfection
Until it slipped right through our hands.
Perfectly out of hand and sight
The only thing in sight, in fact, was a hand
Across my mother’s cheek, and only
Because she chose to speak
Well, isn’t that image just perfect?
“Perfect, Caytlin, perfect,”
The answer he gave at that moment
When asked if I believed the marriage would work
I was only eleven… eleven…
What was I supposed to say?
“No.”
Tears ran in perfect streams
Down my mother and sister’s faces
Like rain coming down softly
Calming right after the storm.
My eyes stayed dry because I knew
This was never perfection at all
Just a big misunderstanding
My mother holding onto the edge of the cliff
Because she was too afraid to let go
Of what she knew and fall into the perfect waters.
….perfect?
What is perfect?
Everything that I am not?
The things that I have failed to do?
The people I couldn’t manage to impress?
Perfect is a figment of our imaginations,
Because 'perfect' does not exist.

We could tuck ourselves in a crevice,
between a wall
and view the stones
for what they really are.

Let the light loom over us,
shade us from the heat;
The warmth of a halogen bulb
highlighting the street.

And it’s there we’d kiss,
and spark cigarettes,
and forget why we came here,
and let no one in, let alone near,
and we’d have a private joke,
like small font liner notes,
and for that two minutes,
(more work for the coffee mule)
we would overlook the important
stuff, for
that’s what it is,
another 70, at best, years
of toil and fluff.

*This tableaux love affair
will be omitted in years to come,
filed under the ‘lusts that resulted in
no fun, that night’ folder
in the great green cabinet of bills,
bills, bills again invoices.

Egg cell boy was
nurtured in a
test tube home.

What he was rested
on shelf after shelf,
a museum to himself.

Hawk eye dreams
stayed stale in a thick rimmed
case of glass and class,

though he never
saw what was in
front of him:

a blind love that
would not materialise
into anything but,
time wasted under sheet and cover,
and some lies to warm that
comic book heart of yours.

Cut from my womb
no signs of life
no first breath
no first cry
no first cuddle
I did not get to count your fingers or toes
nor did I get to look into your eyes
you were taken and I was left alone
wondering and fearful

Our first meeting through a plastic box
wires, tubes, laboured breathing
so frail and broken
tears and hopes as I held your tiny hand
afraid as tears wet my face

So tiny for such a brave warrior
fighting against the odds
as we stayed by your side
marvelling at your strength
and the devotion of those that cared

The first time I held you
gingerly fearing tangled wires
I finally felt that you belonged to me
my little man

Our first night alone
much overdue
rush of love
as you snuggle in
and suckle like a pro
Soon I could take you home
and you would truly belong to us

Now time has passed
you grew and found your feet
my naughty little adventurer
who is far to busy to sleep
full of life as if making up for lost time

I pour myself
a glass of
Klonopin water
and chase it down
with a handle of
cheap *****
and a cigarette.

I move slowly
and stand in front
of my bathroom mirror
and watch my eyes
change from
bloodshot
to
blackout

and I ghostwalk
to the bottom
of my mind,
the venom slowly
filling my veins
and I dive deeper
into this hideous
numbness.