I am Heavy-lidded tonight, Heavy-lidded and inscrutable in my childhood.
My childhood that was spent hysterical in airing cupboards, Where I wept unashamedly to the fixed God And the stained glass, rose-hewn Angels of churches That reeked of oak and holy water. Where I sat in the trees, high on life and vanila-blue ice cream And with knees skinned by the ****** pathways of woods Or the safe gravels of playgrounds.
Where sunbursted mangoes dripped with musky-sanded chlorine And the sun-hot metal gates clanged shut in the holiday winds. Where rocks were thrown by fated children And paper-cheap candy wrappers filled up plastic trash cans. Where strange, money-minded housewives gaggled and giggled With their ******-white teeth And reflected my mother' s bipolar poverty In the lenses of their plastic sunglasses. Where my self-hemmed summer dresses were stained With green and brown and red finger paint As the days outside grew warmer And the inside self grew older, Colder.
Where I was punished for expression of the self And confined to the sanatorium Or the offices of Moloch's servants On a sun-stippled day in May Where my scrap-bruised hands Were bandaged by the words of the Real World And threatenings of expulsion. Where I hid behind felted display boards On a landing somewhere near Neverland, And lay and listened to the friend-fuelled ramblings of lost boys Who sat and smoked in dormitories And hallucinated Peter Pan. Where I wrote self-indulgent fuckery in toilets And drew crude artistries on mirrors with lipstick And contemplated Amo Amas Amat As I sat and stared at my own disassociated hands.
Where paper aeroplanes flew and were thrown By hungover kids in threadbare jumpers With chewed cuffs and prefect badges, Where holy Evian was poured over my head After a long last day under a white marquee, Where I disassembled pencil sharpeners with iron-smelling razor blades and violated erasers at an exam hall desk in a stormy June.
Where I contemplated death; Sang hymns in the darkness of my bedroom, Took a blade to my flesh Like the soulless piece of meat That I believed myself to be. Where I fell in love; Hurt myself More than anyone else ever did. Where I read, Where I wrote tear stained elegies To my idols under the earth And prayed that I Would last Just one more day.