It’s a slow slide to somewhere else...

He shuffles, stumbles stammers and he sleeps.

He knows I am his brother.
I help him go for a wee in a bowl,
we’re standing by the commode.

He shuffles back to his comfy chair

but only with my help.

“Are you my brother?”
“I am,” I say.

Six years is a biggish gap between siblings.

‘Our Brian’ tolerated me...

”Take Chris to the pictures”...
”Aw Mum, I’m 18... he’s only 12!!!”

He headed on out with his mates, smirking,
waving  a ciggie and a beer.

But, when he needed a whizzo batsman for his cricket team,
who knew?
 I was strangely unavailable...
But, I capitulated and said “OK I’ll play for you!” We won!
At 81 he shuffles, he stammers, stumbles and he sleeps.

He employed 300 people in factories overseas,

spoke with authority, negotiating with emperors -
always with total ease.
Today he talks in whispers, his larynx squeaks;

clatters like a broken pipe, every time he speaks...

He shuffles, he stammers, stumbles and he sleeps
...for most of every day.
“
I am your brother aren’t I?”

“You certainly are”, I say.

He was the head of magistrates handing down the law...
I joked... I called him ‘hang ‘em high Bri’,

him judging slightly to the right of Atilla the ***.

I remind him of his past... and we smile ...
(because of course it wasn’t true)....

The last thing to die will be his sense of fun.
He shuffles, stammers, stumbles and he sleeps.

He played prop forward for Moseley’s first fifteen,
maybe his problems started way back when...

too many head clashes, line outs, scrum downs...

That’s the last thing you’d think about back then.
But there’s long term damage you might do...by just ‘being’.
He stumbles, stammers, shuffles, 
dummies
and scores in his dreams...as he sleeps.

He even went to garden parties at the Queen’s Equery’s behest
as well as, whilst in India, often - he’d be a Maharajah’s guest.
And, when you mention it, he just smiles wryly

and stares, with rictus grin. He IS in there!
But that’s the trouble though... sometimes he IS locked IN!
He stumbles, stammers, shuffles, smiles -
 and he does love to rest.
But sometimes he will rally with a string of memories
all lucid and true... and, if there’s food involved
well, he’ll be at the table way ahead of you.
That’s the quick shuffle!

He makes good progress 
through all his favourite stuff,
Then he’ll lie in his reclining chair 
and enjoy that customary nap

You watch him closely - making sure he’s still breathing
- thank heavens for that!

He stumbles, wheezes when he talks -

and shuffles when he walks...
He shuffles, stumbles...then he sleeps!
“You are my brother aren’t you?”
“You know I am - for keeps!
Love you Bri!”

I open my window and toss my hair to the trees.
Someone told me birds use hair to insulate their nests.
Google says it’s harmful, but the birds and I have an understanding:
they won’t be strangled, and I won’t be stranded.

All I do is shed;
flesh hangs off bones like someone else’s dress,
I put on jewelry then take it off, hoping the fool’s gold won’t crumble
in my wallet. I’m sure I’ll self-immolate
if earring-backs and claw-clasps
keep licking my skin.
I shed hair and thighs,
guilt and fingernails, doubt and light,
until the world is full of me and I am full of nothing.

I gather my hair from brushes and shower drains,
pluck it from elastics and carpets, slice it out of vacuum rollers
with a box cutter, roll it into a tumbleweed in my palms.
Then to the window, where I drop it onto crabapple branches below.
I want the robins and starlings and sparrows,
the heaven-sent cardinals,
the crows I tell my secrets to,
to build a nest with my dead parts,
to make a home from the parts of me that couldn’t hold on.

Midsummer,
the worn-out end of June brushes against the beginning
of July and I’m wearing shorts to work for the first time in years.
I’m reading fiction in the sun, writing down my horoscope,
pretending I’m not a hostage to that first week in April
where he hurt my feelings, and I just hurt.

All I do is patter;
my hair drips to the floor in long, black rivers,
my aura drips down my back like a gas leak,
I think about how many trees I cut down to make myself,
and I think about birds falling asleep
in a haunt that’s made of me.

Losing my hair, losing my patience—
legs thinning, heartbeat skipping,
eyes squinting like commas, mouth tensing like a fist,
fingers like pitchforks reaching up from the grave,
skin like an avocado rotting on the counter.
All this losing, at least I’m helping the birds.

Words come and go with no consequence,
I buy dumb **** online and write poems without any soul,
I imagine a life where love is a faucet that drips through the night,
and I dream of him with long hair and daisies in his teeth.
My writing doesn’t pinch, my feet don’t tingle,
I just knot phrases around each other like tangled string lights
with half the bulbs burnt out, and it’s fine to say things like that.

I’m on a losing streak, but the birds don’t know it,
they tend to their babies, they sing to the dawn.
I can shed my way across summer like that was always the plan,
like I wasn’t born to ache, to be left gutted and graceless and wondering.
I wasn’t made to be love-bombed or pulled into trench warfare
after being invited to a picnic. I didn’t want to hold the gun,
but he was screaming to pull the trigger, and then my skirt was ruined.

I can leave my body in the grass and my hair in the trees,
I can write dry poems and feed them to the wind,
I can leave a trail of me through the trees like I was never there,
and when I find my way back, only the birds will know the difference.

Coldness resides in my veins,
and no amount of heat can keep me warm
My body is craving his embrace,
to revel in the warmth of his touch

Your lips, a frozen fire that burns within
Your touch, a gentle warmth that never dims
I crave, oh how I crave you endlessly.

When you're not here, my heart aches, longing
for your touch, your presence. Memories of you
linger, haunting me like a bittersweet melody.

Your words, now distant echoes, still send shivers
down my spine. In my mind, you're a queen, a
goddess, above all else. My love for you is
unwavering, like a regal crown upon my head.

your body will be clay in my hands; molded by my touch
shaped, embraced, by my fountain of love
etched my love letter into your body
velvet kisses and whispering softly
embrace your maker while i embrace your arch
paint you in my love strokes, my art
etched my love letter in your body
velvet kisses and whimpering softly

Now
The thunderous joy subsides
And I am out of breath
Cheeks hurting
Do I wear this face of self
Everywhere i go?
Do they see?
The confliction in creases
The smallness
The largeness
Of things
The disproportionate
Incapacities
I am no sombre-eyed bird
They say I smile sweetly
But I do not like my teeth
I do not like my joy
I am stiffled by my
Beautiful
Self-acceptance show
It is terrifying to appear
To be seen, twisted
Moulded over and over
By the eyeless mind,
Ever unchanged and
Impossibly me
I am open
For all but myself to see
And how many faces
For how many watchers
Am I to wear them all?
By God, am I to become them

you want to see me stripped on the floor
a motor of a girl gasping for breath
crawling with her blistered knuckles
her wounds harsh and fresh
can’t you just breathe in deeply?
exhale, then inhale me
oh, for your sake baby
push it in then leave me diseased
you only see a body
you only see a body
you only see a body
you only see my body


—i wish so hard that you would just see me