The lonely form crowds on the street. They collect at the corners, letting the whole world drown in their silence. They are a flashmob without the flash, and a mob that mobs no-one. Each of them is you, a someone you used to be, and therefore each of them is no-one. No-one did this, the blind Cyclops says; and this many no-ones have accusation enough to blind the sky.
These people have nobody and, so, slip through the cracks to end up collected at the edges of the drains. Corrugating in lines that jag up and down like the teeth of a zipper: swarming, dispersing, only to form again.  Chastised by the wind, like so much chaff; chaste and uncherished in mute inevitability.

These people have done are nothing and, so, ask you what you have done for them. What crime is it that they are thinking of? Each time that a shudder of revulsion at this injustice passes through the throng it bangs louder in your memory.

Who have you forgotten?

you know that I love you he lied through his redsauna face as the tv shouted the importance of cereals fortified with vitamins and minerals. Billy sat and watched his untied sneakers make snakes on the floor as the voices shook his feet.

no, really, the liar said turning towards him if you were gone i wouldnt know what to do.

Billy kicked a little and the snakes coiled and sprung.

youre all i have left. youre everything to me. i know that sometimes i ask too much of you, you look after yourself and you look after me too. you nurse me through the badtimes and its all because of the beer. you dont cry when i hit you even though you must be afraid.

Billy knew the shape of the beer stink mouth, ******* up with a memory of dead feelings, even tho he wasnt looking.

you put me to bed and clean up my mess and you look after yourself and you dont tell anyone. it's not fair for me to ask but you do it.

and he went on.

Billy thought of this so that he didnt have to look at his father, lying through his redsauna face, saying sorry for what he did, but not being it.

"He was a young man,
taken before his time."
The TV said.

The old man grumbled that
every boy is taken before their time, whatever their age.

He meant himself.
He was sorry for himself.

I was not sorry for him so
"Girls too, women," I offered, and at his hurt glance
bristled
because he did not understand why
I would need to mention that.

He simply said it again,
every boy is taken--
and I could not convince him.
Nothing remained but this:
I nodded in agreement.
What else could I do?
There are some thing you cannot say
for fear of being offensive.

But now, in private, I can tell him,
Where he will not hear me,
that
he should not have been so hasty.
That
no matter what your age,
it might still be exactly your time
or
even
after your time.

"You are not owed a life,"
I should have said,
nodding sagely.
At his reddening face
His thickening growl
I would have said it again.
"You are not owed a life."

The child was reluctant, obstructive, rudely derogated the rules of night-time. In return, the mothers smile crusted over; her anticipating face raged with love, with tenderness, with necessity.

Hold back desperation: “Shall I read you a story?” Yes, a boring story, a story to bore your little eyes closed and your little head droopy and your little snores out.

All children learn to say no and this one was a champion already. Still gentle and formless it was not quite male, not quite female. It was androgynous, sexless, precocious with the possibilities of a gender unslated -- as if pigeon-holes could be sated at a later date. A choice depending on pointing out a celebrity from a picture in a magazine, and saying: ‘that one’.

“I don’t want to be in bed.”

This was said from bed, defiant, huddled and muddled within the pastry of the sheets and wriggling like a still-living filling. Four-and-twenty blackbirds, all singing.

Isn’t this a pretty dish thought mother.

“But bed is good,” she reasoned, “bed is a fine fine thing to be in.” She eyed it herself, covetously, the crispness of the linen holding the warm buttered biscuit smell of a child’s hair.

“Bed isn’t good. It’s lonely.”

Yes, lonely, sang the mother to herself, alone to be with myself only. Swaying with sleeplessness, mother’s voice burst with secrets.

“Bed is good. It is. It is where you were made.”

And you, child, are a good thing. Making you was good. Therefore beds are good.

Mother blinked dreamily, lies rushing unbidden to fill the gap between a child's world and the truth; the question came immediately.

“Have you ever seen someone making a *** out of clay?” she asked in response. Her arms raised in front of the child’s face. “Have you ever seen the clay sculpted, squeezed?” Then she lowered them. “And this was the oven. This is where you were baked.”

She wondered what kind of dreams these lies would bring, dreams of whispered fertility, Freudian dreams of plumbers removing bottoms and widdlers. Dreams of children baked out of clay and, rocked from the cradle; falling, smashing.

Only one person goes into Father's room.
It is not me.
His sleeping threatens you from his bed.
His breath is sour vinegar and dust.
And,
if you are too loud,
He shouts.

Only one person goes into Father's room.
It is not my younger brother.
"I am not going," he cries.
Not even if you tease him with a toy in the dark corner.
A fabulous toy.
Almost seen in the darkest corner furthest from the door.
No matter how fabulous you make it,
Even when his fingers are grabbing at the air,
And the breath comes out of his wet lips in whistles,
And he is touching the door,
And the door creaks at his touch,
He is already past the floorboards which made the same noise,
He is so close,
He will not do it.
"There is no toy," he will whisper
And even though he is right
You must say
"You are chicken."
But you say this quietly too.
Because,
if you are too loud,
He shouts.

Only one person goes into Father's room.
It is not Mother.
Instead, she calls up from the bottom of the stairs.
She will listen for a while.
She will get nothing.
Then, calling him names,
She will come up the stairs,
Stamping her feet.
She will call out from the landing.
She will listen for a while.
She will get nothing.
Finally she walks up to the door of the bedroom.
She will shout from there.
Sometimes she shouts once.
Sometimes she shouts many times.
She is too loud.
He shouts.
He is louder than her but she has more words to say.
"You are ******* your parents' money away!"
That sounds painful to me.
"Your sickness is called laziness!"
I hope I do not get laziness.
I do not want to be in bed all day.

Only one person goes into Father's room.
It is the charwoman, with her broom.
Once a week she opens the curtain.
He groans.
I listen at the door.
She is busy, cleaning.
She tells him that he has made a disgraceful mess.
She tells him that he has a family to look after.
She is soft, but she is not scared.
He talks to her.
He does not shout.
"Tomorrow," he says.

I know you'll tell me
straight,
and she looks at me for assurance.
You always tell people
straight
right-side-up
exactly what you're thinking.

I just let her talk.

Well,
the sigh comes out like she's been punched in the belly,
I've been thinking about killing myself.
Not in a big way,
hands outstretched, face wide,
I don't want to die,
like,
tomorrow.

She looks at me.
She wants me to say,
"You're not crazy.  It's normal to feel like this.  To feel the steady drip drip drip of life wear you down.  To want to avoid it.  To make little decisions that shield you from the drips.  Numb you.  'Turn on, tune in, drop out.'"

I just let her talk.

Just small things,
she reiterates,
for example:
I've started to eat meat again.
One day,
boom,
clogged arteries.
Because,
part of me wants to die.
I'm stealing my mum's cigarettes.
One day,
boom,
lung cancer.
Same thing.



She shrugs,
Hands, elbows, shoulders undulating like a sea serpent.

I am unperturbed.
We live in a universe of humanity
and
there are so many galaxies hurtling towards
and away from
each other that all things have been done before.
Each galaxy screams with conflicting needs
solar systems tearing themselves apart
planets and moons swirling towards each other
to burn and burst into hateful dust.

One person can want to live
and want to die,
can want to say sorry
even as their hand makes a fist.
You don't need to know about Freud,
Thanatos,
Eros,
or all the grand words that litter the street of fake comprehension
to see
that
this
is
true.

Her eyes narrow.
She can see I am not impressed.
She is not stupid, at least not about others.
But we can all be stupid about ourselves,


no,


we all must be stupid about ourselves.
Life is not for the strong,
or the fast,
or the clever,
life is for the stupid.
Why play a game you cannot win?
How can you enjoy it without embracing your own recklessness?
I don't pity her,
not how she wants.
I am happy for her.
This discontent is
the ****
which might fertilise her life.

You don't understand,
she alleges
as if my listening has a different quality to it now.
A bewildered quality.
As if my ears are cocked at a different angle
eyes at a different brightness
breathing less or more in time with my heartbeat.

You don't understand,
she is sure of this.
I want to ruin myself.
I am applying for courses that I could never hope to be eligible for or
courses that I would never enjoy.
I am not doing what I am best at to make sure I never succeed at it.
I turn away my friends and loved ones with spitefulness.

I want to wake up tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that
and
never
be
anything
else.



Now it is her turn
to
listen.

Death is a private business,
I declare,
as you have already found.
It is hard to talk about,
hard to reveal,
it is between yourself and nothing else.
You could strangle all opportunities out of
fear
spite
self-loathing.
And as much as others complained,
it would be your choice.

Life,
though,
Life,
is a public business.
To live is to walk past and through other people.
Where they've been, where they are, where they are going.
If you want to live,
you have to negotiate it.
We are all hostages for each other,
we are all human shields,
we bear the brunt of each other's sorrow, sometimes,
or else we turn our backs to avoid it and so exclude ourselves.
We limit ourselves and each other.

You have been honest to me about your feelings,
and I am honoured,
but you must talk to the people who hold you
and to who you hold
nested in each other's pockets like Russian dolls.

All I can give you is this.
Here it is.
Here is my human sympathy.
You will pass it on to others,
one day.

hands at ears hair splayed screaming
the baby copying her tears snot streaming
is how I remember her always have always will
gripped with need for some small pill
or syringe or---

I'm holding her mother's hand, and -- lying --
Say that I loved her more as she was dying.
Ignoring the cause, ignoring my guilt
Boarding up the windows with the view I built.
We're crazy paving, joined together.
Hands all linked in forgetting whether
We were the cause of the start, the end,
Or the middle, where she showed that she would tend--
Maybe our actions sped her up, catalysed?
We do not ask.
                Our mouths all lie that we are surprised.

---she is pregnant hands encircling
rich and fertile with a hidden promise
boy or girl?
We know now so
we celebrate
even though we had made a promise not to
was that the start?

The hardest question comes last,
At last,
"Will the baby remember her past?
Yes, I say, from far away,
We'll say a prayer on Mother's day.
There will be a picture (blown-up huge), I'll ask who's that?
She'll look up brightly from her activity mat--

I float away, mouth using persuasive platitudes,
Telling them she will know her mother's multitudes,
Wondering whether my memories can be falsified.
Wondering whether I will remember that I lied.

--I'm holding her mother's hand, and - lying -
Say that I love her most now she is dead.
I have fooled her, she looks down, sighing,
But her father's red-rimmed eyes hold steady on my head.