My preteen years were
filled with white zinfandel
dreams and a collage
of wood panelling.

Broken thoughts become
ninety proof lies; drink-
don't think.

Diet Coke cans filled
with wine, hiding from
myself but mostly from
my grandmother

I wanted to conceal my
role as the family ****-up
for as long as possible
but then
I hit a wall.

Drinking is a constant love affair,
I keep coming back like a battered wife
because I can't get a grip on my
battered life.

Living for the burn
that spread its legs all
the way down my throat.

You're going to die, they say.
Maybe one day,
I'll believe them.

I lie awake in the wooden room
I have constructed in the woods
dreaming of pretty things.

Knots like ochre eyes stare down from the oak wood panelling.
Outside, the wind brushes up against the fogged glass
laid into the side of my house,
a feeble proxy to the coyotes song
rippling through the ballooning darkness.

I built this home, all 275 square feet,
lugging tools and supplies through the barren acres.
I laid each brick into the fat black earth
preparing the foundation,
laying my life into it
nailing each board around me.

When spring rolled in the trilliums poked
through the earth to admire the commotion.
Later came their friends: the mountain-pride, 
buttercups and harlequin lupine.

In my dreams, the lupine could become a cloak of royal silk
wrapped around me,
the King.

Golden ore and stalks of silver
poking through the earth
where trilliums once grew.

That night I dreamt of pretty things
Shiny things still blotched my vision in those days.
I didn’t yet have a roof to stare at
late into the night, and the stars
burned through the treetops and into my
dreams.


Daylight was for building.
Laying the hatchet into wood
driving wood into frames,
with little metal nails from the hardware store
many acres away

Where men bought sidings and rope
for homes with Ikea furniture,
their wives wearing sapphire rings
and golden hoops
and all the pretty little things
I dreamt about out here,
in the forest.

Here, where sun cascades
through my windows in the early dawn.
So I close my eyes, and
decorate the silence with dreams
of pretty, pretty things.

His first wife died in a fire,
She’d taken her last breath moments
before the blue lights had reached her
and it really hit home how alone he was.
He had loved her more than anything,
Gave her the best he could offer
and still didn’t think it was enough.
She wasn’t really as devoted
but they managed to love to Silver
and he’d made her his trophy
and showed her off to no-one.

His second wife didn’t really like
him very much and
neither did he
and he was still alone amidst the fighting.
His trophy got smashed in one of the bad ones
and they never got past Paper.
And he was glad to be rid of her,
Shed of a cloak in the summer,
Glad of the lonely
like a cloak in the winter.

And he hadn’t had any children
and his family had died
a long time ago.
So all he had to his name was this place,
A quiet
in the
middle of the noise.

His quiet had oak-panelling
all around and little black books
full of people like him
for people like him.
And the smell of *** pourri still lingers
like the smell of his first’s perfume on his bed sheets for ages after she went
and he never washed them.

His quiet was frequented by workers whiling away
their lunch hours.
And he ate a packed lunch
at the desk.

My childhood bedroom walls are painted bright blue, green, and pink.
I regretted the decision less than a year after it was made.
They remind me of stale candy,
of consumerism in the form of clothing stores for tween girls
who forget they’re still children.

I am in the eighth grade, it is 2007
and it must be three, four in the morning when you walk in
stand in the doorway and stare at me
light blue eyes wide open
like you saw a dead cat on the doorstep
I think about how I’m the only child without blue eyes
You are still standing in the doorway
unblinking
as if the doorway didn’t exist until you were under it.

The air is metallic, and as I ask you I taste it
want to wash my mouth out, spit as far as I can into the hallway
“Are you okay?
What’s wrong?
Jenae. What’s wrong??
You give me the bad news
through silence
and your blue eyes that seem to be held open
by someone else’s ***** fingers.

When people asked how you were doing the following years
I wanted to spit metallic at them, too, sometimes
the same stuff that clung to the walls that night
when you walked from the doorway into my bed
blue eyes as wide as a scared mouth at the dentist

They forgot that I was still a child
and that it took a long time for the word “Rehabilitation Center”
to be released from my parents mouths
like a stray dog from a cage
but the words didn’t crawl around on all fours and
bite at our heels like we thought they might
you just can’t let them
Until then, I wondered where you went for days at a time
how you slept for days at a time when you came back
why you stared through me and not at me
where my camera went, and the neighbor’s cell phone
How you became an event rather than a person.

The night of my eighth grade graduation,
a ceremony that felt exceptionally monumental for little reason,
they found you in the car
screaming to yourself
gripping the steering wheel like a lover’s shoulders during a fight
releasing what was never actually yours,
but was given to you by the drug
the skeleton in its closet that won’t stop shaking
its bones made too much noise against the wood panelling

Those were the years before I stopped praying
I would talk to God like an authority I questioned but obeyed
promised I would not make Drew cry again
or lie again
in exchange for you coming home
“Dear God
please take all the lies I would make in the future,
and build them up into a pyramid or ladder that my sister can walk on
that leads to our front door
and make sure I can hear the old springs whining
as she comes home
only this time it won’t be whining,
but applause.”

Each night you did come home
I would lay my face deep into my pillow and thank him
give him another lie,
because I knew you were alive another night
I could breathe and not have to count down the seconds until
I would come bursting into the garage and make sure the car
wasn’t running and the windows weren’t open and you weren’t
sitting in it
And you weren’t
And I’ve never felt more pride push up through my chest and throat
on my mouth
when I knew that ladder had been built
but you built it yourself

I will always feel like a savior for no reason.
My photo and essay and drawings are on the wall next to your bed
I can’t help but feel like my smile is burning a hole through the back of the wall
All I ever did was tell you I loved you
All I ever did for you was feel scared shitless that I might wake up without a sister
and that I wouldn’t be able to carry that emptiness inside of me
All I ever did was pretend I knew what I was doing

You called two weeks ago
to ask if I had ever heard of some song you heard on the radio
I have,
I said
And you are worried about our little brother
He will be fine
I said
These conversations groan on like a train coming to a stop
I check the time, pull the phone away from my ear every so slightly
wonder who will take care of your bills when our parents are dead
breathe in deeply
try to be the person whose face is on your bedroom wall
still love you
still am so proud it hurts
still am so scared it hurts
still am pretending
still love you
still love you.

In the ****** of dark bars where
men talk over scars and growl
at their beer, it is here I'm at ease,
here where the moon shoots at
dust on the floor, where there's more
in the air than stale cigarette smoke.

In the back room, the tap room,
the slap them down rap room
I play a tune on the guitar
old men
spit out their catarrh into a
china spittoon.
I watch in awe as the doxies turn foxes and
hunt out their prey.

Never a day here, always a night,
a queer thing though,
I always go when it's light,
this place seems so right.

****** can't be so wrong when I long to be there
smelling the stale smoke that sits in the air like
some buddha who cannot be bothered to move.

It's like I'm never too far from the scarred men and the
dark bar and the panelling, ***** grey,
which peels away the day
and turns it into the night,
it's got to be right.

I play another tune in
the slap them down rap room
and growl at the bar
for a beer.

My piece of ghost for the haunting.
One second.
I see them,
the ladies and gentlemen in Victorian dress
but see them as something less than they are,it
looks like they're far way,and
not waiting in the waiting room for the 08.37 to ilfracombe.
They shimmer in the early sunlight as if they almost might vanish into the varnished panelling,
there's a sheen to them,a midnight gleam about them and the train rolls in.
Silently gliding,sliding in places on seats, vacant faces,vagrant looks,empty eyes on blank page books and,
can you see them?
I think they're waiting for Bethlehem or Jerusalem but as with all ghosts when
they reach the destination they are looking for,they look and are no more.

I walked with Janice
through the Square
passed the milkman
and his horse drawn cart

she touching the horse
as we passed
and on to the top
and out onto Rockingham Street

and onto Harper Road
where are we going?
Janice asked
I want to show you

this bomb site
bomb site?
what's so special
about this bomb site?

it's got a big freezer
in the back
she looked at me
with her blue eyes

how big?
big enough for us
to get in and more
I said

we crossed the road
and turned left
and along round the back
she followed me

around the back
and through a gap
in the wooden panelling
and into the backyard

of the bombed out
butcher's shop
I walked over the bricks
and wood to the back

of the butcher's shop
and showed her
the big white freezer
gosh

she said
never seen anything
that big
I opened the door

and saw it was busted
it won't shut
it's busted
the locks busted

we went inside
it smelt stale and sickly
must have kept meat here
I said

smells like it
she said
we went out
and I pushed open

the door at the back
that led into the shop
we walked in
and around

the smell still there
dust and fallen
masonry and wood
an old till

with a drawer half open
it's creepy in here
she said
ghostly

like someone
is watching us
rats probably
I said

rats!
she said
and jumped backwards
she looked around her

and I saw her eyes
wide open
aren't you scared?
she asked

seen plenty of rats and mice
even saw a ***** in some place
******* in a corner
of a room

and he chased me off
I said
can we go now?
she said

I’ve seen enough
I gazed at her
saw her wide eyes
and said

ok
I’ve been here before
and seen most of it
so we climbed

out the back
and passed the freezer
and out the gap
and onto Harper Road

and along to the Penny Shop
to get a couple
of 1d drinks
then walked back

to the Square
and my parent's flat
and that basically
was that.

I went back to my secondary school recently
just to see what it was like without
me in it. I still saw the blue, cheap flooring, rooms
with wooden panelling that definitely
wasn't wood. I still saw ill-fitting shirts
and teachers scowling at boys wearino green
for that girl who's never going
to look at them. I still saw big kids,
too young to be so old, falling into a naïve
love and thinking it's forever.
I could still see the traces
of my clumsy hands
dropping ink all over the floor of the hall,
the streaks where I desperately tried
to clean it up before anyone saw.
Lockers still lined the walls,
only the stickers that had once covered
mine were gone - the only colour
in that hall, the shock
of red in a sea of grey,
had been taken away.
Teachers walked through the halls
to poimt their fingers at herds
of giggling girls but they didn't stop
to smile and talk to me
like they used to. Maybe
it was the change of hair,
or maybe it was just
the next generation of names
erasing mine from their memory.
The next generation of hands
pulling red stickers from old doors.
Soon, hard-soled feet will wear down
the floors and those black trails
of ink will be removed, all of my fingerprints
and scars will be buffed out, scuffed out.
The paintings I left to be exhibited
will be replaced by newer, better ones
by younger students who offer more,
the halls will be filled
with new faces who don't look
quite the same. They don't laugh
quite loud enough or smile
wide enough - they are more vague
and distant than memory
ever suggested.

Some days it's musty
Especially after a summer rain
The yellowed steeple chase wall paper peels back in places
It's pretty big for an efficiency
One big room in the top floor
Cut out of an old faded yellow house
It is compartmentalized like a CIA agent
The bathroom is the color of rust
On rainy days the door jam swells
and the wood panelling in the walls heave
The textured ceiling in between
fake styrofoam wooden beams makes
Me feel like I am inhabiting my own cave
or cabin
Many people I know couldn't live like
I do
This is my home
This is my garret
Alone I write.

The faces come at me from the wall behind the panelling
I see them all, the bearded, the ******'s, the sinners and saints, faces that ain't and faces that are,
faces by far are the scariest things that I've ever seen.

I'm channelling my energy
wanting some sympathy.
needing to find empathy
I find instead
apathy.

Look at me,
faces that face me
laugh and debase me
try to erase me.

I am the magnet for
faces that set like a stone.

Leave me
alone
but
the face is still there
faces and where
am I?
under the bed
pulling the hair from my head
why don't they leave me alone?

Whenever the wind is blustery
And buffets the chamber door,
I find Elaine, curling in fear
Down on the hallway floor.
She cries, calls suddenly out to me,
‘Do you hear the shades of sin?
I know that it’s got it in for me,
You’re never to let it in.’

‘Never to let what in?’ I say,
‘It’s only the southern wind,
Blowing in turgid sudden gusts,
To rattle the panelling.’
‘It’s ever much more,’ Elaine replied,
‘I’ve seen it up in the trees,
Just like a flight of monster bats
To beat me down to my knees.’

As if in reply, a mighty gust
Blew in the chamber door,
In came a flurry of autumn leaves
That settled, down on the floor.
But with it a cold and clammy darkness
Seemed to enter the room,
An awesome sight in the fading light
It huddled there in the gloom.

It came in the shape of a giant cape,
A hood of enormous size,
And peering out from the hood, no doubt,
A pairing of bloodshot eyes.
I heard a bubbling in its throat
A babble of rasping sounds,
‘It’s time to come for the deed you’ve done,
You’re due in the devil’s grounds.’

Elaine lay whimpering in the hall,
She lay there, hiding her eyes,
‘I didn’t think you would find me out,’
She muttered, to my surprise.
‘What was the awful thing you did,
You never told me before.’
‘I poisoned her drink, then ran and hid,
When she fell down on the floor.’

A bony hand reached out from the cape
And seized Elaine by the throat,
She fought and struggled, tried to escape
Then screamed, in a long, high note.
‘You can’t be late for your nuptials,’
The beast had growled in return,
‘You’ll soon be wed to a demon, who
Will take you to hell, to burn.’

I watched it pull Elaine to her feet,
Then drag her out through the door,
The monster bats were up in the trees,
But she lay dead on the floor.
Whenever I hear the southern wind
Come beat on the door outside,
I think of the times that I have sinned,
And shudder, how Elaine died.

David Lewis Paget

This mind is *****. Squalid.
I will begrudge it no more. I will swallow it whole,
I will follow it's role and dole out a more subtle close;
panelling the house, my cloth, I will bite into the pocket
wet from being searched for a stub or a roll
of cash forgotten to be spent and crumpled in a ball-
certainly withdrawn, a familiar accident of being thrown up
by the morning into the next day, into the next day, overall
a complete moronic dire wolf, a wire coil that slips between
shoes and causes a fall, like an omelet on a pan
(but I've run out of salt, chili, onions); waste of direction,
waste of selection, an eviction that tragedizes the *******
of a cause. No better to detonate- and let suffer the dogs-
or digest- and let suffer the bogs- but the only course left
is to study or perform,
unequivocally; supposed a dynamite tick-tock in the soul
is there's any worth left in it to mould into something
that can find a format for itself or a voice without a drawl,
a voice unlike mine, which can halt without a pause,
which can exalt without a cross,
which can vault without a loss.