Here, have me already,
I know you’re a woman,
I don’t need to lift your veil,
I know, in all that darkness,
with an air of evil surrounding you,
I’ll be bitten,
scratched and smitten,
in masochist abuse,
wet with prose and reconciliation.
W.E.
I’m overcome with the feeling of things being taken away from me.
This sofa I lie on, worthless, but still they’re coming for it. My children’s home, my things, worst of all, my pulses and heartbeats, one pump after the other, gone, never returning and soon, they’re coming for the rest.
It was my lowest day since my father passed.
Death stood hovering, lustfully whispering in my ear, the top of my eyes heavy as I pen this in hope it is merely passing.
Suicide has always been repulsed by me, and I by it. We could never agree, it wanting swiftness and I wanting a spectacle.
But yesterday something happened for a moment, a reconciliation if you will. Perhaps it was courage catching up to fear. Perhaps then a duel was about to take place, let me set the scene.
If anything, it will be in the desert, a fitting backdrop for solitude that they both abide by.
My fear has always walked alone, marred by hypocrisy and sin, let us amuse ourselves and reserve to it the idea that it is embarrassed.
My courage too, alone and aware of its extremities. I once wrote, ‘I have extremes so far fetched of so far fetched’, and now perhaps you will see why courage, like fear prefers to take the solemn footsteps away from the crowd.
But this backdrop of a desert couldn’t be more fitting. It will make legend out of this allegory of my moment.
I rose from writing, head still throbbing, eyes still feeling like they were pulled down for a lobotomy and I undressed to walk to the shower. Perhaps I could wash this feeling away, I thought as I had an inkling of sense still remaining, tugging at me to not pull the pin, surely ablution would rinse this evil out of my soul.
But it grew and I could feel the devil inside me growling with such anger that it drove me to raise my hands to my face and place my fingers on my eyeballs. ‘Gouge them out’, he said.
‘Then what?’ I replied.
Silence.
He’s a prick of a bloke. He entices you with rose, wine and a whisper, gets you intoxicated on his voices, scented and in love with him, commands you to evil and then washes his hands clean from you once you’ve committed your deed.
Then he was gone.
I finished, dried and got dressed. The feeling waned but lingered faintly.
Suddenly, it daunted on me and I wondered where this feeling came from.
It has me confused and misplacing my demarcations between a trigger and a pen, a sword and words, a semi colon and a full stop.
I don’t know exactly what to make of it,
I won’t discuss it with anyone,
and yet, here I am writing about it,
the only way I can express anything these days.
Was it something I ate,
or was it a taste of my fate,
delivered to me in surrealist carrot sticks,
not dangled, but on a plate.
W.E.
Bring a man to his knees why don’t you,
until his savage is all timid,
and his temperament livid,
and he can’t fight you with his vulnerability,
or console you with bloodied fists.
One way or the other,
you’re going to smother,
with your blatant honesty,
and impartiality,
try as I may,
to perch, or even impale,
my grief, is better suited to flight.
W.E.
It’s meant to be a release,
but it singes either way.
The ney,
wails reluctantly,
sorrow ensues,
by the breath of the entertainer.
He assumes he fashioned you this grief,
and gives no credit to the flute maker,
who crafted the scale and haunt,
out of nothing more than bamboo and a file,
and assumption of engulfing the mourner with embrace.
Little do both care,
the ney can only cry so much,
before it’s reed is discarded,
and it’s body turned to mulch.
W.E.
What riches do I have,
that I can give,
that can expiate me,
or expiate him,
that aren’t from God to begin with.
What a fool I am,
assuming I can bribe my way,
out of grief,
out of guilt.
Or am I being held to ransom,
by my self,
of myself,
only to come to comprehension,
too late,
with too little left to give.
W.E.
I miss him.
I want to be five again,
ten, thirteen, twenty two.
To relive a moment when he knocks the door,
and we knew it was him.
To not even let the door knock,
just to hear the jingle of his pockets,
keys, coins, bags of shopping in his hands,
not even,
just the rumble of his car in the driveway,
and meet him at the door once more.
We had to love him silently,
that’s how he loved us.
Head down, heart up,
eyes averted,
mind occupied, with the future of his family.
Do they have enough, do they have what they want,
am I enough, maybe I can carve another piece out of myself,
maybe I can give away a bit more of my health for them.
The things that race through a unselfish man’s mind,
double, triple shifts,
and still,
he came home every morning, every afternoon,
smelling of cedar, leather and muskiness of sweat with a hint of lemon zest.
In 38 years, I never once smelt body odour on him,
a testament of what was inside him,
if ever I saw evidence of a man’s insides.
W.E.
Reluctance,
is a spoon of regret,
mixed with the broth of fear,
and a dash of ego.
The medicine,
bitter as it may be,
has a limited time,
an appropriate window.
Late,
is not better than never,
it’s a lie to comfort you,
that you took way too long,
to overcome your self.
And now,
you have no one to grieve,
but your lowly self.
W.E.
dear grief,
if every soul shall taste death,
then you are its kneading hands,
mourning, the aftertaste,
regret, is the illness that never relents.
I have swallowed you,
even before he died,
but its mourning,
that never leaves my mouth,
regret, that regurgitates.
W.E.
dear grief – 9
You don’t sound like a cello,
stringing it’s sorrow,
more like a ney,
I have no idea how to blow,
soothing to play,
for those who know,
but for me,
simply a cylindrical hollow.
Am I shallow?
Perhaps indifferent,
Melancholic mellow,
Or a blackened and charred,
Fume from bellow,
blacksmith of loss,
Hardened and rigid,
Smog filled swallow.
W.E.
Music by Kudsi Erguner
There’s nothing quite as sobering as grief,
to uncover the guilt and sin,
the grime within,
there’s no teeth gritting,
no blood spitting,
that can remove the angst from your jaw,
or the taste from your mouth.
I’ve found in all this haunting,
a special fondness,
a familiarity,
we all smother with inattention.
To look at death,
and not worry about the ghosts,
takes a spiritual anchoring,
a maturing,
a purge,
of all you fear,
an embrace,
so the memory of the deceased,
remains near.
W.E.
lonerloaner 