To Stumble Upon Sentiment

Mutterings, grumbles, murmurs of starlings soar past my window; a cut-out, a Polaroid, an impenetrable portal to the world beyond mine. Soft skies, blue and pink and white,  interwoven, interlocked, imbedded in one another, whilst the gliding gull frolics through the mist.

If I could open a tunnel from my bellybutton, would you crawl through? Advancing amongst  the flesh and the gristle; Guts pushed aside, a low grumble. Would you get up to your shoulders in me? Your waist? Your thighs? Or disappear completely, leaving nothing behind but the dead weight of you, huddled in my abdomen.

What if roses bloomed At the taste of my blood; Apples grow as I fall from their tree. What if meadows flock with wild flower and bud at the sight of my weak mud-stained knees. What if I picked flowers by my own gravestone, bunches on bunches, swarmed with bees. I want to see all the life  I suffer for; I want to know  it’s not only for me.

My coats are never clean, my shirt cuffs frayed from all the door handles  they’ve ever caught on. Dress skirts creased, jeans thinned at the knees and stained from all the  people I’ve ever knelt for. Holes spatter along leather, denim too thick to yield, stitched to hold me in one place, at one angle; But it couldn’t hold me then anymore than it can now. I paint my outfits with the Earth, with the drinks I gulp  and the meals I relish and the hands that touch me, like I paint my birth suit, vibrant with sin, sun-kissed,  legs home to purple blotches I never noticed properly and  face flushed red,      in anger,            in shame, intoxicated  by the liquor of life.

Like a seed, we grow  in darkness, rooted to the womb, soaking silently. Not doing anything, not becoming anything, existing; present in the warmth of this place. But yet we tug open the curtains, tell our children to play outside, plug our ears to their protests, crane their heads to the sun, Tell them never to look away, even when their eyes dry out, even when the ground gives way, even if their heart stops beating. You tell them if they look long enough  all the darkness in them  will go away,  all the sin they were born of.  But there’s no light without shadow, and it condenses, spherical, lodged in their throat,  choking them as you watch blindly.

The air-con blew and took my warmth away, stripped the moisture from my tongue and the taste of them with it. And I can feel one body against mine - I can feel the borders of my entirety and all pressed against  but not given into. All the pressure, some of the body; most the mind; most unrelenting; some divine, all caught in my throat and pushed down ever further -   Deeper and deeper and deeper into my own depths, throttled by my own hands around my own neck - discomfort in comfortable emotion, Until I craft the music,  touch the light, shape the cadence of my strewn together woes, plucked from my wanting memory...

I bought a watch recently, and never have I been so astutely aware of how much I check the time. My mobile phone I glance  at many times, but,  with many uses, who’s keeping track of why one picks it up in a day. But with a watch, I know; I know I felt my existence  wear thin like paper,  considering if I’ve done enough  this hour to deserve the next.

Beyond the river, bubbling over the horizon -  the low grumble of civilisation. The barks and howls of conclusions, short-come, and tails of grandeur always two lengths ahead. But I rest upon the petals, fallen young, briefly captured in a moment I wasn’t born to. Drinking in the intensity of this time and this place and this treasure, long-forgotten amongst the noise.

Bites out of hours; Swallowing seconds; Minutes sprinkled like garnish. So much time  falling down my throat; settled in my stomach - Upset; unsure if I chewed enough times or treasured each taste. Or if I could trust each hand that peeled chopped, and stirred. Their time intertwined, poured into mine, gulped down my gullet.

I miss myself when I’m not here; I kiss the corners of the cell I led me into; trapped within, embraced between the bars, to have and to hold ‘til life rips us part.

My heart beat; the breathing bellows  to my fire. My blood; the trickling waterfall to my lake. My lungs absorbing the universe that I ignore. Neglect is a special skill  of mine. How can I love  another body when I run mine dry. How can I let the kindle burn to ash. Let the air turn stale inside me. Let my hair  lose its shine - my nails break. The rhythm of my heart become merely a whisper. Beating, begging, tapping at my chest; “Let me out, Let me breathe, Let me flow again.”

I adore the smell of the rain. Not the rain itself, per say. but what it touches, makes transparent. Makes glimmer with a liquid coat, like  resin, preserved for a second, until all melts and shrinks to paste and gives way to the warmth of the rain. Foliage, once dry and cracked,  discarded, now a river of orange and brown, all together emitting reams up reams of that sweet smell of wet ground. And never do I stop to think, if I smell the oak, the maple, the pine. Under the affections of the downpour, all is as sweet as nectar as bold as wine.

"Someone is coming; look busy", she whispered palm affectionately cupping my left ear, arm wound around my waist tracing my hip bone. If I knew no better, I might have thought that she loved me. But seduction is her weapon of choice -  intimacy the rug she pulls away when I've found my footing in a world of things and events and places, with people to see and adventures to be had and so so much "to live for"...

The body is a barrier, opaque, impermeable, seven layers of skin wrapped around soft innards, blood, vessels, organs. And when I reach down my throat, grasp for my own heart, I come up empty, like it wriggled and slipped from my claws. As if my nails had been coated in my own juices, the saliva of my gluttony and the blood of my wrath. But there was no other games to play -  none that mattered, anyway.

To the mountains I crawl strapped up, laces tied, civilisation heavy on my shoulders and my eyes downcast waiting. Silent waiting; careful waiting, patient, no, anticipatory waiting, for the winds to carry that weight away. To the trees I lean for love and comfort -  for their strength, petulant to shed my heavy passenger...

Nothing is soft through and through, free of that hard, chewy exterior, that protective layer browned slight. But we chop away, disregard, cast aside for hidden charm, of rot and indignity and dismay. We don't chew or pull or bite but consume meals lite, with the edges cut, the plate undone, dismantled - incomplete. For it adds flavour to what is plain - adds beauty to the pain.

You asked me to hold your hand, hover it over the right piece of the puzzle and plant it there. To gather together the shards of my withered mind, of my scattered consciousness, and put it in a box. And I adorn the box with a bow red and voluptuous, for you to pull and untangle and mangle in your excitement. I know your gaze is soft, your voice pleasant, your heart pure as a boy’s, so I try to give you this gift...

I present my gratitude in cupped hands, fingers tightly interlocked to stop it dripping out, running down my forearm, and dropping from my elbow in a slow, gentle, rhythm. I scooped it up this morning from the pool within me. Knelt down in the dirt - naked - and filled my affectionate palms. Filled them with warm waters of flittering memories and half-grasped emotions...

I hack my self out whenever I open my lips wide enough to speak. Her ghostly frame, silent as she falls and tries to climb  back in,  but my mouth is full of words. Full of menial phrases and half-forgotten sentences and false promises. I wield them like a sword against my lowly self, scrambling in my wake...

Take me  And feed me  to the snowbells resilient and clean. Take me And feed me To the oak tree who’s strength I foresee. Take my essence And scatter me to the winds  so I can fly as far as  the eye can see. And I’ll mourn my humanity now so when you come for me I’ll give my hand, willingly.