Litany against fear

I was afraid of you
I knew you would upset my equilibrium
I knew you would
I knew we would make memories
  to hoard, a jewelled rosary for later years

I was afraid of you
I  knew you would open up my heart
I knew you would
I knew we would walk on, squeeze a blossom of baby's breath
  and twine fingers and thoughts through our lives

I was afraid I would not be good enough for you

Written in response to Sharon Old's "To our miscarried one, aged thirty now" for the Cardiff Bay Writing Group

When it was over, we...

When it was over, we didn’t know it. Life didn’t flag this up as being the last time. There was no falling out, barely even a falling away.

Things carried on as normal, busy, a little more distance.

It was only looking back, to that day walking along the promenade, that we realised we had lost something. Fallen out of love.

Written as an exercise at the Cardiff Bay Writing Group meeting; write something starting with the sentence fragment "When it was over, we..."

Of Spiders & love

This piece was written at a Cardiff Bay writing group meeting, with the title being given by the last line of Angeline Harrison's poem "Good Gig"

You appear in the autumn
vibrant, enriching colours
brushing aside web drifts of fog

Leaf showers
abundant golds and rusts
The end, the decay was there
    if I had taken breath to notice

Water globes caught in patterns
laid out in the air

Parcelling up
  Smothering threads
    preserved inside
      until you consume me

you would know him if you saw him

He has been with me for years, this tall man, not a gentleman. His skin is fair, I do like a man who can blush, or be flushed with exertion; thinking of his face unmasked in passion. A large man, well, large bloke. Blokes are down to earth, normal, have blokey mates and do blokey things and he anchors me to the world from which I might otherwise drift. He is big, and strong, he makes me feel physically right, not fragile (I am never that) but in proportion to him and to the world.

He makes me feel like I have a place here, I am not 100% sure what that place is, but it is here because of him. He has the key to opportunities, the one that unlocks my spontaneity. I would think, Hey, lets go to the cliffs today and lie on the grass while the seagulls whirl overhead, or We could go to the station and get on the first westbound train, or The pub is open, lets go. And we would do it, I would not make excuses to myself and end up doing nothing but thinking about new things, I would, we would experience them. That was all that mattered, doing things together.

The details of how he translates to this world, my ideal man, are a little sketchy. There is no recipe, like he must call me xx times a day, or we must be married (to each other!) The last man in this world made me feel all of those things. I felt more interesting, more lovable when he was with me. But the real world came calling and just like that he was gone, and Mr Ideal is taking an extended holiday right now.

blasted

blasted but beautiful still

in its way, most days

I drive right by

but I stopped this morning,

I wanted to see

if it still lived

with its heart splintered so

one day i will be able to say no (and mean it)

this clean period
recovering you addict,
through soggy summer.

underneath...

there is nothing left
I visited our home land,
you would not see me

I wish I didn't know what you were going through...

sore sore eyes and sick
sore heart. he made me love him,
it was mutual.

nothing helps heartache,
left as nothing, self slides down
he tramples shared dreams.

friends hold out their hands
but I can't touch human warmth,
it's too much contrast.

I don't want to plough that field anymore...

Storm tossed reeds bounce back,
"you are strong, independent,
she needs me," he pleads.

You burn like a bouncing cigarette...

Flicked or kicked out of the car, incandescent. You have been between my lips, I have sucked your essence down. I have finished with you now though, I tell myself that. Even though I see you glow behind me and I want to go back and pick you up, kindle that glow again. You turn over and around and I see little hot spots, as if you want to remind me of what I will miss. Sparks fly, you do it on purpose to call to me. All sparks will burn out in the end.


(Inspired by The Editors:  Sparks)

A good day to bury bad news

The duvet lay straggled somewhere across the top of her thighs, one of them had made an attempt to cover up after the last bout of sex. He lay spooned behind her, his arm cradled under her breasts, hers resting over his. She felt cherished, again.

The first time it had stunned her, to lie with him in between the breathless explorations, to simply lie in his arms and be cared for. The heady rush of sex with someone she trusted, someone she wanted to please and oh, she was so thrilled that he seemed to be pleased by her. The cocktail of chatting all day about minutiae, of flirting and teasing, the feeling that she could say anything to him, and vice versa had opened her heart. The way to a mans heart may be through his stomach, but he had reached hers from between her legs.

Waking slowly, later in the morning, dazed with lack of sleep and still a bit drunk, there was a knock at the door. The maid, she supposed.

He yawned and stretched, "What time is it?"

"Nearly half ten," she said, reading it off her phone by the bed. One new message. No harm in looking at it, she supposed; as he got up to go to the bathroom she clicked into it, an anonymous number? The trickling noise as he pissed into the toilet seemed to go on forever as she read the message, when he came back into the room she was sitting up with the phone at arms length like she had never seen it before in her life.

"The message is for you," she said, and pulled the duvet up around her in a protective cocoon.

He read the message, "Tell that husband of mine I have news for him"


Posted at ThinkingTen in response to the Word inc Wednesday challenge:  news, spoon
http://thinkingten.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-good-day-to-bury-bad-news

haiku n° 6 (revised)

Your words trickle in
Why did I let you? Cut not
clutch at memories...

haiku n° 5

Your seed trickles out
a wet patch; summer is due,
sunshine flew away.

haiku n° 4

You pull out of me,
drive from the hotel; litter swirls
windblown vortices.

haiku n° 3

Ripe for seeding, sun
falls on open eyes, legs, heart;
you push into me.

haiku n° 2

Yes, it is calmer
without you close, rain clouds scud
across the grey sky.

haiku n° 1

Still I wish for you;
The sap rising in the trees
I will not blossom.

Weak as I am...

I am sprawling in the dingy light, behind the bars that contain me, keeping me penned into the corner of the room.  I am not really there as a possession, treasured or otherwise, I am not really something he would display to other people.  But, in the recesses of his mind I am on display, I am defined by the sex we have had, and by the ideal of a mute naked slave, existing only to perform for him.  A casual pet.
I see the bars that keep me in, but I don't want to acknowledge that they were always weak, and now that he has broken a hole through them, I still stay in my corner cage.

Nil by mouth...

It is as if my lips have been sewn together, each time I want to communicate with you I am pulling on the stitches, the muscles around my mouth twitch now in anticipation of the tearing pain; if I carry on I will have short stubby whiskers as the knots come loose.
I can't ask even "how are you?" because my words are so potent, we are so poised over the precipice that to even make polite conversation will start us off on that luge-track again. 
I would prefer my words to be a gently bubbling warm jacuzzi, something you would feel both exciting and comfortable; but it seems I am instead a black run, exhilarating but fraught with the danger of crashing out, and in any case there is a sharply defined end. 
I would like to be a spicy Merlot, full bodied and tangy, to be anticipated and savoured each time the bottle is broached, there is a ceremony to it's opening.
But it seems I must be a cheap blended whisky, my taste is harsh but acquired, as the patina of adulthood is acquired and sometimes I was just what you needed to get pissed, to blot out any sorrows and be gladly uplifted by the glamorous falseness of "having fun" and I wonder how you are drowning your sorrows now?
And perhaps it is better that my mouth is forcibly closed, who knows what I would pour into it, and then what would pour out?

No tomorrow

Now he will not say even "Catch you tomorrow," but only that it is best we don't talk.  My heedless optimism in complaining about being switched off for a short time has been well and truly slapped down.
The trust that we can talk through things was broken, apparently by one flippant comment followed by a one word answer.  And even as I typed "whatever" I hated that I said it, such a cliché and now it will be accompanied by the sonorous knell of a relationship falling apart at long last.
This time he says we should not reply to each other, and that time will heal the pain, but he doesn't know how tightly I can cling onto it.
He says he hope things will go well for me, and he means that.  But if he has no intention of talking to me again he will never know how things are with me, so he cannot have any hope of it really.  He means he hopes I will leave him alone.