Liberté

She sits in debris.

Rubble presses into her thighs and she shifts, uncomfortable. She has always enjoyed mess but this is just so vast, she can’t seem to see the end of it. Picking up a shard of glass, she runs her fingers over the jagged edges knowing she will get cut. She does. It is not a deep wound but the spiking pain elicits an involuntary cry from her, even though she was expecting it. She squeezes her thumb, making the little balloon of blood swell and break, sinking into the fine creases of her fingerprint. Pretty, she thinks and then puts her thumb in her mouth, sucking on it like a child as she surveys the damage.

So much to do. So much to sort through. How could she possibly get through this mess? Decide what to store and what to throw away?

*          *          *

Why did you go?

Forever gone, by inharmony

Why did you go just when I needed something to believe in? When I needed to look out there and know that magic existed? When I needed to listen to music and have the words mean something, have them guide me towards decisions I found too difficult to make on my own?

Now I keep my eyes averted, looking at nothing, and for the first time in my life music no longer speaks to me. My iPod – once a source of comfort – lies unused and useless and I can barely pick it up without a shudder.

It’s like you timed it perfectly – I was searching desperately for inspiration and you upped went away. You were my source. It was you who first made me shake with the sheer power of your words, break out in gooseflesh at a mere tremor of your voice. It was you who surprised me with my own tears, and taught me that perfection could cause me to cry. It was you who first filled me with longing, before I was old enough to know to call it desire. It was you who made me realize that magic wasn’t just for children, it was you who taught me that it was ok not to grow up completely. It was all you. And now you’re gone.

Michael Jackson: Never Can Say Goodbye

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

–          W. H. Auden

26 June 2009

Its 6.36 am and I’m in bed, not wanting to get out of it. In tears and in shock. Not wanting to write, but needing somehow to acknowledge this terrible, terrible thing.

I woke up to a series of texts and they all said the same thing: “He is dead, I can’t believe it”. I could barely breathe, the tears started before I could stop them as my shaking hands googled his name to find out what had happened. Even now, after reading the same thing over and over and over again, I can’t believe it. My tears keep coming and the shock is still new, painful and ugly. We have lost something. Something good. There is a hole in the world, and no one can make it right.

Protected: Alone she breaks.

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Curtain call

 

‘Show’s over’ her mother whispers to her as the bright lights fade to black.

 

The little girl keeps staring ahead of her, unmoving and unblinking, although she can’t see through the darkness.

 

She can hear people shuffling their feet, gathering their children and their belongings, getting ready to get up and leave the way they came. Her mother is doing the same, putting her drink bottle back in the bag, folding empty paper plates and cups that she would throw on the way out.

 

The little girl can’t move, though. There is only darkness but her eyes are bright with memories of the fantastical lights and theatrics of the performance. It is like a movie reel, playing over and over in her head. She is transfixed. Enchanted. Overwhelmed.

Ms. Brightside

Strange how most of the material for my blog comes to me during my walks to and from work.

 

I love this walk – it’s the only part of my day that I have completely to myself. Even when I’m at home, locked in my room, I don’t feel that same comforting solitude. I’m too aware of what’s going on in the rest of the house, what I’ll have to do when I go downstairs, my phone keeps beeping, reminding me I have people to talk to…I’m never alone.

 

But when I’m out there, I plug into my iPod and go. Phone in bag and on vibrate so it doesn’t interrupt my song. It’s far too short, but the few minutes I spend each day on these walks are precious anyhow. There have been days I’ve smiled all the way to work. There have also been days I’ve cried all the way back home.

 

Today the nicest thing happened.

Protected: Constant Craving

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Love will tear us apart. Again.

 

Love Will Tear Us Apart – Susanna and the Magical Orchestra

When routine bites hard
And ambitions are low
And resentment rides high
But emotions won’t grow
And we’re changing our ways
Taking different roads

Then love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again

Why is the bedroom so cold?
Turned away on your side
Is my timing that flawed?
Our respect run so dry
Yet there’s still this appeal
That we’ve kept through our lives

And love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again

Do you cry out in your sleep
All my failings exposed?
Get a taste in my mouth
As desperation takes hold?
How is it something so good
Just can’t function no more?

When love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again
Love, love will tear us apart again

 

 

 

 

To this man: Goodbye.

 

 

Bang, bang…My baby shot me down

My heart broke again last night.

 

But I think it was for the last time. Finally. For the last time.

 

 

Strong inadvertently told me that he was in love with someone else. He proclaimed it to the world and for the first time, I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

 

 

That knowledge should kill you. It really should. You should be able to just stop breathing. Stop existing. You shouldn’t have to exist carrying that with you. Like a bullet that stays embedded in the flesh, festering, poisoning.

 

I had known it all along. I could tell, every time he said her name, I could see it in his eyes when he was at his lowest, drowning in wave upon wave of anguished guilt about how he treated her.

 

I never inspired emotion of that magnitude within him, although he inspired that within me. Everyday I loved him. Everyday he didn’t love me back.

What a difference a day made.

 

Funny how it can all change from one moment to the next.

 

I still can’t believe how happy I was… then. There’s a line now. A big fat line that divides everything into ‘before’ and ‘after’, ‘then’ and ‘now’. A line that spells disaster and taunts you with its blurriness. You wonder if that moment that you’ve picked out was actually the moment. Or whether it had been coming all along and you had been so deliriously happy that hadn’t wanted to see it there. Strange how happiness can blind you, set you up to fall. How cruel is that?

 

And now after all the deliberations, after all the pushing and pulling and running away and running back only to run away again, it’s over. Just one, ugly word: over. And there’s no one there to lash out at when all the rage boiling under the surface finally spills over and burns. No one to cry to when you feel so devastated you can’t breathe. No one to hear the words that keep throbbing behind your eyes, stinging tears out of them. “I miss you”.