An aching jaw. I’ve been clenching my teeth. Tired eyes. I should be asleep. It should be tomorrow- that should’ve been today. It could’ve been different. I don’t have a say.
The wheels kicked up a storm, and in our cars we were like bullets, piercing the grey. There is a spitting heavy shower tearing down around us in sheets, around us in mist, like an aching and pained groan. That buzzing in your mind of uncertainty and tension, but which is always quiet enough to ignore.
Thick slabs of paint, tasting like chalk, or that paint smell. Oil? Pigment? The smell.
Squares of it adorning the white and pale yellow walls. It's enough to make you cry.
You don't. You don't need to. It's another emotion. One you can't really place, one which makes you want to: Laugh Dance Fuck Cut Gore Eat Melt And scream.
An emotion you can't quite pin down. It frolics through your body, feeling trapped, ricocheting through your bones, making echoing knocking sounds.
So, you want to cry, But you don't.
And instead you just stand there- take a breath, of the smell, will it to tattoo the inside of your eye lids, so you need never leave it.
This, this! This is the first day of spring. Today, the eighth, is the first true day of this year that it has been spring.
I know this because of the night- or, the twilight. The half-eight blue nesting night, when the birds are so loud.
Tonight, the thin layer of sweat, which has covered my body since it first acclimatized to winter, has finally washed away, like a molting darting lizard, I am left new and soft and sensitive.
Tonight, for the first time since so many months, there is a sharpness to the lines describing every object. Something tangible in the wind, which I can feel blowing away the desire to cry, that desire which has haunted me since the last changing season.
My tea, for the first time in a year, is sweet. Something I can actually taste. My bath washed me. My clothes warm me. The night sky (or twilight, I suppose) makes me feel free and alive in away it never did when it was colder, and heavier.
I am reclaiming this body; I declare it's mine, And I am now in full possession Of these pale and cold and Wibbling, sweating, dying masses of tissue, From here
To here.
I shall protect it like a bird with a nest, Flying defensive, looping circles with harsh wing beats and Echoing caws of "Mine!Mine!Mine!"
For it, I will place Soft kisses on the rough skin on the back of my hands, And Cool thoughts towards the blood which pools between my thighs, And A declared possession of the curve beneath the point of my chin;
A declared possession that is unconditional. A promise that no matter what shape, What call, Nor what end my body finds It shall always and forever Be mine And owed to no-one.
Your words shall not pierce this skin; Only my flag will pierce the skin of these feet.
Your gaze will not pierce this skin. Only my flag will pierce the skin of these hips.
Your scorn can not pierce this skin. Only my flag will pierce the skin of this neck.
Every day ends up feeling like this. The pressure of tears behind my eyes; the cold where spilling salt meets air.
I'm beginning to understand that it may just be tiredness. An emotion I've recently ignored- one which has drowned amongst its sibling emotions, of guilt, obligation, and stress.
Today I have realised, perhaps I could just sleep.
Stop. Wait just a minute- I was overwhelmed by the beauty of that motion. Yes, that motion. Christ, you're so beautiful it hurts. Wait, what's that look for? You know what I mean- yes, that look- Ah! Unless, you don't believe me? Foul. You foul creature, How could I lie to something like you? I cannot control my lips around you. You strip me of all mortal self-possession; I am but a shell, I feel, Made only to witness you.
River running splitting the town and coiling under the mill. Creaking oak bowing above the loam, Moss drinking up all sound. Prints silent on the floor, Breath hushed like it's caught between the sky and the sea. Sun leaking through the tree's fingers, And dyeing it all sweet. Bitter berries bursting on your tongue. A breeze. Home.
In death, let me unbecome. Let the quivering and straining tension of my muscles pulled taut relax.
Let the fluttering anxiety of my heart, above the roiling mad sea in my stomach with cresent moon marks of nails in my sweating palms and the choked throat breathe clear and calm.
Let these uncertainties, the vagaries in the winds of the world, in the coil of my nerves, the pulsing pathways of the veins and the stories they carry run silent.
A final ashy breath; the last cloud to escape my lips. Then I can rest.
