I Bled After You Told Me

Many of you reading this will already be anticipating what this will be about, some of you will just know that about a month ago ‘something bad’ happened. I thought about staying quiet and just getting on with things, I even thought about how writing this might affect the person primarily concerned. But this happened to me, not to them – this is my experience and in not publishing this I essentially feel I would be allowing myself to be silenced. Silenced by my own sentimentality perhaps, but silenced nonetheless.

People move in and out of our lives all the time, but I’ve always been a believer that there are special people, individuals who are so important that they shift our reality just a little bit. These people often arrive at exactly the right time. And sometimes they leave at what seems like completely the wrong time. They leave us with sharp fragments of mirror broken all over the floor, pieces that we have to put back together again in order to see a new reflection of ourselves – who am I now?

At their core these poems are about exactly this; about the things that are left behind, about looking back, about what we let people do to us and about how we look at ourselves after the storm clears. I’ve always tried to live in a habit of forgiveness, but for the first time in my life I can’t find it anywhere within me. I have nothing left to give, there is nothing left to say that would change how things happened and where we are now - there is no redemption in these poems, so do not look for it.

The final time I spoke to him I said that I felt like there had been an explosion, and that for a long time I would be painfully pulling splinters from every aspect of my life – well this feels like one hell of a splinter. To him all I can now say is that I’m okay - thank you for not asking.

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She

Is she a girl who leaves a haze of perfumed air as she walks by?

Her things were in your bathroom,

Brazen in their position, a dusky quiet pink,

Mocking.

Feminine bear trap left to snap shut on my bare feet.

No shoes allowed in the flat.

I picture her positioning these land mines, smiling to herself,

Nailing the coffin shut from 10,000 miles away.

In your bed, in your bath, on the balcony,

How many times did you squirm inside her?

Rooting out your bohemia again and again and again,

I sit at home, ask if she’s enjoying London,

Yes, she is.

She knew about me.

Knew my name, knew who I was.

I spoke to her through you – what is her star sign?

Aquarius.

Water bearer.

A poisoned chalice, I drink willingly, blindly

from your hands.

‘She helps me in a way that is inconceivable in the west’,

Did she do the dishes after you fucked?

Quiet creature,

Impossibly thin,

Previously impossible in my mind altogether.

You said her name to me before I knew,

Why did it not turn into bitter bile in your mouth?

Say our names in the same breath,

Taste the ash, the filth,

Try to seek your shame.

I bled after you told me,

Unexpected, untimely.

Refusing to open my own veins,

My womb rung itself out,

Bleeding you out of me,

My woman’s pain running between my legs

Why is the blood on my hands?

Your hands are far away, clean,

Same hands that wiped the tears from my face,

So gentle,

Right after ripping the flesh from my bones

The quiet from my mind.

Did those salted drops cleanse you?

I think not.

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Will it be her next?

Maybe you’ll treat her better

Because she’ll treat you worse

Is that what you needed?

You took a train out of the city.

It’s rained every day this week

There was thunder today,

Followed by golden evening light

I wanted to tell you

But you are far away in another golden county

Another golden time.

Stay in that past,

Stay behind that gilded shroud.

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[Untitled]

‘What? What are you looking at?’

‘You’

Drink me in then until there’s nothing left,

Take it all, please, God knows I don’t want it.

Brown eyes that move from rest to

Sharp surprise at inexplicable moments,

Eyes of a wild thing first,

Eyes of a caged animal later.

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December, Boscastle

Bowl of stars pricking their way through the salty darkness,

Distant tide swells and collapses away into the night,

‘If you look at the sky for long enough you’re guaranteed to see a shooting star’

Have you ever seen those balls of flame burn so bright, so far away?

They feel closer than before, particularly tonight

Our breath turns air to cloud, we were making rain before we even sensed the storm

That night I did actually see a shooting star, bursting across the cold sky,

I had hoped and been granted.

Driving in your car through the pitch icy midnight

Nothing to see, only silence to hear, nature cracks her knuckles and the night presses nearer

But with you I am safe, you won’t let anything hurt me

I close my eyes on the journey back, trusting you to find the way

 I don’t need to grapple through the darkness to find home

I’m already there.

***

So crash the car and let the metal twist around me

Metallic branches of willow take me in your arms

And I will grow roots to this place,

To that shooting star and that look in your eyes

Then I can be a memorial to these moments

I can be a home for you, bones snapped and wrought with metal.

A grave on the Cornish coast,

Come back from time to time and visit your sweetheart

Enshrined after the fire

You won’t know the shape of me anymore, 

Perhaps you’ll feel a flicker of home.

Darling you did crash the car,

So come sing to the metallic willow,

She waits,

But now must refuse to sing back.

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Circles

June

I met you at a party and honey I knew right away,

We found an acid bottle of wine under the sink,

Laughing, went walking out into the misty yellow dawn,

Brushing my hands on leaves, you telling me their names,

Later that afternoon I walk home mostly barefoot,

Spinning ecstatically in my senses, in strange freedom.

See you around maybe.

November

Meet you on the bridge, 9 o’clock in time for the fireworks,

Lost and late as usual, we find each other at last, look up.

Coloured fire streaks the sky, standing high above black rushing water,

Rather an appropriate beginning wasn’t it?

Later sitting close together in a crowded pub, 

Cheeks flushed, cold hands, words rushing out,

Had we both saved 21 years of things to say?

December

This might be my favourite memory;

The afternoon before the party we go for lunch

On the way home we acquire a seven foot Christmas tree,

Carrying it home between us we’re helpless with laughter,

Laughing all night, sometimes you sit and draw,

Sometimes you tell the story and I look at you,

Shining across the room, I am so unbelievably happy.

January

I wake to the New Year in your arms,

Spending all day in bed between sleeping and waking,

Maybe this will be the year, I think to myself.

Later we stand in the middle of a stone circle,

Climb the highest hill and can see for miles,

Golden sunlight bathes England’s patchwork

And for a few moments everything is timeless,

Nothing could sour, rot, decay, not here and not you.

February

One ordinary day we take the ordinary walk,

Your hands are fidgety and you have to go,

Rush away then love, whilst I walk home in silent tears,

I plant seeds in the garden, knowing what comes next.

Later an evening walk that drags on until night,

You’re leaving me.

For Japan, for your freedom, for an easier life

With less noise and less guilt,

See you around maybe.

March

Darling you were never going to leave that party,

Lock the door and leave your shoes on,

Returning to the crowd newly affected by a subtle shift,

Happy, happy birthday, I’m 22 and the world rocks beneath me

With nothing to grip onto I just let myself go

You, me, us again – why the hell not?

May

You left on the most beautiful morning of the year,

I watched planes strike out across the great blue beyond,

You had said goodbye to me and I had seen it in your eyes,

That great undefinable it, and there was at last peace in letting you go.

Women have been doing this for centuries.

A week later I left too, struck out for the countryside,

For the green and the gold (baby, baby it’s a wild world),

To feel nature move in and around me

And by being alone, knowing I was never alone.

Summer

Write me from the cities,

Write me from the fields,

I’ll write you from the manor house,

From the sea.

Returning to where we met,

I throw my arms in the sky again,

Same freedom, different feeling.

The great circle has turned and baby I’m still yours.

August

Both barrelling back into the city,

Crashing back into each other,

I remember how I wondered if this would be the year,

There are still a few months,

And this month I would be so happy once again,

Feeling us settling into each other,

My every question mark disappearing one by one,

I lay down beside you in the quiet and finally finally it was enough.

September

On the first day of the first autumn month,

You told me about her and what you had done,

You were leaving me for good this time,

We both cried, but it was my world that lay in pieces around me

Careful not to cut yourself on the shards.

Goodbye,

Goodbye,

I can’t imagine where I would see you again.

However many times we would have orbited around each other,

However many times repeated this circle,

However many years spent pushing at pulling at one another,

I don’t think you would have ever let me give you everything I tried to,

Never let me within the holy ring you keep around yourself,

Keep the circle turning love,

Winter, spring, summer, autumn,

Winter,

Spring,

Summer,

Autumn

Afraid / Unafraid

Actively worried

Are we meant to get more or less afraid as we get older? On one hand we’ve got more experience so know that things we might have irrationally feared as children (the dark, those weird Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp) are no longer cause for concern. But on the other hand the more we experience the more we learn what to logically avoid – all the cuts and bruises we lump around with us and label as emotional baggage are reminders that serve to make us afraid. They’re the lessons we’ve chosen to learn from the worst of times – key word here is chosen, sometimes we elect to learn lessons that are easy, rather than the more difficult ones that might prove genuinely helpful. For example, I believed that if I swore off dating science students my relationships might be more successful (lol), when the lesson I really needed to learn was not to choose men who saw me as utterly disposable. I’m still trying to learn this lesson properly, (it’s PhD length) and yet this is my biggest gaping scar – my greatest fear is being deserted for no reason. Because I haven’t learnt how to avoid these kinds of situations the fear isn’t measured and it so doesn’t fulfil its function as self-defence. Instead it crops up at weird times, often when it’s already too late and consumes my thought process. I think being the age that we are is terrifying because we’re full of these half-learned lessons that don’t quite protect us from making the same mistakes, yet don’t quite allow us to enjoy the process of making said mistake as much as we used to. Sigh.

Last week I was in the middle of one of my periodic anxiety meltdowns, these aren’t triggered by anything, just kinda happens but it has honestly been absolute hell. To cheer me up my pal Tim took me to an amateur open mic night – show tunes and a bottle of wine, ideal for curing the blues. Now I’m a great believer in things happening for a reason (see my domino effect post here); being in the right place at the right time, seeing something happen, hearing something – these important moments happen, whether you believe in fate or whatever, there are undeniably times when you know something important has been offered to you. About an hour into the night the most sparkly man I’ve ever seen took to the stage with a rendition of ‘I’m Not Afraid of Anything’ from a musical called Songs for a New World. I’d never heard this song before this night, the video with audio is below but in case you can’t be arsed to listen it’s a song about lack of fear and not understanding why other people are afraid of irrational things – ‘Jenny’s afraid of water, / I mean she swims so well but still, / She’s afraid of water’.

Watching that sparkly man sing his heart out took me right back to a time when I felt absolutely and totally unafraid – May week last year. I was unafraid because I had nothing except whatever I was holding right there in my hands at the time. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose. The reason I’m capable of feeling more fear nowadays is because I have things that I don’t want to lose – I’ve started to build pieces of a life that might be more permanent than a few weeks, and if it’s ripped out from underneath me what will I do? Yep, I’m afraid that it’s all going to crumble and that I’ll be stuck in the rubble when it falls. But you know what I’m not afraid of? Being afraid. I mean, I don’t enjoy it, but when I’m scared I refuse to be ashamed, I refuse to employ shitty diversionary tactics, I proudly claim my right to cry and scream and let my ugly, raw honesty spill all over the floor.

I’m scared I’ll be unemployed, that I’ll have to sack it all in and go home. I’m absolutely terrified that one day someone is going to kick me so hard emotionally that I won’t be able to breathe, and the worst thing about it will be that I’ll get up and ask for more, never learning my lesson. Being scared doesn’t make me special, and knowing this is key – I get on with my everyday life, because I know we’re all secretly shitting our pants. I think if there’s something that you don’t want to do, something you’re pushing away or putting off then we should teach ourselves to look at it in terms of fear. More often than not fear of something is at the root of these problems, and once we bring ourselves look this fear in the eye, it might not get less scary, but it will offer you an opportunity to handle things with honesty and (dare I say it) nobility.