29

You’ve filled us up with fear

It’s seeping out of our skulls

We’re all sipping, tripping, slipping away.

Our hearts humming at our breast bones with tiny thuds that don’t let us sleep without

Citalopram, Medazepam, Diazepam.

Balled up tightly so we can only flick at keyboards and hope change is made on screens.

Too afraid to see face to face to face.

Too much space between the shape of what we thought we’d be

And who you’ve made us.

Self care is a forever thing.

Even though it’s shit, it’s true. Self care is a forever thing. We need to do that shit all the time. We can’t just take a bath once in a blue moon. We need to have baths all the fucking time. We need to eat fruit and drink water. We need to find an exercise that doesn’t make us want to chop our own feet off. We need say ‘I’m pretty fucking wonderful’ to ourselves every once in a while. We need to go to bed without our phones. We need to freeze. Close our eyes. And breathe. Even if your on the Victoria line at 7 am on a Monday morning. Even then. We need to ask for some more help please and give more help when it’s asked for. We need to moisturise. Self care is a forever thing. A daily thing. Or in your most sacred of places you brain place will have a panic party. And it’ll go like this:

I’m having a panic attack because I can’t find the right book in the library. Number 371.271. The numbers. I hate this horrible day. I can’t find the n. Fucking. The. 371. What. It’s too hot. They’re not helpful. 37. Point. What. Coal on my tongue. Swallow. Too hot. I’m having a panic attack because I can’t find the book. And everyone’s looking at me in the wrong way. I could kill someone. I hate. This. 371 point 361 it’s no good. Hard luck. I need to leave. I need to remember to breathe. It’s. I. It’s a stupid fucking system and the carpets stupid and. Where the fuck is the fucking. 

I’m having a panic attack in a library (my sacred place) because I forgot self care was a forever thing. 

So today I had a bath and before that I did some yoga. It was cosy and soft and even though my brain didn’t fully switch off. And the dragon in the chest was still fucking about with its wings and fire. I feel a little better. And I know. If I do it more. I’ll feel more like me and less like I’m trying to hide a dragon under my tits. 

today

Today is sour, curdled in its sickly insides.

It’s puffed up and chocked around its throat.

Crooked in its edges.

It drags its swollen belly across time in zig zag sighs.

It hangs its saggy body over my head all year round.

Hissing it’s long ‘I’m nearly here.’

Today it prickles between my bones and skin.

Clamps itself around my chest with steely claws.

At six our memories are in a suitcase.

Stuffy in their space.

I hold them close in you and the you I think of every day.

Grief doesn’t leave.

It’s just replaced.

It turns from one pain to the next in a coin toss.  

Curls into a new creature.

Leaving today bitter, congealed, fermented. 

And we pull our heavy legs through its waters.

And remember today is just a day, it’s just not like any other.

Shrunken dog

My black dog has shrunk. I might have put the beast in the wash.

I think I must have.

My black dog has shrunk and is stretched in weird ways, his fur is licked into curls that stick to his sloppy face.

His stuffing is bulging around his knees and ankles, his calves are saggy.

Disfigured and tiny my black dog has turned from beast to stuffed puppy.

Without his growl being so loud, it’s become, life has become, a little bit quieter.

I’m a little less frightened.

It’s slightly easier to climb out of bed in the morning. 

Now he’s shrunk so small. 

I’ve grown tall. Taller. 

I’ve not done the bad things, not a single one of them, for a while now. Now he’s so much smaller.

I guess I get a chance now. To feel proud now, about the time we had together just before now.

 When I needed to be stronger because he was so loud when he was around when he was big and tall and round.

Now he’s in the palm of my hand, I’ll tuck him up, I’ll put him down.

vomit story

I’m always shocked my rudeness, by the mean- and I’m always shocked that I’m shocked.

The young man was sitting on the steps going down to the Great Northern rail and the Victoria line at Highbury and Islington at 7:35 AM on a Tuesday. It’s busy at that time in the morning, yet I had just been thinking that it was much quieter than normal. I think I was about to ask the man if was ok when I noticed someone was already doing it, or perhaps I’m making excuses- I should have asked him. This second man was on his phone, (which is an odd thing to do when you’re underground, perhaps he was listening to a voicemail). This man, I think he’s a builder because he’s got those work trousers on which have lots of pockets, they’ve got paint on them and he’s wearing a florescent jacket, he’s saying ‘something, something… you can’t sit there man.’ He’s aggressive, he’s actually angry. I don’t think people enjoy sitting in crowded smelly stations. He doesn’t stop moving, he marches forward, looking back at him and sneering; his upper lip curled to show yellowish teeth. The young man, the first man, who I now see is pale and green, his eyes chubby and pink, cheeks swollen, he says, meekly ‘I’ve just been sick,’ and he gestures the wall next to him that’s splattered with clear acidic vomit. I just keep walking, I have to catch my train. Now I’m on the train and I’m thinking of that young man walking down the steps, suddenly hit with nausea, trembling stopping, dropping his laptop bag, clutching the hand rail, people shoving him as his liquid breakfast churns and comes up and out. He had the sort of face where it could be anything, he could be an alcoholic or an addict deep in pain, or maybe it’s cancer and today is about to be the worst day of his life or the chemo has split open his insides, or maybe he’s got sick from holding onto a rail on the tube that had recently been licked by a 3 year old tummy bug toddler then he bit the nail on his thumb, thus ingesting those pesky germs. Whatever it is, I’m sorry he’s having a shit day and I’m cross that I didn’t ask if he needed some help. I could have walked him back up for air, out of the

(This is when I realised I’d missed my stop.)   

dust

Do you feel sorrow or remorse for giving up on that dream or did a new dream appear?

One the meant more?

Or did you just grow up, dust of childhood fairy dust, rust up.

Did you let it go with ease, without doubt or pain?

Did you simply let it slip?

Let the priorities change.

Did a part of you change or did it move away,

did it go and leave you hollow?

Did you try and cling on with finger tips to slippy cliffs?

Did you think it might still happen, but that you must let it go for now, 

then did it return too late?

Did you mess it up?

The time was now and does that hurt?

Do you feel pain?

Do you blame others when it was you who walked away?

Did you slice up the dream with razor blades, keeping parts for rainy days.

Throwing the rest away?

Did you think that it was perhaps never really me, that was going to be that anyway?

Did you think you weren't good enough or did you just say that to try and be tough,

to tuck away, to fold away, what you really thought.

Did it have more courage that way?

Do you feel like you settled, lied to yourself? 

Or am I wrong and it is the greatest simple life you have.

Needle spoon

Only five years or is it a whole five years?
I don’t know. 
Years too long or too quick. 
A trip slip and sink. Only just. Step missed. Twist. 
Throat closes and tiny air squeezes, drips through. 
Prickle stab. Gut grab. Drab. 
Empty meaning. 
I feel bad black blue. 
The messages stopped. 
You gave me a feather today. 
Grief is scattered, wrapped in coal boxes.
Opened once again today. 
Stinky sting gift. 
Don’t forget but move forward. 
Pushing through. 
Tight spaces too fine. 
The needle spoon. 
Too small. All too.