Thursday, December 22, 2011

ME: What are you made of?

SOLDIER1: We don't ask questions like that here.

SOLDIER2: We keep

BOTH: still

SOLDIER: We keep.

Quietly, I walk to you.

I undress you.

YOU: The lights.

ME: That's what you're made of.

You shake your head.

YOU: The lights. I can't bare/

ME: /you're bare.

a long pause, a cough, the soldiers fuck in a dark corner.

YOU: I'm made of flesh, bones, guts, blood.

ME: You're made of laughter, strength, adventure.

YOU: Sadness, insecurities.

ME: Beauty.

YOU: So we agree to disagree?

ME: We agree...what do you say when we are in bed together? You lie above my body and I can feel your breath blowing in my hair. And you kiss my forehead and say "look at you".

YOU: Look at you.

ME: And I say I can't, I don't have a mirror.

YOU: You wouldn't see what I saw anyway.

ME: No, I wouldn't.

THE SOLDIERS (breaking rhythm): Look at you.

For Hunter

things i see when i look at you:

THE BEAR THAT HAS MY HEART.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

"Little Red" Part One

the beginning of a new story...

“Little Red” he called her at the beginning, although as time passed he simply called her “Red”. Red like her lips when she bit them, her cape, and the colour she tinted when he said her name. He had courted her gently at first, showing up at the house from time to time with small gifts. His hair slicked back, his beard trimmed, that grey suit she loved freshly pressed. He left the gifts on her window sill outside her bedroom; apples, berries, cigarettes she had to hide from her mother, fake flowers dipped in LSD “to show you the world off the path you follow”. She felt dizzy when she thought of him.

They moved in to a studio apartment at the top of a high rise building. Her mother had found the cigarettes and accused her of being a junkie: his arms were strong and he held her to his chest late at night when she thought she was dying. He bathed her with a sponge that looked like a flower from the woods near her grandmothers house. She'd stopped visiting her family. Her grandma was old and dull and he said “She's bad for you. She won't let you be free.” Sometimes she still baked scones and biscuits and thought about sending them in the post but they never had money for stamps and he almost always caught her, “These are for you” she'd whimper “I made them for you of course.”

Red like the blood on her cheeks, the colour of his eyes mid-argument, her fear, her loneliness.
“I only need you” she echoed when he threatened to leave her and send her home to her mother. Her words reverberated through to the tip of her little red hood.

His beard had grown long and unruly, and scratched her leaving a rash when he made love to her. When she looked at him she saw glaring eyes and sharp teeth. “My,” she said with a sigh. “What big teeth you have.” He laughed. “All the better to eat you with.” The laugh roared around their apartment and she felt his teeth on her neck and hand creep across the small of her back. Fingernails felt like claws. “OUCH!” She said. He apologised and kissed her softly on her forehead.
“I was only trying to- I just wanted to make you feel good.”

A long pause that ends with an awkward cough and a kiss. She leaves the room.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

This man.
This man.
I think he moves earth
when he speaks
leaves indents
with a sigh

(tonight, i am that anti-love the world cries over/i've seen that movie it ends in rom-com disaster we read The Book- or i didn't i was busy that night- i imagine- that Devil character screws things up, but She probably means well, she is probably flawed, Ugly, she probably doesn't know everything even if she pretends to with a nervous, vain, smile.)

I think his hurt
envelops me
with a rough tounge (ha ha ha)
edges me shut.

This man.
This man
holds me
[i am a pinprick
in your giant palm]
set to throw
or crush,
but nay, he holds me
tender.
These are the palms
of a man
i see as
a God.

This man.
This man

i Love.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

i think 'you hate yourself' and i shake my head or i shake it on the inside and fight every urge not to shake You/fight you/claw at your eyes/your opinions- reason with you.
in there where i am not tight lipped i lift you up (inside my head with the shaking, i am very, very strong and you are a feather) and take you in to a mirrored room, the ceilings, the floor, the walls glaring at you so i forget which you i touch.
i point "see this. this i love. this is beautiful." i say, "in my hands i hold a pot of paint. i will make a mark on each part i am completely taken by, on each bit of you i adore and lust for." i whisper "on each part i would eat, if i could." i pick up the paint brush and draw an x where your heart lies. i pour the paint over your body. the room fills with paint : you are covered completely i can barely find you under all of it, and you can't see because the paint is clogging up your eyeballs and you can't breathe because it is filling up your mouth your lungs. "These are the parts i love." I say but you can not hear me, your ears have filled with the paint and your insides are revolting as the paint intertwines with your blood.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

CENTAUR THEORY

He lived in the forest at the back of an urban nightmare, streets ahead were lost in smog and noise BEEP BEEP Get Off BEEP! the road you BEEP lunatic? Gotta dollar? FAGGOT BEEP! BEEP! SCrreeeEEEEECH. This, a city of suits and scum girls in red with blackened eyes and voices like claws. He lived in the forest where it was quiet and simple and he could hide from the stares that coloured him bruised and silent.

He lived in a small hut he'd fashioned from loose bark and hair from his tail and fallen trees he liked to imagine with some poetic license were oak (not knowing the difference between any sort of trees at all). "WHAT ARE YOU?" The crowds had jeered. "What is it?" a small child had said in a stage whisper, clinging to their mother's skirt. And he had cried. He cried every morning when he brushed his teeth, as he had his shower as he ate his breakfast, right up until lunch time when he would have a small break and make a cup of tea using the water from his tears. Then he would cry in the afternoon, the evening, and he would try to dry his eyes on the pillow as he lay his tired, damp head to sleep. Soon he had created a moat around his hut which threatened daily to overflow and collapse with the amount of water gushing daily through it. He built a beautiful water feature which he cried in to and sometimes he stopped crying when he realised he was thankful noone was here to see him like this, or see him at all, even if he did wish someone could see the lovely water feature he had built with his own two hands and a little help from his two hooves. "I'm a centaur." He sobbed.
"No." He looked at his reflection in the water that surrounded him. "I'm a man."

One day a young girl had ran from the noise of the streets through the glaring buildings and the black white grey red of the people that filled them and stumbled across his little hut. "What strange water!" She remarked to herself. "It looks so sad. But how can it be?" It pained her to look to the water but she compelled herself to continue towards the centaur's house. She took off her shoes, and her socks, and set about to wade through the moat. It was then she saw the centaur huddled over his water feature, tears streaming down his face. "You will be walking through my tears." He said.
"Yes." She stopped. "But so can you." The centaur shook his head.
"Why are you so sad?" She asked. "You have a beautiful house, peace and quiet and such lovely surrounds! Not to mention fresh running water. After all, there's water restrictions back in the city. But, I do wish you weren't so sad. What is the matter?" The Centaur crossed the moat, and lifted the young girl off the ground and on to his back and crossed back through the water.
"I am a man. But I have been born with this body."
"You are the most beautiful being I have ever seen." (The girl didn't reveal that she had always wanted a pony, feeling this might be seen as a bit insensitive.)
"I fled the city after many years of torment."
"But you are still tormented. Why? Because of who you are?"
The centaur nodded sadly.
"But you are More than a man. You are a masterful water feature maker, and I'm sure you have other skills and attributes besides that. And I bet you have a really swell smile."
The corners of the centaur's mouth began to creep in to the beginnings of a smile.
The young girl thought.
"I think, you are very lucky. I don't know much about centaurs but I do know you are very, very special. You understand life in a different way than those that are just 'man'. Besides which, most men I know are yukky."
"But I am a man."
"Oh yes, I know that. And so much more. And not because of your body, although that is beautiful and perfect in it's own way. Your body folds differently than others and it has seen and experienced things that no other body has experienced. These hooves have walked you through your life. But it is not just this that makes you beautiful. It is all the other things that make you you. These are the things that make you man, centaur, spirit."
The centaur began to weep again, but this time it was through happiness.
"You are right." He conceded, and he looked in to the water and managed a smile. "I'm a man. That I know. And I'm a centaur. And I'm me."
"And," the young girl said with a cheeky grin "you're beautiful." and she kissed him on his reddening cheeks.

Saturday, September 03, 2011

He said 'of course you can eat me sweetheart' she swallowed her salivation, kissed him with a gently opened mouth. my what big teeth...the thought echoed from her throat, her teeth glinting in his light and she swallowed him whole.

(Only i wouldn't- I would savour every morsel, chew 100 times a bite so I would never have my full of you.)

Friday, August 19, 2011

a birthday card for my brother OR too many fairytales.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOBI!

Once apon a time there was a prince. He wasn't really a prince, but one day he would be King. He was a child of Big Ideas (Big a warm and loving father, and Ideas a clever and generous mother). One day the prince encountered an evil witch who went by the name of Life. Now Life was capable of being many things, and came in many unexpected forms. Life came as crying lovers, educational endeavours and once as a strange family meeting with a therapist. Sometimes Life made the prince's sister vicious and downright mean and sometimes Life twisted the prince's own self and made him withdrawn and sullen. But where there is bad there is good, and where there was an evil witch there was a good witch called Dreams. The prince soon learnt to follow his Dreams (he felt quite possessive of this witch and referred to her as such) and although sometimes Life got in the way he knew his Dreams would get him somewhere wonderful. With Dreams he made strangers laugh, he made friends shine and grow and flourish, he made the whole village appreciate art and words and the magic of being human. He built worlds. And in many ways the worlds had built him.

The prince was now 27 years old, and with some help from Dreams, Big Ideas, and even a little from Life, he had become a King.

(at least in the eyes of his little sister.)

Friday, August 05, 2011

shit shit watery brown black red tar shit shit hard shit blood shit vomit shit.
my life coiled around the toilet bowl.
and the doctor will say 'there is nothing wrong with you' and dizzy from dehydration, blood loss, the exhaustion of this all i will smear shit all over their smug face.
"We're out of milk" King sobbed in to the floor, praying (to Whoever) God hadn't listened when he'd suggested shag carpet in the kitchen earlier that year. There'd been disagreements all round over tile colours but at this moment he rejoiced in apricot. God took the hint, grunted, and left.
He walked to the end of the block, made himself as small as he knew how and wished he knew who to pray to.
"If this is my world...if we created this-
then I have no one to blame."

King pictured himself running down the street to God, scooping him in to his arms and kissing him tenderly on the mouth.
"There is no blame. There is no regret. I have loved every moment."
He fetched the mop from the tiny cupboard in the bathroom and cleaned up his mess.

Thursday, August 04, 2011

Somewhere in the middle God and King Kong had an argument over dishes, God screaming "NEED ME." King hated confrontation and promptly wet himself, stickying the apricot coloured tiles.

Monday, July 25, 2011

when It ended, they huddled together. hands sunk in someone else's pockets, shivering beneath patchworks they'd stitched along the way. one's eyelids sagged and drooped and dropped to close. 'if this is The End' they said 'i don't want to see it.' another shoved them upright and held on tight. The last star began to fade.
Soon the sky was black.
The two sat, hand in hand, and stared in to the dark.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

In the beginning there was God, or King Kong, depending on who you spoke to. In the beginning there was God AND King Kong, sharing a pokey bed-sit above a shop in the Nevada desert. They both agreed it was a nice enough place for the first apartment, even though King never kept the place tidy and God was always a few days late with his rent. They were, for the most part happy.
In the beginning there was a man who carved lovers from his bones.
In the beginning there was a chicken and an egg.
There was a single flower.
There was a seed.
In the beginning there was no land, no sea. Or there was sea but no land. No rushing waves to rocky shores. There was still.
There was a single star. There was sky. There was a wish.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

on holding the man i love (and taking up the bed at night to do so)

like a game
of sardines
i fold
in to your decline
stretching my fingers
over any flesh
i can find
and claim
as some wary explorer
with a tiny flag 'i was here!' 'i discovered this!'

in these small moments i try
to memorise everything
i venture,
taking frantic notes
of scars, angles, textures-
love measured in your very form,
life measured in these little journeys.

Saturday, July 09, 2011

i want to slide
through any open cavity
latch on
to your blood cells
find home
somewhere beneath
your skin

hoping i can match your beat.

(what a terrible collection of words.)

Thursday, July 07, 2011

this time i belong in a matchbox of your collection.

i hope it is wrapped beautifully, i hope i rest on a cotton ball gently torn to hold
my frame and sometimes when you wake you open me up like a gift you never told you wanted.

place me tenderly there
(i shatter at your touch)

Sunday, June 12, 2011

this reads like a collage.

someone who doesn't know me well and has their own motives to say such things, said of me "she is just looking for love". which we all have a good joke about in the context it is intended...sweeping statements about sour girls who just need the right man and an apron and that picket fence house to box you in. am i meant to be looking for love? a comment not on women but this woman. put emotions in a locked cage throw them deep in the water hold them down don't look up- one day when i die i will virginia woolf rocks in my pockets (my father says, i remind him of her.)
history of the kerith proves obsession with love and relationships and misrepresentations of forever ideals and what prevails is a very cynical and sullen girl. with leftover fairyfloss weeping from arteries sticky, sugary and on the whole bad for you (with a funny texture and an analogy that's getting me nowhere...but with a lovely sense of whimsy no?) which means? creeping out of me from peculiar places laughter and lingering touch, a stare that lasts too long and leaves me shaken. what if i am not as strong as i believe? what if i am not as weak as i believe?
so have fun, carry on, cry at any chance you get, journey, evolve, never change.
be content with your contradiction. and when the ego gets too much to uphold dissolve and savour that familiar distain.

Thursday, June 09, 2011

in one breath absolute fear feeling everything and knowing nothing but emotion somewhere weaving in to the hairs of my arm my cunt on end looking in to glass sharp and glistening you keep blades behind those eyes too you keep something monstrousbeautiful and i run full speed in bleeding from my eyes like some religious fanatic finding faith in all the odd places.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

i took some odd step-ball-change to get here. i took lovers in my stride gripped them in fists with big stories i can repeat now with a laugh to linger. would i change it? would i change? hahaha why would anyone want to change you, she said, aimed to mold when the time was ripe. she liked me this way best. here's me free-form a well rounded Yes to any question, statement, pause. a Yes between breaths. i am not a person in pieces to be rearranged, i am a stream to take unexpected turns, waterfallsandfull of any journey of my desire.

a tribute to the cicada.

you wait
thirteen years,
seventeen years
wrapped up in dirt and blistered
of your own skin
lying in the dark
til time splinters
through with large eyes
wide feeding off sap
with your wood flesh shell
like eating yourself
singing a loud
proud song
of a nymph's refrain
singing for the next generation
singing because you can
because she likes you that way
because your voice brings voice
to those still burrowed in the dark.


(another insect obsession.)

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

this is the house that we built
falling down
at all angles

i made promises
to many
but i always kept
one eye open
(not with you. with you i trusted the both of us, open doors, too open for your heart)
for fear i should have had
one of us to betray
one of us to fall
the walls collapsing
around us
-------me

you rebuild with
someone else
in your bed
(the bed we made our own
those sheets belong to
us)
you rebuild
you rebuild
you rebuild
you rebuild

the walls collapsing
around me.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Once apon a time there was a girl who loved Love. And Love loved her. It waited for her in dark alleyways to spring itself around her throat, 'I can't eat I can't sleep I can't breathe' this either love or some kind of mental illness. It took her briefly- in two days we will know if white picket fence dreams are reality will you marry me will you impregnate me what will we call our children when we live in provincial france writing poetry on napkins will you want what i want for as long as i want but longer still? Sometimes it lingered for longer than expected and held her too hard and strong for her to bear. Sometimes (most times) it came at the worst possible time, breaking ties already formed hurting anyone that had crawled in to her web
[my friend says some spiders make webs out of sperm, this is what i produce perhaps]
nestled in comfortable, a little too tight for their own good [this is when i eat them, my loves, too big for me to stomach] Usually Love found a way of making it all feel all right, all justified. One giant quest for a little princess where i am my own sword, my own kingdom, so all decisions in the quest for Love are right.
Once apon a time there was a girl who destroyed Love. And Love destroyed her.
So she buried the quest neatly as a dead violet pressed with love sonnets in pages of a notebook. One day it is nice to think she would come back -love blooming- with out thoughts of CherryBlossoms and she would embrace all Loves, big, small, awful and wonderful simply because she could and for Love which we all know works in the strangest of ways.
Right now i wait for Love to end when the relationship is Very Over.