aftermathtoo

I am too old to be heartbroken

I should be a young sylph in white drapery, crumpled

One should think of pale mournful eroticism

With splintered heart evident in my fractured swan wings, unnaturally bent

Being old and heartbroken is snot and the tears under the chin

The crying is too self indulgent , I took pictures of myself this time

I should delete them, my puffy face with it’s before surgery look

They don’t remind me of you. Not that I want that, of course. Damn, tripped myself up.  Insert today’s preferred invective here.

I can’t summon up that energetic state of sobbing now

Blinking, biting lip, repeating to myself what I read in your words, the words themselves are dulled now, by repetition, by a shell, above all by not wanting to feel.

You didn’t actually say it made you sick to think of me, not in those exact words, you described how you were not sleeping, and when you did sleep, how you woke sweating and sick with guilt at the thought of meeting me again.

You did not mean that I made you sick but that was all I could see in your words.

We have stopped speaking before, I forget how many times

Actually,  I never counted, I could guess at four, it might be three or five

But, you never told me I made you sick before.  I always thought, the ups and downs are part of us

Always we knew it was not really final, the wire was never snipped, it remained inert between us until something or other made me pick it up again, set off a thrumming and hope that you would feel the reverberation

You never said I made you sick before

Last night I heard a miaou, and I opened the door to nothing

Sometimes, still, the former playmate of my departed cat still sits on the garden bench, but I suspect it is more for the peace and the sunlight and the absence of wind rather than the companionship of Seville's ghost

I wanted to make this time not final, I even pulled my punches when telling you that we would not talk again

I said you were selfish but it was human to prioritise one’s own peace of mind over another’s happiness

I did not comment on the size of your dick

You never said I made you sick before

ragged feral creature that I am, I keep on going back to that vomit pile of grief.

I know

sadly neglected here... been busy with other stuff... but...

sadly neglected my self
(story of my life)
gladly watched others
living a normal life
and wondering
why I don't want it
I have no answer yet
other than being greedy
I want more, of everything
I want you to notice me
I don't want you to think
that you can pick me up again
later
when your life isn't so hectic
but I hate to think
that you will never pick
me up again
and sometimes, like now,
it seems a distinct
possibility.
I know, I should find
a shred of self respect
tell myself, you're not worth it,
you only share the tiniest sliver
of yourself with me
when no-one else is looking
I know.
I watched some people
in that normal life and
because of you
I wondered if their life
was a lie, just like yours.
Like mine, I know.

storm in a tea cup

The lightning is forking through the sky, horizontally and looks pink and purple. The trees show the undersides of their leaves as the wind whips around. I sit at my computer with a frightened cat and realise I have no-one to reach out to, no-one at the other side of the screen who is interested any more. I wonder what the chances of being struck by lightning are, more when there actually is a storm out there I suppose?

Is it a hopeful sign that I have not sent this mail to you yet, that there is some kernel, an unexploded popcorn seed of self worth that contains all the pride I have left? My finger hovers over the mouse, wondering which button I will press.

only boring people are bored

I woke up mid afternoon as the sunlight kidney filtered & pale urine coloured tapped at my eyelids.  I got up to do nothing, to be nothing, shrugged the chenille jumper back on and pushed the gap between my first two toes into the flip-flops.

I sagged over this screen to see if you had been thinking of me even though it is a Sunday and I knew you would not, you would be somewhere walking the dog along the beach, no wait, that was in the other house, before you moved to be close to your in-laws and the ready made babysitting facilities.  I still hoped you would think of me but it gets harder to hold a picture of me in your head when real life is happening around you and I am doing nothing, perhaps in suspended animation until you have a fleeting moment to think, to reminisce.

I see the little blobs above the houses and shops when I close my eyes now doing nothing but clicking here, clicking there, clicking where I am told to by the dumb computer game and I accept it and let this limited structure be my life, do as I am allowed as I am expected to do.  Will I take this half promotion which means more work and less recognition, oh yeah sure since you ask, no not nicely just since you ask and I must do that stuff as it would be impolite not to.

I read someone say they had boundaries of tissue paper and I thought of how I do nothing and let tissue paper become my boundaries, build fucking great concrete prisons out of tissue paper, and I did not used to be like this and I am getting worse and worse at hiding it.  Muslin curtains at the windows are enough to seal the world from me.

I sent a message out into the aether, no not to you, to someone who was a distraction from you for a while, an incandescent spark of distraction that is burnt out now because I am so boring and stale.  He used to push me on too, tell me things, say things to me and I drew stuff out of myself to reply, building, pulling and pushing at myself and what I thought were boundaries but now they are not even tissue paper, yesterdays toilet paper and flushed away and I am too far below notice to be worth a reply now.

The sun is going down in a small fizz of light mostly hidden by the metal grey indifferent clouds and the lights in my flat are on and I am opaque to the world outside the windows again.

colour by numbers

A says "Not now, I'm swamped today."

B metaphorically pats me on the head, tells me to keep up the good work with my writing.

C says nothing because I did not abase myself in front of him today.

D says "Hallo," in the restaurant and makes a mental note to contact me privately one day, maybe even one day soon, but the days drift by and home is familiar and it is winter and not the time to try new things away from the cosy hearth.

C still says nothing.  I say nothing back to him because he values my reticence more than he values me.

I don't deserve this title...

I'm doing so well, I tell myself.  Just passed the previous "best time" of 23 days without contacting him.  I'm now on 25 days.  Why am I even telling you this?  Or telling myself this? 



A plaudit for being apathetic and doing nothing, well go girl, you deserve an award for that.  Clap hands that you managed to set up a situation where doing nothing is it's own reward, how strong you've been!



How strong that you are sitting here counting the days.  Can't get up and do something, you might lose count.  How strong you are to remain rooted, battling off incipient claustrophobia, to let worn-out thoughts flit and fit in your head like fruit flies inside an empty wine bottle.



Stop already with the metaphors...

I'm afraid that I will die spending time with someone I don't like

Yes, I am talking to you.  Look at you, you sprawl there on the sofa.  Sprawl doesn't begin to cover it, you slump, you spill, you slouch.  You are a sibilant sloven.  Your feet up on the furniture, resting on the rubbish, remains of letters, magazines, chocolate wrappers. 

You sag.  You age.

It's not langour, it's way beyond that, it's a life draining laziness beyond comprehension.  Why would anyone choose to live like that?  Why do you choose to live like that?  Oh, you don't choose it?  You just can't be bothered to change it.

Billowing flesh, pale and pasty pink.  Hide it under the throw, pretend it isn't there as you reach for the next packet of crisps, the next gulp of alcohol.

The German word for lazy is "faul" and you know you are.

Sluggish?  That doesn't sound too bad, a slow pulse but basically everything under control.  Slug-like is more like it.  Fat, seeping, sliding through life at the pace of a snail without even the excuse of your house on your shoulders.

No wonder no-one comes around.  No wonder there is no-one who wants to probe your fleshy crevices, touch your pallid swollen skin.  And you know being so fat makes those folds fleshier and deeper, the journey into your cunt a longer route to pleasure, but no-one else wants to know that now.  Hell, most of the time even you don't fucking bother.

Get up off the sofa and go look in the mirror.  Not via the fridge again!  Go see yourself.  Really see yourself, not glance and see the memory of the girl you once were.  She was 20 years ago and is lost to you now.  Look at yourself, see what you really look like.  Nice eyes, yeah, but how many chins?  Your tiny mouth looks even smaller against the expanse of your cheeks, unhealthily flushed. 

Will you do something about it this time?  Will you?  Or will you just wonder absently where the gym card is, or whether your swimming costume would still fit?  And make a half hearted resolution to go into town and buy some newer bigger clothes?

My face in the mirror, I wonder vaguely what it would be like to finish it, to put an end to it, to kill this person that I don't like, even if it means I die with her.  But I know I won't do it, too much effort...





Thanks to SSF for the great writing prompt, click here to see story at SSF