I’ve lost my words today –
They’ll come back to me, I know
When the griefstone blocking the
Synapses in my brain
Gets rolled away
When I am no longer standing
On the shore of a Tsunami,
Staring down the barrel
Of a trauma laden gun.
Words are my power,
They will not forsake me long
But how strange for now
To own a mouth
Not for speaking
To have a throat
Poised for a scream
that dies before shrieking;
How heavy is this silence,
Pressing expression out of place…
Entombed in a sunken grave, I wait.
I find I can whisper
And feel betrayed
By the loudness of the
Noise it makes;
Little more than breath,
To test if I have any strength left
To do more than
Push myself through
The motions of the day…
An automaton
Haunted by the silence
Of the grave.
loss
blog: eulogy for Jim
Today I laid a rose on a casket that belonged to the father of a good friend. I hadn’t had much contact with him in quite a while, but he played a significant part during some of the best years of my life.
Jim was the kind of man who kept an open door policy. He didn’t judge people. He was quick to give you his opinion, and you could rely on him to be honest about how much of a dickhead you were being, but he always let people make their own choices. And he was always there to lend a hand whenever it was needed, from offering a place to crash for the night to picking up a ute-load of stuff.
I practically lived at his house the summer of 1999-2000, during a crazy time in my life when I was making the weird and wild choices only the young can make. There were many nights of pizza and gaming, watching movies and shooting the breeze. And after more interesting pursuits like trying to turn an aerosol can into a rocket and hooning around the streets singing “what’s the colour of a 2 cent piece?” at every cop we saw, we always somehow ended up back at Jim’s. I doubt my parents could count the amount of times they heard, “Yeah I’m still at Jim’s… I’ll be home tomorrow – probably.”
Sure, there were times when Jim had had enough. He’d look at me and say, “Haven’t you gone home yet?!” And I knew it was time to disappear back home for a few days. But Jim always welcomed life and people into his house, was always quick to tell a joke and make you laugh, keen to show off the latest game he was playing or berate us on our lack of musical taste. The house where Jim and his sons lived seemed to attract a happy group of strays who just needed a place to be themselves. And as I said, for me the few years I spent hanging out there were some of the best and happiest times in my life.
I know Jim is proud of the legacy he left behind in his kids, and the turnout at the funeral today is a testament to how many other lives he has touched. Rest in peace Jim, and stir up a few angels for me!
blog: going through changes
I’d been meaning to change my phone passcode for a while, and last week finally got around to it. I picked an easy code, but for a whole week I’ve been typing in my old one without thinking and it’s not until my phone buzzes at me that I realise that’s not my code anymore.
And every time I type the wrong passcode it slams home that NOTHING in my life is what it used to be, and will never be that way again. And while there was a lot of stuff in my life that needed to change, I’ve also lost a lot of reasons to wake up in the morning. I’ve lost my hopes and dreams for the future, and now I have to get new ones, but I don’t want to and I don’t know how.
At the moment I’m just trying to put one foot in front of the other. I’m not the first person whose marriage failed and I won’t be the last. But it really hurts to breathe right now. I wake up in my new room and wonder why my walls are purple instead of white. I wonder where the cats are and why they aren’t beside me. I feel like if I walk out of the room I’ll see my ex partner sitting on the couch or in the kitchen cooking. I often wake up thinking I should check what he wants to do that day or what he wants for dinner.
It’s like for a second my brain rejects my reality because it doesn’t seem like it should be real. For a second I’m all confused, I don’t understand how I got here, and life without him in it just seems wrong. I’m sure in time I will make this all make sense, but right now the dissonance is killing me.
poem: lying in the dark
In the darkness I lay next to you under the doona we picked out together but never used; I remember it was on sale.
In the darkness you cuddle tightly into me, your face pressed against my neck; the barriers of polite distance temporarily torn down.
In the darkness you are a little boy again, an innocent with tousled hair and no defences; I wish I could keep you this way forever.
In the darkness I am haunted by the ghosts of what will never be; I hold you tighter to keep the wolves at bay.
In the darkness my thoughts torment me relentlessly; they pick at my flesh and gnaw my weary bones.
Cadence Poetica 