your name is no accident and
it leaves my mouth reluctantly.
safe on my tongue it gently tips behind my teeth then
clings to my lips ,
like a kiss
i’ll exhale you streaming , spent and
sprawled, spilt like paint.
in thickened drips and bruised reflection it
leaves its mark,
like a kick.
,
I once loved a boy who kept a tarantula in his room ;
on full moon nights it clung to the glass
and his whole room smelled like fresh sex,
boy socks crumpled and dirty jeans
lay in hurried heaps.
We drew circles on each others backs
and never went so far as we imagined.
The last time I met him he threw a rose
onto a coffin sunk deep
into a small welsh hillside,
on a day when the sun
shone too bright.
,,
,
Go away,
-
I don’t need anyone , she said,
let alone you.
You’ve become a blight on my dreams,
an assault on my sense(abilities).
I just don’t need you a n y more .
And with that she stormed away
like clouds retreating. Turning,
like milk gone sour.
.
.
I am clumsy. Clumsy in an egg breaking, arm bruising way.
Each night I carry a hessian sack of sweet hay through growing fields . One arm over my shoulder while the other carrys a tin bucketful of maize and corn. I push through an old iron gate and every time it bangs me square on the hip where bruises spread like ink. The top of my left arm bears another mark, caught on the barn door latch most nights and there are scratches across my brow where I pushed through a brambled patch to find a straying hen.
It was no different when I was a child. I viewed my body each night like a map. The torn nails and scuffed knees seemed to me to be layers of a story oddly separate from my internal workings. The downy hairs on my arms which bristled in the chill of summer shade or shone gold as I squinted against the sun, were backdrops for miniature scenes played out the length and breadth of my skin.
We carry our markings like animals. A tattoo seems too pedestrian. I love them on old men with toothless smiles and leathery skin but on younger flesh they seem like a stamp of ironic conformity. A lovers mark is altogether different. It signifies a hidden world. A patteran to lust, a manifestation of submission.
” To see a world in a grain of sand ” . Over the years those words have been a mantra to me. They have kept me safe when I was afraid to fall .They have been the seed of so many imaginings. When time unravels too quickly the only thing to do is slow it right down. When the world grows too large to handle, shrink it. I have to celebrate the small to keep myself sane. And so, those marks of life; the bruises of toil , the brands of love and passion force me (you ?) back into the moment.
I hurt therefore I am.
.
