I'm half way through this arduous organisation. It won't wash off. I'm trailing the stink of it behind me. It fills this room despite all the scented candles I could muster, the all day open windows and the arduous organisation. I'm swinging between the urge to vomit and an uncontrolled alphabetisation of all that I own. In a pause I phoned Superman but I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud, this thing that I've done. I told him I was bruised but I didn't tell him about the skin missing off my red raw face or that my teeth feel like they're swinging loose inside my head.
I'm swaddled in high necked long legged pants to hide the twenty separate bruises, my face is caked in Grizelda's makeup to hide my tomato red face. The lip that I thought was split has melded itself back together and the taste of blood is not continuous anymore.
It was ordinary enough, the day, the long drive out to Emu but then Superman emerged in his funeral blacks and I looked down and noticed my own. The drive was ridiculous, I had no idea how most to operate most of the controls on the mercedes dashboard. Superman managed to simultaneously lay his seat down flat and jam open a back window while I wound through clouds and the necessary tangible breath of cigarettes. By the time we arrived at the funeral it was raining and the Chapel was full so we stood outside blowing out frosted breaths and shivering in the mountain air.
It was ordinary enough, the music, the poetry, the crack split in talking voices until the service was over and we stood like cattle in a cloud. Collective grief pushed my head down and all I saw was shoes. I couldn't look at their faces. They stood uneasy as plastic flamingos around the spectacle of parents and grandparents folding their years around new grief while I stared at shoes and was grateful for the bottom of Superman's long coat hanging into my field of vision.
I walked from person to person looking at their shoes and catching glimpses of how we might all look set in stone with our long jaws shut tight and our shivering arms hung about one another unconsciously touching the people we don't ordinarily dare to touch. It felt serpentine and incorrect like an undone sum.
Spencer's shut mouth plumbed open and he rolled out the word 'us', making a low sweep across everybody with his left hand. I was caught in the movement, sibilant 's' ringing in my ears. Marcus Westbury would have ushered forward his recording mind cause I was standing thick in the undergrowth of this city. Not all of us have mastered our craft but I was shoulder to shoulder with artists, musicians and writers, we've hatched out of our university caves. It came clear to me then, it might not be grand and most of us will pass unnoticed, ashes, I'm not claiming we're all the best of friends but that small word 'us' should have scorched a mark across the sky.
I'm swaddled in high necked long legged pants to hide the twenty separate bruises, my face is caked in Grizelda's makeup to hide my tomato red face. The lip that I thought was split has melded itself back together and the taste of blood is not continuous anymore.
It was ordinary enough, the day, the long drive out to Emu but then Superman emerged in his funeral blacks and I looked down and noticed my own. The drive was ridiculous, I had no idea how most to operate most of the controls on the mercedes dashboard. Superman managed to simultaneously lay his seat down flat and jam open a back window while I wound through clouds and the necessary tangible breath of cigarettes. By the time we arrived at the funeral it was raining and the Chapel was full so we stood outside blowing out frosted breaths and shivering in the mountain air.
It was ordinary enough, the music, the poetry, the crack split in talking voices until the service was over and we stood like cattle in a cloud. Collective grief pushed my head down and all I saw was shoes. I couldn't look at their faces. They stood uneasy as plastic flamingos around the spectacle of parents and grandparents folding their years around new grief while I stared at shoes and was grateful for the bottom of Superman's long coat hanging into my field of vision.
I walked from person to person looking at their shoes and catching glimpses of how we might all look set in stone with our long jaws shut tight and our shivering arms hung about one another unconsciously touching the people we don't ordinarily dare to touch. It felt serpentine and incorrect like an undone sum.
Spencer's shut mouth plumbed open and he rolled out the word 'us', making a low sweep across everybody with his left hand. I was caught in the movement, sibilant 's' ringing in my ears. Marcus Westbury would have ushered forward his recording mind cause I was standing thick in the undergrowth of this city. Not all of us have mastered our craft but I was shoulder to shoulder with artists, musicians and writers, we've hatched out of our university caves. It came clear to me then, it might not be grand and most of us will pass unnoticed, ashes, I'm not claiming we're all the best of friends but that small word 'us' should have scorched a mark across the sky.
Comments
Very much hoping nobody assaulted you...
To leave a man in his fear
To leave a man in his sorrow
To leave a man in his pain
To leave a man in his furrow is a solemn move.
I leave you in my thoughts
I leave you
I leave you…..