4.05 morning after
She is dizzy. Smells make her stomach heave. On her way home from work, in her pretty summer dress, she’s going to have to buy a package wrapped in crinkly clear plastic. She’ll open it up and read instructions on shiny white paper and she’ll follow them and the nervousness will fill her stomach with churning acidic liquid. She’ll see the liquid creep up into the plastic window and she’ll see one line or two, and these tiny lines will tell her what the next fourteen days will bring to her.
The man that she lay with, who was inside her with nothing between them, has silky hair. The inside of his mouth is as soft as his words are hard. I know this because I have lain with him too.
I once woke up with a man who took a phone call from a screaming woman. She knew where he was, who he was with, and did not want him to be there. I had been next to him and under him all night and there were naïve dreams of falling stars in my foggy mind. Our wetness was still between my legs. He turned away and took the call and did not again meet my eye. At that precise moment, something in my heart or my brain or my gut or my soul, or wherever these things live inside, shattered into little pieces of glass. Like the slithers of broken panes of glass that are impossible to sweep up, tiny dangerous little pieces that cut your feet but are invisible.
Since then, I have been an understudy. I have been waiting in the wings. I have been a woman in a fine silk dress hoping for the woman in the spotlight to fall and break the bones of a limb. I am the woman in an apartment in town with new silk stockings and pennyroyal tea in the cupboard.
I found out, one year and forty one days after that morning, that when she made that call she had a tiny curl of a thing inside her. There was a tiny life that was ended not long after.
I know the feeling of waking up in a hospital gown with the part of me that was growing, the part that made me so difficult and troublesome, removed so that I could continue pretending that I’d be pliable and easy to sleep next to. I know what it is to have the desire to just get.it.out suddenly overwhelmed by the grasping scraping rawness of waking up empty in a cold room.
When I think of these things, I see the dark tangled ribbons that join me to women who have not been lucky, have not been loved. I know that I will be hurt by these women and I will hurt them again, just as I know that the men around whom we circle will not be. We dance, like it is the beginning of May, flowers in our hair, each holding a ribbon, and we try to make the ribbons wrap in co-ordinated patterns around the may pole. But we trip each other up and end up tangled. Ribbons are knotted. We have to cut them to get free. We curse each other, again and again, edged frayed, less length in the silken cords every year.
The man that she lay with, who was inside her with nothing between them, has silky hair. The inside of his mouth is as soft as his words are hard. I know this because I have lain with him too.
I once woke up with a man who took a phone call from a screaming woman. She knew where he was, who he was with, and did not want him to be there. I had been next to him and under him all night and there were naïve dreams of falling stars in my foggy mind. Our wetness was still between my legs. He turned away and took the call and did not again meet my eye. At that precise moment, something in my heart or my brain or my gut or my soul, or wherever these things live inside, shattered into little pieces of glass. Like the slithers of broken panes of glass that are impossible to sweep up, tiny dangerous little pieces that cut your feet but are invisible.
Since then, I have been an understudy. I have been waiting in the wings. I have been a woman in a fine silk dress hoping for the woman in the spotlight to fall and break the bones of a limb. I am the woman in an apartment in town with new silk stockings and pennyroyal tea in the cupboard.
I found out, one year and forty one days after that morning, that when she made that call she had a tiny curl of a thing inside her. There was a tiny life that was ended not long after.
I know the feeling of waking up in a hospital gown with the part of me that was growing, the part that made me so difficult and troublesome, removed so that I could continue pretending that I’d be pliable and easy to sleep next to. I know what it is to have the desire to just get.it.out suddenly overwhelmed by the grasping scraping rawness of waking up empty in a cold room.
When I think of these things, I see the dark tangled ribbons that join me to women who have not been lucky, have not been loved. I know that I will be hurt by these women and I will hurt them again, just as I know that the men around whom we circle will not be. We dance, like it is the beginning of May, flowers in our hair, each holding a ribbon, and we try to make the ribbons wrap in co-ordinated patterns around the may pole. But we trip each other up and end up tangled. Ribbons are knotted. We have to cut them to get free. We curse each other, again and again, edged frayed, less length in the silken cords every year.
1988
The kitchen is long, narrow and repressively hot under a tin roof. Light is coming through the brown shutters, the child watches as dust particles become visible and disappear. The child’s Mother is frying the meat in the pan in her disapproving way. A fly is buzzing around, and the Mother keeps taking breaks from frying to swat at it with her tea towel with short, sharp violence. The sudden thwacks make everybody in the small room jump. On cheap plates, dinners are being piled. Lettuce, tomato, buns and fat, to be eaten with our hands. The child’s sister serves herself.
Tugging at my curls, standing in the corner, I’m watching her in her world that I wanted to be part of. She takes mayonnaise and tomato sauce, mixing it together in an orange paste like the colour she has dyed her hair. (Thwack, Mum’s towel flicks the bench) Mum says her hair now doesn’t look like the rest of ours. I will always remember that shade of orange made by her strange tastebuds, not like the colours of the lino covered floor or the lampshade. I think they were orange too, but they could have been blue, maybe green. That orange is so vivid in my memory.
She has a silver earring hanging from one ear, it was a bat, and as the pedestal fan tried to circulate air around the room, it softly flapped against her neck. (thwack). Her feet were bare, I remember because her toes seemed pointed as I looked down at them. I also like to think that her toes were painted red. I think she was humming, but I don’t really remember. I do remember that I once crept into her room when I couldn’t sleep. I laid my blanket on the floor of her cold room. In sleep, her face was so child like it could have been a mirror. I whispered her name. Wake up, I said, getting anxious. But she slept on.
In the kitchen, as she is getting her dinner, I am now clumsily following her. I spread orange paste on my bun too, even though I don’t enjoy the taste. (thwack) Mum makes me have the stuff on my burger that my sister calls rabbit food. I want to sneer at the food like she does, but everyone is shocked if I am rude. She sits on the vinyl chairs in the room, I remember them being brown and sticky. I am hot and my skirt is sticking to my knees. In my memory, she pays no attention to me as I stare at her, the curly haired child following the girl with dyed red hair. (thwack) Now I wonder, was she listening to something I said? Was the window in that room so big, and dark? Did the light overhead really swing like that, in the artificial breeze? (It’s a blackout. There’s nothing to cry about. Mum is with your little sister. She’s too little to be brave like us. We’re just going to light a candle, we don’t mind a bit of dark, do we? No need to cry)
As I chew my burger, trying to take bites as big as hers, she is apart from me. Her image is fuzzy. The little girl watches her, intent on the fast way in which she speaks, uses her hands, throws away words, and crams them into sentences where they probably don’t belong. If I remember correctly, nobody listened to her many words except me. My sister gets up to leave. Were there words spoken that were not her own, that made her leave at that moment? There were so many angry words spoken in our house, I can remember none specifically any more. What I remember now is only my own silence. On the way out, my sister draws a large heart on my child size black board.
For weeks afterwards, the curly haired child no longer let the neighbour’s children use the black board for games of teacher or hangman, alienating some of them forever. There was no way she would let that prefect white chalk heart be smudged away for a silly game.
As soon as the point of the heart is finished, she is gone. I remember waking up from a dream where a red haired girl danced away from me, and for the first time the outside light was switched off, casting my little room into unfamiliar darkness. For the first time, I knew if there was a blackout, I was on my own.
Tugging at my curls, standing in the corner, I’m watching her in her world that I wanted to be part of. She takes mayonnaise and tomato sauce, mixing it together in an orange paste like the colour she has dyed her hair. (Thwack, Mum’s towel flicks the bench) Mum says her hair now doesn’t look like the rest of ours. I will always remember that shade of orange made by her strange tastebuds, not like the colours of the lino covered floor or the lampshade. I think they were orange too, but they could have been blue, maybe green. That orange is so vivid in my memory.
She has a silver earring hanging from one ear, it was a bat, and as the pedestal fan tried to circulate air around the room, it softly flapped against her neck. (thwack). Her feet were bare, I remember because her toes seemed pointed as I looked down at them. I also like to think that her toes were painted red. I think she was humming, but I don’t really remember. I do remember that I once crept into her room when I couldn’t sleep. I laid my blanket on the floor of her cold room. In sleep, her face was so child like it could have been a mirror. I whispered her name. Wake up, I said, getting anxious. But she slept on.
In the kitchen, as she is getting her dinner, I am now clumsily following her. I spread orange paste on my bun too, even though I don’t enjoy the taste. (thwack) Mum makes me have the stuff on my burger that my sister calls rabbit food. I want to sneer at the food like she does, but everyone is shocked if I am rude. She sits on the vinyl chairs in the room, I remember them being brown and sticky. I am hot and my skirt is sticking to my knees. In my memory, she pays no attention to me as I stare at her, the curly haired child following the girl with dyed red hair. (thwack) Now I wonder, was she listening to something I said? Was the window in that room so big, and dark? Did the light overhead really swing like that, in the artificial breeze? (It’s a blackout. There’s nothing to cry about. Mum is with your little sister. She’s too little to be brave like us. We’re just going to light a candle, we don’t mind a bit of dark, do we? No need to cry)
As I chew my burger, trying to take bites as big as hers, she is apart from me. Her image is fuzzy. The little girl watches her, intent on the fast way in which she speaks, uses her hands, throws away words, and crams them into sentences where they probably don’t belong. If I remember correctly, nobody listened to her many words except me. My sister gets up to leave. Were there words spoken that were not her own, that made her leave at that moment? There were so many angry words spoken in our house, I can remember none specifically any more. What I remember now is only my own silence. On the way out, my sister draws a large heart on my child size black board.
For weeks afterwards, the curly haired child no longer let the neighbour’s children use the black board for games of teacher or hangman, alienating some of them forever. There was no way she would let that prefect white chalk heart be smudged away for a silly game.
As soon as the point of the heart is finished, she is gone. I remember waking up from a dream where a red haired girl danced away from me, and for the first time the outside light was switched off, casting my little room into unfamiliar darkness. For the first time, I knew if there was a blackout, I was on my own.
27.11.09
This day last year, I felt how smooth the skin of your back was.
This day last week, I saw a snake slither out on to the freeway. Where I live, with my large growling family with its heart so savage, there are trees so high they hide the sun and long grass with seeds that catch on your skin and end up in our animal’s fur, and we have to cut them out. There are flowers and blossoms that make our noses itchy and our eyes red. There are bright mornings that illuminate the trees that cover the hills. When I am there, I stomp loudly to scare the snakes away.
But I didn’t see a snake there, in the noise, where I thought there might be one. I was alone in my car when I saw it. It slithered and I exclaimed. I looked in my rear view mirror and behind me was a large truck, the kind that carries the trunks of dead trees. The snake carried forward in its sinewy path. I don’t know if it was crushed under the big wheels of that truck. Every time I’ve passed that corner since I’ve forgotten to see if that dead flat snake is there on the side of the road where the bitumen is rough and the colour of rust.
I’ve only seen one snake before, in a car with my first love. I told him not to drive over it, for my mother, who grew up at the foot of the hills, told me that snakes will wrap around the inside of cars and curl there in the warmth and wait. He ridiculed this and told me it was an old wives tale and I wonder all the time if he was right, or if one day I will drive over a snake and get out of my little car and the snake will slither over my feet and bite me when I don’t expect it (that’s if it is at all possible to be surprised by a bite that you have been expecting for so long.)
I came a different way to get here today. On the number plate of the car in front was the two letter name you and only a few others ever call me. I wondered what you’d think if you saw those letters. I don’t think it’d be anything good. You know, I had to throw out the shift I had on that night, because I couldn’t wash out the smell of your house, and you’d ripped the lace. Then, once it was gone, I pretended that it was easy to say goodbye.
This day last week, I saw a snake slither out on to the freeway. Where I live, with my large growling family with its heart so savage, there are trees so high they hide the sun and long grass with seeds that catch on your skin and end up in our animal’s fur, and we have to cut them out. There are flowers and blossoms that make our noses itchy and our eyes red. There are bright mornings that illuminate the trees that cover the hills. When I am there, I stomp loudly to scare the snakes away.
But I didn’t see a snake there, in the noise, where I thought there might be one. I was alone in my car when I saw it. It slithered and I exclaimed. I looked in my rear view mirror and behind me was a large truck, the kind that carries the trunks of dead trees. The snake carried forward in its sinewy path. I don’t know if it was crushed under the big wheels of that truck. Every time I’ve passed that corner since I’ve forgotten to see if that dead flat snake is there on the side of the road where the bitumen is rough and the colour of rust.
I’ve only seen one snake before, in a car with my first love. I told him not to drive over it, for my mother, who grew up at the foot of the hills, told me that snakes will wrap around the inside of cars and curl there in the warmth and wait. He ridiculed this and told me it was an old wives tale and I wonder all the time if he was right, or if one day I will drive over a snake and get out of my little car and the snake will slither over my feet and bite me when I don’t expect it (that’s if it is at all possible to be surprised by a bite that you have been expecting for so long.)
I came a different way to get here today. On the number plate of the car in front was the two letter name you and only a few others ever call me. I wondered what you’d think if you saw those letters. I don’t think it’d be anything good. You know, I had to throw out the shift I had on that night, because I couldn’t wash out the smell of your house, and you’d ripped the lace. Then, once it was gone, I pretended that it was easy to say goodbye.
When am I ever anything but envious?
I envy smoothness and smiles and fecundity, laughter and rage and companionship, sleeping entwined and planning. I look around and see nothing but arid deserts of sameness. Hopes dashed on rocks and loves forgotten like odd socks never paired – they have dried everything up until nothing will grow here.
I get sleepy from the heat, my limbs are impossible to move, so I lie and stare up at the ceiling. There's not enough moisture here to sweat or to cry.
I envy smoothness and smiles and fecundity, laughter and rage and companionship, sleeping entwined and planning. I look around and see nothing but arid deserts of sameness. Hopes dashed on rocks and loves forgotten like odd socks never paired – they have dried everything up until nothing will grow here.
I get sleepy from the heat, my limbs are impossible to move, so I lie and stare up at the ceiling. There's not enough moisture here to sweat or to cry.
22
It’s been 22 days since we last looked at each other. I ask you questions silently.
Do you remember when you asked me if I liked that song you were listening to? Did you hear it on the radio? Were you playing it in your empty beige room? Did you put it on to indulge yourself with thoughts of me, thoughts you shouldn’t have been having? Thoughts about my mouth and the new yours-ness of me, the way I opened to you, the way you’d seen more of me than you ever expected? Do you remember writing ‘I wish I could have spent it with you’? Did I sneak into your attention because you were alone so much? Was I a planned holiday activity? Do you remember?
Even if I am in love with you, all this to say, what’s it to you?
Are you gone forever? Will you be coming back? You are some of the reason I stayed, and yet I find that I am quite able to imagine you existing in this city but not in my life.
Do you remember when you asked me if I liked that song you were listening to? Did you hear it on the radio? Were you playing it in your empty beige room? Did you put it on to indulge yourself with thoughts of me, thoughts you shouldn’t have been having? Thoughts about my mouth and the new yours-ness of me, the way I opened to you, the way you’d seen more of me than you ever expected? Do you remember writing ‘I wish I could have spent it with you’? Did I sneak into your attention because you were alone so much? Was I a planned holiday activity? Do you remember?
Even if I am in love with you, all this to say, what’s it to you?
Are you gone forever? Will you be coming back? You are some of the reason I stayed, and yet I find that I am quite able to imagine you existing in this city but not in my life.
241109
Are you really gone?
I have felt you in the next room for a long time. I call out. You don't answer... and now I'm moving out.
I have felt you in the next room for a long time. I call out. You don't answer... and now I'm moving out.
after
The sheets were softer than any I owned and far more expensive. Cream coloured beige and beautiful on a high bed, and I sunk into it and floated away in an undercurrent. His pupils were dilated, the surrounding colour a blue I hadn’t noticed before they were that close to me, and his kisses were what they were supposed to be, soft and hard by turns and thrilling. I was dizzy and he saw me as a dark thing, a difficult and prickly thing that had dropped its defences and allowed him to hold it. In the shadows we told each other things while playing on the radio in the other room was music picked to impress me. I waited until track one played again, and left, out on to the street and into my car, lips bruised; driving off into the night feeling like I was moving underwater.
What I have not told you about that night was that I was never supposed to be in that bed. Those sheets should not have been shared with me. His eyes were a pretty colour, but shuttered. I wasn’t allowed to bite. I said things that were callous, and they helped me make my insides feel hard. I was something to him and nothing at the same time. He did things not to my taste, they were not about me. I had said no to him a thousand times, and don’t know where I found the yes of that night. I had to leave before she came home. As I left, at the end of the street a police car sat, lights on, red flashing on the street where I walked, illuminating my path with the colour of an underworld. If they had taken me away for wrong doings, I would not have been surprised.
Neither of these accounts is true.
What I have not told you about that night was that I was never supposed to be in that bed. Those sheets should not have been shared with me. His eyes were a pretty colour, but shuttered. I wasn’t allowed to bite. I said things that were callous, and they helped me make my insides feel hard. I was something to him and nothing at the same time. He did things not to my taste, they were not about me. I had said no to him a thousand times, and don’t know where I found the yes of that night. I had to leave before she came home. As I left, at the end of the street a police car sat, lights on, red flashing on the street where I walked, illuminating my path with the colour of an underworld. If they had taken me away for wrong doings, I would not have been surprised.
Neither of these accounts is true.
during
I’ve been here before, and you know that. I don’t think I want to slide down that rock face. But right now, I’m wondering, wondering; wandering, humming along, pondering, singing ‘I don’t want to see you as the next in line,’ thinking about what is keeping me on the ground. Considering footholds but not even imagining the possibility that I won’t fall.
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