That judgement I just made, that impulse of derision, disdain; is it mine? Or someone else’s? Who’s? My mother and father’s, surely they’d not claim it either, and besides it happened in my mind.
The laughter in my belly ricocheted around, lips up curling, squint; are you mine? Or someone else’s? The friend opposite, it was their causing, but no, I laugh, because I have laughter.
The feeling of alone-ness that gnaws me, that yearning for voices, family; is it mine? Or someone else’s? Who else’s? Myself as a child, but he wasn’t alone, no he had had voices and family. You yearn now. You cannot be a family unto yourself.
That mastering, working, whirring refrain. That calculation. That strain. Is that not your own? Who else’s? My teachers’, the world’s about me. It’s mine, just imprinted and prearranged.
The avoidance of responsibility, the cowering, fearful lack of curiosity; is that mine too? Who else’s? My brothers all worrying, feasting and starving, it is mine, and theirs too. I’ll reckon with it.
Those wrenches of joy and heady pain, the sanguine sky yawing, the soft bed heaving, are those my flutters? My insides? Are they me? Yes, yours, and you can’t relinquish them .
That dark light flashing violent for a moment? That too? It’s Torture and Shame. Are they yours? You theirs? Who else’s? No-one’s, those are for you alone, rock, sea and weed.
You project an image of yourself back at yourself, distinct. Of: A body, I see in a mirror, with an outline, a mouth, ears and hands. In those things – the voice I hear, the manner, the eyes looking back – those are my measure of you. My edge, which I cannot cross.
You’re on a train, looking out the window, fields in bloom rushing past, and warm spring light everywhere. That is where I wrote this from:
Imiss you.Child; seeing, sawing, feet aloft. Brother – throwing amorous arms at hostile things. Dog, eyes bright, begging, full of all the softness. Tree, large, and climbed. Full of apples, I miss fearing your rot. And you, Mother, with hand holding and just once tears, I miss you too.
And you, my heart, full of song and staring into. You I miss with angst. I’d kiss your cheek asleep, early, you’d rouse and headlock me before I could leave. I miss that going. I miss cold feet on calves. All those ways of knowing. I miss the silent times fully.
I miss my own tears, in cinema screens, and jealousy. My house, my cat, the birds that call and coo, the pub I rarely enter. I miss the moon. I miss making birth-, day-, and, pan-, cakes the way my mother did and does. I miss your hips, and salt and vinegar laden chips.
Last night, around 4am, I abruptly woke up. There in that dark room I was afraid of things in my life. And today, reeling as I am from that imposition – the imposition of a thought that changes me – I know I can no longer finish this poem honestly. I could wait for it to come around again, that feeling, that light grip or I could do this, place it in context, as a fleeting thing, that came and went, and that is a memory now, another thing to be missed.
Blue in the Face 