He calls and
I do not answer
so it becomes
a red missed
call, a blot
of scarlet
like I’ve tried
to stick a
plaster on
a bleeding
knee too early.
He is probably
angry, like
the woman
opposite me,
tapping her
foot to the
vapid music
of the train.
I take out
my diary
and strike silver
through today.
It is over.
The day has
slid into
the envelope
of night.

My brain is a locked door
and I've misplaced the keys.
Nothing will go in and
nothing substantial will come out.
I've knocked and I've rung,
but all to no avail.
The only response is the letterbox
hurling out junk mail
and words I've used before.

This room is only substantial when
the light hits the clock face
and casts a second sun onto the ceiling,
its single eye unblinking,
tireless as time. It watches me as
I watch its handless face
from the floor of this weary, weary room,
for this is where I lie.

I am waiting for the light.
I am waiting for the third sun
to annihilate the window and the mirror
and the clock face. I am waiting for
my body to be cauterized, my hair to be burnt
and to vacate like a shadow
in the dark. I am waiting,  
for this is where I want to lie.

This room is no longer substantial.
The curtains are drawn, a thin sheet
to forestall the burn of light
I am waiting for. I sit at the desk,
as I wait, professing onto pages,
for this is where I lie.

Today, I saw a person in front of me, their eyes on something else
and I took a moment to inspect them,
and then I realised it was myself.

There they were, wearing the clothes I had put on in the morning,
wearing the face I recognise in pictures
and standing exactly where I was standing.
But, they were not me – in that moment, they were not.
How could I be that girl, that women standing there in that shop?

The body inside is not that one I saw in the mirror,
the one who was looking a different way.
Inside, I’m more, I’m smaller, I’m darker, I’m paler and
I dress for them each morning, choosing from the clothes
not bought for them exactly,
but forced to match them, to meet halfway.
I knew it then, with a glance at the mirror person, nothing pretty would be bought today.

And it wasn’t.
Some days, it’s dungarees.
Other days, it’s dresses.
Some days, it’s shorts and leggings.
It all depends on who I’m playing as and
I’m sure that’s all okay, but then they say describe yourself in three words.

How can I describe myself, this person  I do not know?

So I go for the easy option and choose them from a list:
Quiet
Creative
Studious
And I suppose, that’s one way of putting myself into three words;
one way of putting myself into an easy to understand formula.

But it doesn’t cover it.
Three words don’t cover it.

Because really, I think I’m just an observer inside my own imagination,
an observer inside my own life and all these other lives inside my head.
I’m just the implied narrator of this person in the mirror
and all these others, who come and go in different places.

But then the girl in the mirror reminds me that tomorrow is my birthday,
a day to celebrate the fact I exist outside of my head
and then she touches a shirt, made of itchy fabric
and there’s life outside the overwhelming inside,
a life where I need to describe myself in three words
and fit into those three words and into that one person,
looking at something else, not in the mirror.

I’ve got an ache that comes and goes,
an ache right on the brain.
Not a headache, a brainache,
actually inside my brain.
Sometimes, it makes it hard to think,
or do or talk and other times,
I seem to lose control of my face
and have to stop and think:
Did I smile right?
Then I have to test it,
shifting my mouth into something
that is possibly called a smile.
I try not to look in the mirror when I do it.
It’s hard you see, the mirror.
Can you be allergic to mirrors?
I come out in a rash when I see one,
and I can’t help but scratch it
and then it spreads.
It’s almost like going into shock
and I can’t help it, but I want to take
a knife to my face and slice it
into easy peeling strips.
I’ve tried painkillers and hayfever tablets
but they don’t seem to do the trick.
Did I forget to mention this burning inside me?
Actually inside, not my organs, but the cavity
within me. Sometimes, it will burn for hours,
though I’m not sure what keeps it going.
I feel rather hollow inside at other times,
and the measly kindling that makes me up
could hardly sustain a fire for long.
Oh, and then there’s a numbness in my arms
and in my legs. It gets worse when I go outside,
and I can’t quite decide if it’s really the floor
my legs are touching? Could it be something in the air?
Is there some kind of plant in season to explain it?
My eyes might be going too. I keep thinking
I’m seeing things. I’m not sure though, it’s probably
just dirt on my glasses.
But my balance and senses might be a bit off,
or maybe the batteries are going.
See, I can’t always feel the world around me like I should.
You know, just that feeling when you’re not sure
if life is real or not or if it’s just a dream or just a strange pointless
terrible fantasy someone had one day. You know.
Whatever it is, it’s doing weird things to my head.
Like I said, it’s an actual ache on the brain
and I keep catching myself calling myself the wrong name.
It’s not too much of an issue, but it’s a little confusing sometimes.
Oh, and did I mention the compulsive daydreaming
and the slowness and apathy and recurring wish to just die?
How long has this been going on for, you ask?
Let me see, I can’t remember.
A couple of weeks! No, no. Months. I think.
Maybe years. Yes, let’s say years, but I really can’t remember.
Yes, it has got worse recently.
Why didn’t I come sooner? You know how it is.
I kept thinking it would pass and I’m busy and – well,
Doctor, whenever I thought of coming I couldn’t help but ask myself:
Am I sad enough yet?
And the answer was no and is still no.
I want to be sadder.
You think you know what I’ve got? What? No blood tests,
no ***** samples, no examination? Not even –
Oh, you’re writing out a prescription.
Thank you Doctor, but it says here:
Smile more, worry less and enjoy yourself.
The prescription says to find the person I used to be,
and to avoid stress? Doctor, I don’t mean to doubt you, but –
Oh, okay, okay, I’ll give it a try. (But…)
Ah, and Doctor? One last thing. My kidney infection is back again.
Anti-biotics? Yes, those are the ones I had last time.
I’m sure they’ll do fine.

i.

I think meetings are like satsumas;
the skin
can peel
off in
tiny pieces,
your fingers will get covered in the juice
and you can spend hours picking off the white stringy bits
and then the fruit will taste sweet and it will be all worth it.

Or it peels off in one easy motion and it’s all full of pips or it’s dry or it’s bitter and that’s like meetings.

Meetings are strange because they can go on forever or they can be over in a minute.

Some people you meet everyday.
Others you meet once and never see them again.
My parents had the second type of meeting.
They met at a bus stop and my mother complained about the weather and my father agreed it was too hot and then he gave her his number and then she called him.
He became her window cleaner.
He moved in.
They lived in the same house.
They never saw each other.

Everything was terrible.
They never met again.
They drew up different lists:
Frankie, Rae, Teagan.
Genevieve, Emily, Jessica.
Somehow it became something else that neither particularly liked and the outside world didn’t much like it either. They locked the doors and I watched from the window.

Why don’t you go out? Don’t go out.

Everything was terrible.
Mother saw it on the TV.
Father saw it through other people’s windows.
But I can seem never break the peel.
It doesn’t come off in one easy motion
and it doesn’t come off in pieces.
It doesn’t come off at all.

But I am the girl from the cobweb;
I am the spider who stopped catching flies.
From the smell of gravy and soapy water to the kebabs and urban fox.

Meetings. Where do I begin?

ii.

Adrian Wren was wondering how many leg bones
it would take to build a wall around his house,
or rather round his old house.
The bones would have to go around the neighbour’s houses too
so he supposed it would take quite a lot of bones to go round all the houses.

He was writing an article about a murderer who kept the leg bones of his victims.
This was not a crucial element.
It was supposed to be about the murderer’s childhood,
in which the murderer was the victim.
The childhood did not answer the question: why leg bones of the victims?
The bones were building up in his head.
How would you glue bones together?
Adrian began typing;
the isolation and loneliness of being a middle child, the least favourite son.
The problem with being the victim.

It was actually kind of funny, when he thought about it.
Why a leg bone? Why not something smaller, that could be hidden?

Adrian wondered if the girl in the red boots thought about things like that. The girl who had knocked on the door of the too small flat to use his shower and borrow a cup.

Her shower,
she said,
kind
        of
            just
                   dripped.

iii.

Sometimes, I tell lies. Or not quite lies. Half truths. For example:
• These shoes belonged to a dead woman.
• Sea cucumbers can use their internal organs as a defence  mechanism.
• My cousin nearly died whilst attempting to eat a match.

I just want to tell something to someone but I don’t always have the real story, so I tell a not quite story. Or ask a not quite question. For example:
• What would life be like if humans had shells?
• Do we have shells?
• What do people living on mountains do with their faeces?

Right now, I’m looking at the flecks on the carpet, trying to find faces. Once, there was a house built above a graveyard and faces appeared on the floor. I wish there were faces on this floor. I wish I lived above a graveyard.

I live on the ground floor, above the bins. It’s interesting to watch what people have to put in the bins.

If only you’d concentrate on something important as much as you concentrate on that window.

But here’s the man from four floors away, putting his ******* in the bin. His clothes frown, his hair frowns, his whole being frowns. Frowns are like creases ironed into clothes, but who is the iron, what are the clothes?


*iv.

Adrian Wren was still trying to solve the riddle.
Most people thought they gave cryptic clues
about themselves but they were actually
just the conventional ones reworded.
This was a real riddle.
It was about her and it wasn’t about her.
It began with a J and ended with an I.
Anything could fit in between.

Jaci? Jessi?

She had a habit of appearing,
maybe at the bottom of the stairs.
Adrian was somehow angry at her,
just for being there,
sitting on the stairs,
picking a spider out of her hair,
walking out then coming back in as
if to test she really knew the code.
He was trying to write up an argument about people
on benefits but the space bar
keptgettingstuckandthewordsgotclumpedtogetherintonewwordsthat­noonehadanysuggestionsfor.

Jenni? Jodi? Juli?

Sometimes, he was certain she was trying to steal something.
Other times, she was one of those strange specimens
who attached themselves to another, because of an accidental look.
Mostly, she was just the girl in the boots without a name.

Jerri? Josi? Jani?*

Adrian found that the riddle hung
                                                             on
                                                             the edge
                                                              of­ the mind,
an itch which wasn’t really too itchy.

There were other things to worry about:
• Work
• Old things reopening
• Work
• Ignoring the phone
• Work
• A knocking at the door.
• Do you mind, if I come in – it’s just there’s this programme on telly and-

v.

Just tell me your name. He didn’t want to play this game.
Only, it was addictive, now he’d got started.
Now, it was a matter of having to know.
I gave you all the clues I’m giving, she grinned.


Joni,
Adrian said finally,
looking back at the screen
of his laptop.

vi.

Joni-Rae.
It was hyphenated because they couldn’t decide,
because they never really met.

Sometimes, people will call me Joan if they hate nicknames and Johnny if they can’t pronounce it.

Joni-Rae, but actually only ever Joni.
Begins with a J and ends in an I.
Does that still count, if I amputated part of it?
His middle name was nearly Ray too.
Adrian Ray Wren. Too many Rs.

I’m still looking for my middle name though. Does it mean I’m missing a bit of my meaning? Is there a bit of me I haven’t met just yet? Can we meet ourselves or only other people?

In the fairy tale, Aimee was bad at heart,
a pretty shell that promised a pearl and
when cracked open, gave grains of sand
instead. It scratched the surface of the eyes
and misled; Aimee was just one of those pretty
Jezebels, cruel within, decorated without.
Her sister Aurore was the heroine,
a fatalist, who sighed her philosophy:
'What will be will be' and her patience and
good heart tugged her towards the coincidences
that always favour the light.
But Aimee was driven away by her own wickedness,
and had not the luck of the good.
All Aimee had was the face.

These are the kind of stories I am tired of because
I want to tell you that when Aimee was just a
small girl, she sat and watched her mother scrutinise
her appearance in the mirror. She watched as she
painted her face and knew then that she was just a painted
beauty, a kind that easily peels off. How little it
mattered though, as her mother smiled at her jewels.
Painted or true, her mother had succeeded through
beauty. So Aimee saw no good in the kind and the patient,
who suffered and accepted their suffering. She chose an
ambition called wickedness and she wore it like a petticoat
beneath the blue ballgown. Aimee was the kind of girl
to get what she wanted. Her mother had taught her
that her face was the only kind of fatalism she could follow.

I am tired of these fairy tales that give undefined shapes.
I'm tired of the dichotomy between the good and the bad.
I'm bored of the light always finding their happily ever after.
Just tell me the story of the dark and tell it properly.