Double Helix

All I ever wanted was to be simple - right like a well-done sum and broken down to a number in the singular; the answer to end all answers. But then someone left the phone off the hook, cut the [dis]connection and I was left stumbling over silences. To survive, I became a shell for words; a cup for floods – a receiver for all unspoken correspondence.
That was when all I ever wanted turned to downpours, and I lost myself in the rain.

Now, I am
a tangle of wires and loose connections; swallow-strung lines and faulty safety switches. I am the love of liars for words with the lick of life that give false impressions a heartbeat and hands to grip a jealous chest.
I am knees that knock on hardwood floors, bitten lips and fingers that knot themselves over and over, until they are stitched tight and I am undone. I am the trees growing on the underground and the birds humming between the lines, scratching track marks into skin.
I am the water locked in neptune skies, where hoverflies are caught in submarine eyes just before the rain starts to fall. Then, in watercolour landscapes, I am fixed-fluvial - thought interrupting thought interrupting thought interrupting the soundspaces of ceiling-scapes; tongue-tied shoelaces and spatial oddities. I am the daughters rocked shut in the crux of a double helix.

I am dyscrasia, slipping between the steps, the cracks in the pavement. A temporal disconnection: a formula without a face. I am a television between channels, waiting for the storm to pass so service can continue. I am insomnia with eyes the size of moons, pitted against the black of planets and the back of the sun, spinning reflections out of glass.
I am a means to an end. I make a fine fit for outstretched hands; a mouthful of split ends, spitting oceans that are deep and dark as lies; as cavernous as the pits of stones. I am the aching seams of dreams, splitting, splitting -

I am a placebo spaced between teeth, the god tablet, opening and closing on one-one-one- moment spent moving in fast-forward-motion just to look like I had a purpose, a meaning, a definition.
I am as tall as my shadow, tall as stories.

I am king of the silver skulled muses, and I am choking. I’m choking. I’m ch-

* * *

Forgive me, revision sends me crazy (or crazier, as the case may be)...

Yet more attempts at self-definition. But I still think this song does it better than I ever could.

(No, it doesn't make any sense either).

On the plus-side: prose-poem! Yay! Haven't written one of these in ages!

Blue and White - Istigkeit

Here I am now, submerged in blue: a wall of colour and nothing else. Here, time is defunct, because now and here is nowhere, and I am little more than abstract thoughts. There’s a kind of purity about it, a wholeness; smooth white peace like a softmint, with the sting in the mouth too. There’s a sound like the hush of clouds seething between the bones and a floating sensation, like falling asleep underwater.
Beneath the heavens, where opaline skies bite down on treetops, I lie open. I am free. Out of the veil of myopia everything seems crystalline and bright; pure as tears.
I have come here to empty myself; to erase emotion and relieve the weight of exhaustion from my limbs. The endless expanse of blue drains me, washes over my eyelids, and I am infinitely small yet part of everything, and full of so many fractured voices and half-formed words, I find it hard to breathe.
I am learning peace. Locked in my own pearl carapace, I sleep, dreaming achromatic dreams of bird cages, piano keys and sulphuric clouds dragging the lake. And I am rolled flat beneath the waves; a cut-paper ghost, the mouth shutting on nothing over and over. Ice laces the knots of my spine, and I can feel my lungs flooding with silence.
And this is what it is to be whole. Istigkeit: the essence of life, pressed like a flower.
I am beneath it all, beyond it all, as I lie still; watching the clouds passing, passing, over my head.

* * *

Just something short a wrote in creative writing club recently. The theme was colours, so I, naturally, chose blue and white.
Although it wasn't originally inspired by the song, I felt that it fit - and, as I love Babes in Toyland and this is an amazing song, I thought I ought to share it. Even though that meant spending an evening making a video as there wasn't one on the internet (shameful!)...
Enjoy!

The Ghost Factory

i.
Sunrise, and I’m watching Time falling past my window like morning rain. Past my memory, past my outstretched fingers, past the anatomies of stars laced across the window pane is a street, deserted. The scene is grey and flickering, grained like an old movie, and there’s a silence spread thick, coated on the roof of my mouth like peanut butter. I’m waiting, and the world holds its breath.

Gradually, the colour begins to drain away, and the sky washes to violet, sepia, ash; crinkled like elephant skin. Around me the silence starts to hum and blur, like a television, disconnected. I am a jumble of abstract words. I am oscillating, iridescent, a daguerreotype of imperfections ever shifting in the light. I am losing touch.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I am falling. Everything fades, and I feel myself slip under
.........................................................................................................into the dawn.

ii.
It’s dark, and I’m hiding between preternatural boundaries, fragmented in prison-bar existence. Silver penumbras dance at the edges of the pale light refracted off the glass that lines the walls. I graft a film of skin across the windowframe to shut out the sun, and watch the shadows seep across the floor.

Here, I am constant, locked tight in my own bone-white carapace. Cinereal, I hover, trailing fingertip tracks across the glass – old jam jars, milk bottles, miniature medicine vials – and marvel at the grime that has accumulated. Dust particles float through the air like tiny fairies, twinkling like ash. I hold my breath and stand back to admire the ghost factory, glinting ominously in the gloom.

This is the sanctuary of my intravenous demons; my litter of moons - for sheltered in the shadows of this filmic labyrinthine mind, I am growing ghosts in glass jars. Spectral faces fog the crystal walls of their containers like the glitter sores left by breath in cold weather. Each wraith is small and malformed-ugly like an imp (as if something of their faces had been lost in translation), with delicate ivory skulls like egg shells. Tiny limbs float free in dislocated fluidity, and skewed mouths gape a jarring language of pith and amnesiac dreams.

I come to the end of the line where the most recent addition to my factory shivers and tremors inside its tiny glass prison. It’s fresh enough to be more viscous than the cloud-like forms of its counterparts, being still bedaubed in a thick, deep red, but the contorted expression of anguish is distinct. I tap the glass, intrigued. The ghost clatters and chokes guttural, embryonic words, whilst its red skirts swish and swirl around its miniature form. It’s almost pitiful.

One day, my ghosts will learn that here they are safe, as if in utero, and will be able to sleep, curled-up, foetus-like. Then, maybe, I will get some peace.

But now the little ghost’s affliction is painfully wretched. It’s distressing its siblings, too. I can’t bear it much longer. Its screech is a child’s, pathetic and pure. Panicking, I grasp the jar, and hold it to my chest.

I scream.

There’s a sharp pain in my abdomen, acute and knife-edged, as if my gut has been ripped open. I double over, back arched – the glass falls to the floor, shatters. The room begins to shake – I’m convulsing, reeling – the glass clatters like teeth, as one-by-one my ghosts smash to the floor. The noise hits me like a wave; a choking primal screech of asphyxiation as the factory is obliterated. Smoke-forms unfurl and swarm around me, a multitude of aborted faces and burgeoning screams. I’m drowning; being swept beneath the waves and feeling air and colour and time rush past me as I am dragged down, down. I’m heavy, full of so much sound, so many ghosts, and so much water in my lungs I could burst, and the light’s fading, the sky’s caving in and I’m so, so tired...

I lie on the floor; empty, holding my waist and trembling. Staring in the face of oblivion.


iii.
I am back in my room again, now flooded with the light of the pale winter sun, which has risen high, smooth and white like an egg. There are stains on the sheets; mottled crimson, maudlin.

And outside, it’s raining.

* * *

Why do these things never turn out quite how I want them to?

This took way longer than it should have done to write, and it still infuriates me. I think my brain may have short circuited.

Spun

i.
Living is nice when you’re spun like a kite…

Somewhere beyond the dawn, where opaline skies bite down on the tops of autumn forests, we are flying. Strapped to diamond wings, we spiral round and around, cutting our twin silhouettes into the blue. Down below, amidst the kaleidoscope of burning branches, someone must be pulling the strings, but this does not concern us. Up here, temporarily, the air gushing into our lungs and hitting the base of our spines tastes of freedom. Arms outstretched, eyes wide, our bone crosses kiss the clouds.

Holding hands, our smiles are seamless: we are locked in harmony. Up here, for once, tears are meaningless, and we can bear to look down at our distant world unveiled; ablaze: blurred and flushed by our bleary-eyed minds borne from mornings spent sleeping in and praying for release. The colours are swimming together and nothing makes sense, but we know this and somehow this makes everything alright. The breeze rippling our cut-paper wings and tickling our skin seeps through our pores and steals into our blood like a narcotic.

Carefree, lightheaded, we fly free ~
~ And I melt into you.

ii.
Life is real when you’re dreaming…

Hello, sister. I know you’ve been waiting for this, a vis-à-vis that seems as if it’s fallen out of a dream sequence, so I’ll waste no time on introductions. I think we both know who I am.

I live inside. Sometimes you can feel me stirring, lodged between your birdcage ribs and your knotted spine; a murmur on your heart. I’m the creature within that you sometimes sense waking, stretching out, breathing-in your blood. That’s when I’m not up here, of course; airborne. I’m like a ghost, you see; a lucid poltergeist in the form of a child. This whole skin and bone thing - my hand in yours - it’s just a trick of the mind.

Magic? Don’t be silly, such things don’t exist. Bringing you up here was hardly difficult, especially after you came so close to cutting yourself lose. After all, broken dolls float to the top of the bowl, and learning to fly is easy when you’re used to drowning. You weren’t putting up much of a fight – what with your turgid nightmares and your tepid screams, I almost felt sorry for you.

Believe me, I want to help you. And as I am she and you are me, helping myself means I’m helping you, right? I’m your sweet avenger, righting your wrongs by helping myself to the pieces of you that fell out of place long ago.

Sister, I strung you up to save you.

It’s not my fault that the strings are starting to fray.

iii.
Life’s a dream when you’re reeling…

And now I see you for what you really are: rapscallion smile sewn jagged across my likeness, coalstone eyes sunk into the shell of my soul. Your masquerade is obscene and you know it: built up out of all those broken pieces of me, no wonder you’re rotten to the core. I was never able to escape my shadow, and now I know why. You were clinging on, tooth and nail, the whole time.

Oh sister, my hollow-hearted double, you never taught me to fly - only to hang, limp, like a marionette with tangled strings. Sister, you helped me thread my own noose, and built me my own cross to bear. But sister (nails digging in tight, drawing blood), you’re forgetting that if I am you and you are me, then we are one together. We’re spun, spit sisters interlaced by mutual blood and memories. And some webs are stronger than string.

- With a snap we fall into the sunset
still spinning…

* * *

Another prose-poem, this time inspired by (and containing lyrics from) the song 'Spun' by Babes in Toyland. I'm not too thrilled with how this turned out (especially part iii), so this may undergo further editing post-upload. And of course, any suggestions/constructive-criticisms are more than welcome!

Tulips

i.
The day after death, the flowers appeared.
A line of them; three crimson tulips standing proud and serene in the corner of my room, each surrounded by a little frayed halo of darkness where the carpet had been split. Fragile sapling tongues bejewelled with crowns dipped in blood.
Nobody watched me before: now I am watched. There is something conspiratorial about their existence, as if they have been sent to observe me, and whisper secrets behind my back. They stare like the blank eyed statues of angels you find in graveyards; immutable, wholly absorbed in their vigil. I don’t like to take my eyes off them for long in case they move.
The nurses don’t seem to notice my visitors: they bustle in, take my temperature, check my pulse, feel my forehead. To them I am a procedure, one of many that must be completed over the course of the day. No point in asking questions, prompting friendship – they know I woke up mute, and that my voice is just one of my missing parts. When the ritual is completed, they leave without so much as a glance at the tulips, their skirts rustling like autumn leaves.
The tulips are too much, their colour too sudden – they hurt my eyes. Against the white hospital walls they’re like blood drops on snow – sacrilege. I tried to hide, shoved my head beneath the sheets and pressed myself flat against the mattress, but it just reminded me how deflated I now was; how empty. Like a cut-paper doll, ridiculous, pressed between the eyes of the tulips and the eyes of the nurses.

And I have no face – I have wanted to efface myself.
But it is frightening, living as a shadow.


ii.
At night, they scream.
Every night they seal themselves, close up their buds, and wail wordlessly into the darkness. It frightens me, this inner crying. It’s as if the voices aren’t theirs but are coming from within, inside the petals, closed like fists.
Mother once told me that flowers are the reproductive organs of plants.

Oh God, what have I done?
I bury my head beneath the pillow, try to block my ears, but it’s no use. I’m screaming inside too.


iii.
Before they came, the air was calm. Breathing was a rhythm, in out, in-out, inout like the clockwork mechanics of a machine. No sentiment; no fuss. But the tulips filled it up with noise. Now my breath snags and catches in my throat, my tongue feels dry and swollen. I’m breaking down, I know it.
I stretch out, supine, on the bed, feeling my bones sink down into the mattress like roots into earth. I would like to stay here forever, a permanent part of the furniture, immovable and silent. I could haunt the ward; wrap myself in white sheets like a corpse. Scare the doctors to death. Here they’re so used to doling it out, like medicine; it would be nice to turn the tables for once.
Or I could just lie – lay, passive tense now, remember, now it’s all out of my hands - here and melt into the sheets. Let my blood seep into the floorboards.
Perhaps that’s why the tulips glint like rubies.


iv.
I keep my eyes fixed on them. I know they’re up to something; playing some game with my mind, working their twisted magic on me. Their whisperings have turned into sinister spells, a chanting that undulates like the beat of my heart. My second pulse – two again, I should be happy – but choking; my throat’s constricted and I’m retching, retching. Retching air because I’m already empty, oh God, so empty, nothing else left. From fruitful to barren. The blossoms died and withered inside me, and now they’re sprouting out my throat: I’m screaming flowers – crimson like blood.
I saw red, couldn’t take it any longer. Leapt out of bed and pitched a jug of water over their heads, watched it seep into the carpet, turning it black. I thought it would drown out their awful voices, strangle my awful new tongue.
Murder, cold and blue.
Like you, baby.
My baby.

The tulips rotted, shrivelled, their petal heads collapsing in on themselves, their screams caving in. I fell to the floor, pushed my knees to my forehead, clutching my sides, crying hollow words. Shrivelling too.

* * *

A short fiction prose-poem inspired by the poem of the same name by Sylvia Plath and Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' - both texts I'll be studying next year.

Go Away

I thought it was about time I posted some fictional stuff – because I am primarily a fiction writer (I say ‘fiction’, though it sounds really pretentious, because I’m still in the phase of trying out lots of different styles for size to see what fits best). Although, to be honest, I haven’t written anything in absolutely ages… So this, though it’s the most recent, is about a month old – and a revision of an older piece at that. I need to force myself back into the routine of creativity again (if such a thing exists)!

* * *

Another day breaks and we are alone again.

Sidestepping abhorrence, I avoid your unfaltering gaze as you concentrate on burning holes through my thoughts. I am too afraid to warrant your dismissal, yet I cannot bear to let you stay.

You hold me up to the light to see right through the threads of my existence; fluvial seams of nothingness all linking up to-

To where? Another thing I shall never know. I am not a circle, but we are together, and how romantic that may seem when buried beneath cold sarcasm. Out of the corner of my eyes I see your lips curl cruel as you picture my demise; a slow crumbling through your fingertips. I may be cannibal sweet but I can act tongue-in-cheek sour, blowing raspberries at you between two fingers and hiding behind yet another face.

We are immutable, unchanging, stuck on this playground roundabout watching the world whirl past while only you and I remain uncomfortably in focus: a pattern stamped onto the skyline that remains even when I close my eyes. Together we weave histories and trail sepia memories through the clouds leaving fading tracks across the sky. Like footprints in the snow.

One day I’ll watch you hang like the ghosts of all those people I’ve been, all those outfits I’ve tried on, but perhaps only in suspense-waiting for me to decide just who I am and what this all means; too many words for one being, one concept s p l i t. Just glass between us but it’s one step too far.

And you’ll have to wait, suspended there forever like a hangman puzzle never solved; the words ‘go away’ only half formed on my lips. You are my completion: you stop me from being whole.

Heels clicking, you’ll claw at the rope around your throat. Still trying to speak.