Twenty-Past Three (2 page)

In thinking of You

As a genius liar

As an accomplished cook

As a violent thunderbolt

As a cold murderer

As a compulsive spender

As a part-time gardener

As an unmitigated pessimist

As a xenophobe

As a colourful dresser

As a schemer

Alone

My garden likens your garden.

Why does my garden liken your garden?

And my face is the same as your face,

but this is my space and in this place

I choose my life, terminate all strife

And mow the lawn.

A store cupboard memory

You towering above me,

mouth twisted, carrying the

rictus of power and hatred.

At five years old my only foibles

were an inquisitive mind and the

ungainly knack of catching you

in your moments of ramifying callousness.

I questioned as my head was repeatedly

thrusted below the level of the bathwater,

the air filched from my lungs,

that this unlikely prenicious act

may secure my release from your daily torment,

my heart racing, both cheering frenetically

at this possible departure and announcing,

my remarkable supplication to live.

Your incredible desire to expunge me

from this physical existence did not

render this tiny body impotent

but raised this amphibious vessel

to the acme of enigmatic impregnability.

And when a maker’s rage

deigned to this child’s

impalpable omnipotence,

a nebulous haze descended

on a mission renounced.

Know that………….

I want you to choke

on the utterance of my name,

I want your heart to atrophy

and decay at the memory of me,

I want you to acknowledge your

preponderance of indelible acts

of inhumanity towards me.

I want you to plead for forgiveness

I want you to crave forgiveness………….

I want you to set your soul free.

Loss has made me…..

bitter

ANGRY

CONSUMED

distrustful

spectacularly lonely

prey

that loss could make me

original

F R E E

RECAST

A room with a bed

Parent trap exuding

sweat and shame.

Childhood refuge

and innocent betrayal.

A single mosaic

masterminded in effortless joy,

an articulate bandage

on this seeping wound.

The door,

a flimsy metaphor

of apparent safety,

between childlike freedom

and adult voyerism

now deliberately removed.

Yet still the heavy presence

of the scent of danger chokes.

A new face to an old enemy

proves too difficult to exercise

open door notwithstanding.

A silent pause,

and the disapproval

was axiomatic.

Provenance of an insatiable desire

to shamelessly measure oneself

as a series of failures.

Fulsome directional criticism

arises out of a demanding inner

longing for unapologetic acceptance

that of oneself by oneself,

and oneself by another.

Rejection is the simoon that

swiftly purloins the seedling

of root and perch.

There exists no decorous substitute

for the self.

Somatic death of the soul

at the feet of temerarious remarks

Vamoose!

Arise as both fellow and variant

Even if affection is suspended.

Arguably self-approval is imperative

Save rarefied.

I remember you.

I remember the powerful

feeling of togetherness we

experienced.

I remember your wide smile,

I remember your tender hands,

I remember your deep gaze

that ignited a turbulence within me.

I remember our dramatic parting.

I remember the rite of passage of

our inborn, a dual recondite loss that

saturated my heart in darkness.

I remember our heavenly entente.

I remember in perpetuity.

I remember to remember.

I remember to unhand.

Who am I?

I give in

Don’t fit in

Maybe step my way…

It’s lonely.

Gestures,

Can’t say I love you

Can say I see you

Can’t say I need you

Can say I acknowledge you

Can’t say I like you

Can say I stand aside

Can’t say I trust you

Can say I will engage

………………………………………..in time