Ocean 2009.

Like wandering the streets at 7pm,
Looking for breakfast in this bustled city.
People in business suits walking along side folk with their heads shaved on bikes.
Who else could create such thoughts within me?
Sitting beside it, or glancing over steep walls into the water.
Records you can see through the lake and streams of grass for us to lie,
Summer wasps in the air,
And lack of obligation for our adolescent stares.
Slowly giving ourselves the summer out,
And slowly we begin to show ourselves the lives we want.
Somehow tearing us apart at our joined hands like pulling paper from its rings.
The letters I wrote you and your right hand in mine.
I see your careless mouth but your thoughtful eyes turn over the scenery,
Just as though you never did see it.
Within your head you think you'd spend day after day with me,
But within the miles between us we could spend a dozen other lives.
And don't you fear missing that?
Cold to think I may leave you, yet missing,
and miss,
Are two very different words.
Explanations you just didn't want to hear over a cup of coffee in the cafe on a rainy autumn afternoon.
Trains that don't take me all the way to where you live,
And buses that run me off the beach sides.
Standing on the pebbles, undetectable in the darkness of the summer night,
Each one as damp as the ocean that threw itself upon them.
And my shoes wearing thin and through them, bare legs and a horror dress,
And my darling in his suit.
Watching what he can see of me darting about the ocean side, down by the burnt out pier.
Safe in the knowledge my feet are still on the ground as the pebbles are forced into one another.

Oh of all the other lives we could be leading,
The different clothes we could be wearing and the people we might know,
The jobs we may slave at and the social we may partake;
But tonight, that night, in the past we, you and I, stood together on a breezy well-known beach.
And we knelt in the stones,
Each of those a part of the mountain that held us up.
And the ocean collapsing black upon itself, the stars overtaken by floating fires.
Shadowed faces almost as haunting as the skeleton that emerged from the sea.
No horizon or cut in our skyline,
Just constant darkness at our feet.
The black that continued rolling threateningly toward us, then pulling out softly as if a tease eternal.

Perhaps sleep should come? I wondered almost as much as Trevor's wife did the keys.
Rolling images and music that no longer is made nor sold.
Footsteps between us on the pathways of a seaside town,
And our bodies beside walls of religious B&Bs.
Not wanting to part the us that was between every one else.

Tonight I see summer breezes I once detested that remind me of moments I once missed.
Meaningless teenage romances and conspiracies,
And faces I no longer care to see nor fears I no longer emulate so powerfully.
You came into a life that messed itself up and attempted straightening out a few kinks,
Before falling for them.

I came across this piece dated 11th August 2009. It is not a love story.

Hole.

Depths, oh how it is found and discovered!
Stumbled upon, oh trod around.
Since I read words so similar has it been reoccuring in the sweeter parts of my life.
A hole.
Just, and as is. A tunnel into the ground, or a depthless pit.
Always out and in the unihabitable,
Occasionally larger than any building,
Often thin only enough for one regular sized human being to slip into.
And then send in the ferrets!

Just as there always seems to be fire in my sky,
So does there seem to be,
the holes in my earth!
Just two years! Just two! And down by the sea the illuminated balls flew into black sky!
Just two, since Murakami warned of a hole never seen, a well to be lost down.
Oh imagine if you didn't die when you hit the bottom, she had warned.
Undiscovered you lie, in pain, amongst the bone you sit!
When did dark depths suddenly edge to magical,
Oh when was it that a rabbit tapped at his pocket, the slight of the clicking?

When, oh when did I fall?
It would appear I have always been here,
In a hole by the sea.

In the time I knew you, I hadn't a home,
We'd send two letters at a time,
The night's sweet creatures, just sweet,
You and I only just finding 'our' feet.
I remember one of the first places you took me,
Rum served by Jerry,
A piano keyed by a man in smart dress and a topped' hat,
Low hanging, off lilac net curtains,
And ornate, slim, gold and floral seating.
A beaten leather suitcase subdued in a corner.

Not a single lamp matched,
And a river ran nearby,
Small silver bats flitting off it's surface,
Back into nothing, I'd sigh.

Since you, I have forgotten story telling,
And my words linger in my throat,
Until the moment has passed.
Bitter, unfelt and sunken, they slip back down,
He never wanted my stories,
How freely I can speak by the sea.
We never went there, he and I.
He wouldn't.

Do you remember meeting?
A lugged suitcase, your cobbles,
A bar that we seeped to the end of,
And yet found another door to outside?
Im sure I drank Rum again, and off you toodled for a cigarette,
But I heard a crack in the sky,
The heavens opening with a sudden lash,
An indescribeable amount of water, as if saved,
cascading over an old tiled roof, each cobble gleaming in protest,
And another crick in the sky.

Our, Us, it went a little like a storm,
The rest of the way.
It travelled just the same, patched up just the same,
It even came the same.


Suddenly, I slowly feel myself again.
Remember, I used to describe things?
And I haven't read a book in two weeks,
That is where the space is. And why I feel so alone.

My beach hums distantly, as you used to, some where far from here.
And I hear our old conversations running dry,
And laugh at my own leaving your letters at my other home.
I cannot leaf, and so i sigh in photographs pinned to my door.
The winter's evening sun sinks into my bedroom,
And lightens the detail on a memory captured.
I'm sure I'll find you behind the pier,
The wreck and the carousel.
Do you remember how we used to be?
I am, for now, sorry I was not ready for you.
I'd adore a cafe in the south, you and I, a book or three between us.
Conversation through eyes, a thin trail of your cigarette smoke,
A linger of gin and the way a kitchen smells when a cat eats there.

I buried it in the sand. (Revisited)

"My my, such whispers, such night...."
A little echo amongst the brambles and spikes of graveyard hedges. His head turned as quickly as his sensitive hearing picked up upon it. Not a movement, and silence regained, as if the voice from his very throat had moved the air around him.

Such necesseties were pondered,
through like-minded fools of age.
Five hundred, moving on six and still they little but grew,
I made such an effort, were such thoughts a daily delay;
To withdraw my feeling from each subtle feeding and take upon madness, a stride.

I gazed into eyes that had long since sunk back,
and I cupped hands around heads of the new borns.
I could see life in each, and the tide did receed on the beach i had only now begun to call home.
There were footsteps on the beach, some were a thousand years old,
I could see them engraved in the gristled sands,
Some more aparent than most.
I realised now, such soles of feet were ones i had become aware,
past lives that I'd known, past spirits imprinted upon my stone,
A whisper in midnight's light's breeze.

I heard his laugh,
And i saw another's eyes.
I touched familiar skin and I winced at usual words.
Regretted a person i was, appreciated change in my ways.
"Look, there it goes" came a strong whisper unseen. "Our lives right ahead of us, i can see it now;
One of us alone on this beach".

I buried it in the sand.

"My my, such whispers, such night...."
A little echo amongst the brambles and spikes of graveyard hedges. His head turned as quickly as his sensitive hearing picked up upon it. Not a movement, and silence regained, as if the voice from his very throat had moved the air around him.

Such necesseties were pondered,
through like-minded fools of age.
Five hundred, moving on six and still they little but grew,
I made such an effort, were such thoughts a daily delay;
To withdraw my feeling from each subtle feeding and take upon madness, a stride.

I gazed into eyes that had long since sunk back,
and I cupped hands around heads of the new borns.
I could see life in each, and the tide did receed on the beach i had only now begun to call home.
There were footsteps on the beach, some were a thousand years old,
I could see them engraved in the gristled sands,
Some more aparent than most.
I realised now, such soles of feet were ones i had become aware,
past lives that I'd known, past spirits imprinted upon my stone,
A whisper in midnight's light's breeze.

I heard his laugh,
And i saw another's eyes.
I touched familiar skin and I winced at usual words.
Regretted a person i was, appreciated change in my ways.
"Look, there it goes" came a strong whisper unseen. "Our lives right ahead of us, i can see it now;
One of us alone on this beach".

How it happened.

So when you kiss me, make it so that it hurts.
I cannot understand, take nothing but that of which was given to you.
She stared outwardly, a steel wall behind her eyes.
So he turned on the bar and questioned turntables and fables.
Smiling, she nodded. Her eyes shielding a glaze.
He imagined her burrowing, into his shoulder
A shield to the world beneath velvet and tassle.
Bedside lamp even cutting out direct light.
There was a fireplace in the room below, though all that was left of it,
behind it's wall,
Were embers still flickering, eyes watching warily.
London streets holding onto their lamp posts,
Each a candle waiting to be distinguished.
Highlighting each damp cobble beyond her gaze inward.
When the jungles of the world and the depths of the oceans were known only by the ones who died seeing them.

But there were dragons and witches, just waiting to be written of.
My own eyes seeking backward pasts
And leering in all the darkest crevices of the city.
I waited in doorways and watched the regulars pass
Til morning arrived and the sunlight attempt to bleach my retina.
It won't last forever,
but it shall only evolve.
Toasted to long marble tables, adorned in gold tupper
And tassles, like the ones of the bed you hid me in.

I think i realised, a-top the palm tree.
That gripping would only ever result in sliding.
Sweat, tire and tears of desperation.
So i mightn't see the sea for the endless length that it is,
However, to fall, only ever, will take me right into what i glance.
A salt wave may push over my eyes,
remove the glaze harshly.
I saw green waves rumbling, and the world. The sky branching endlessly as ever.
But when submerged.
A world below, that even though i saw the sand lying unevenly,
carried on beneath just as did the sky.
My body, like an arrow, cut through the ocean, the granules growing closer,
Until they filled my eyes, until they clogged up my nostrils,
Until my own shoulders would no longer move
As the essence i once used, to make the castles for the dragons i'd dreamt of as a child
Devoured me and took me in as i had wished,
At one point i think i may have stopped.
But the fresh feel of my toes beneath now, wriggling and scathing,
A worm through mud, i knew i would find an ant's nest,
I must keep going.
No longer could i see, with eyes still open, the night time air was probably easier, two layers above
But a treasure chest, I'm sure, led some where below.


I died that night.

Brainstorm

I watched my wrists today,
though i saw nothing 'pulsate' per say,
i traced the purple lines tinged red.
I wondered if they'd shy deeper beneath my skin if I touched them.
I gazed over each break into another series.
They looked and look like two trees, standing quietly still in the dusk.
My skin acting as an olive coloured sky, near a field or small wood.
I almost saw the old fence running along side them.

But could, and only for today, my skin be the ocean.
Such an odd coloured ocean, as my veins ride just below waters surface
Like dolphins beside the boat that is my hand.
Wondering how most references turn to the sea,
I trace as these trees trail deeper, the roots finding water.
Visible partially to the surface, my veins then delve suddenly into the depths of my body,
And i can no longer see them as they fade.
Moisturizer tainting my hands, identifying each crack and line
with harsh white contrast.
I couldn't count and my hand twitched nervously,
as i do, when i am being watched so closely.
My body is just like me.
Writing like a five year old but my body is just like me.
Reacts as i do.
Gets nervous and quivers.

I'd get on the coach tomorrow.
Had i not a day to earn the money i don't have coming along.
I didn't speak to any one other than her for around 36 hours, so come the second 1am my words withered around my lips, never falling.
Unfortunately not being so wound up in my head
Is aiding me to leave the myths behind.
I got up from the chair, and led upon the floor.
The ceiling lit from the left hand side of the pale room as usual,
seagulls circling the night outside.
One star, in a clearing. Cloudless, was the sky.
I thought i saw a dash or two. And completely forgot about the rain in the day.

Crept in through the bus window,
as if treading through cold waves.
The sun wiping over the prominent memory of the seaside,
giving it a hazed reflection in a car window.
The ocean shon grey-green,
and delved into every orifice of the lucky pebbles.



I keep thinking what might happen if I saw your face at my door,
Smiling nervously in the sunshine.
Knowing that night might only bring comfortably dark conversation,
over by the park and where the stars hid behind light pollution.


How long may i spend writing one thing to them?
Irony held out ten fold.
All the train stations were far too recogniseable,
and i believe they began to get used to my bones on the platform.

Thinking freely into music filled ears,
stepping in a rythm those around me could clearly see.
Diamond dogs and a zebra print suitcase.
Influenced beyond the seaside, down by the boats.



My life then played out like lights at night,
and each day time step was taken like one in the dark,
suggestively glancing for that tree stump in the alley,
letting you lead, of course not by choice.


I was reminded of Whitam, yet another station.

The dull silence only corrupted by the constant flicking of plastic,

of the digital clock counting seconds on the platform.

My mind ached again in irony and footsteps came to a slow halt beside me.

For once i couldn't remember where i was going, as I declined a man a lighter,

And avoided small talk.

I can't stand seeing her lie there.

I slept in my old room last night.

Easily, done just as.
Walking along side tarmac and the odd growth.
My feet ache in broken shoes and i can't seem to see an end to the ocean.
Perhaps the sun is setting a glare into my eye,
or perhaps the earth really does bend,
and beyond what i see is merely water collapsing over the edge.
There's a rythmatic collapture to it, though.
Disgustingly sweet vocals etched into a microphone.
I sat up all night wondering just how those who served me there,
would never know my name.
Outrage and catastrophic emotions were the latter today,
He kept asking if i could hear him.
Moving oceans, water folding, took about preoccupying my attention.
Though my eyes constantly altered direction.

~
Beneath such darkness, the moon acting as a sensor light within a long hall.
Much like the one in the corridors of Lauren's flat,
flickering to attention at the remotest sign of your careful tread in the dark.
Desperately trying to aid your vision, but lacking the means of motivation.

Light coming and going so, it appears you are a character in a flip book comic.
Or perhaps this was only emulated in the outside world, due to the trees i passed beneath.

Words rolled across the foam, on the edge of the waves,
I heard nothing but mumbling,
And nothing convinced me to lean closer.

Toned.

Grant me, if you will,
The ability to forget, and then to re-live.
And the possible indication of where i went wrong the first time.
Of course, i am not asking you to go back.
What a waste and regain of time that would be.
All I'm saying is, my night was sweeter knowing that the next day,
I was to visit the seaside I'd never before seen.
Now i have.

~

Sometimes passion holds me.
Occasionally gripping at my arms and cupping the flesh,
All the while maintaining it's trade.
Brushes in my hands - pens, technology and hefty plastic expenses.
-
Passion is;
My carriage now sits empty, par the man two windows thick, through,
And so my voices carries out from travelled throat,
and trails softly around the bars, eightie's designed seating and mortgage adverts.
It's barely even a whisper. And it's slightly out of tune.
But all the while this circle line train plummets deeper,
It's route set and myself stuck.
It shakes my being comfortably, uncontrollably
And I watch the curve in machinery.
It's destination set, I wait upon an exit.
But that part before doors slide,
Possibly is felt when passion drives.

Narrow, aimless, blind but sure of an arrival.




~
Daylight showed me Essex was at my feet,
My suitcase merely grumbled along behind me in an adolescent way.
The train doors scraped some sort of farewell, and in my mind only did the train whistle aprovingly as it steamed away.
For a moment my hair was permed and a netted hat sat slanted upon it.
But sepia failed to make it's appearance today,
and so a chav bustled by me hump-ily, clashing music riding within his palm.
'I'm not a fan of lazy days'
She once said.
And half an hour later boarded a train so similar.
His voice played out a blur as she sat alone on the platform.
There was no breeze disguising traffic,
But the hum sat in the air around her had his tone to it.
It wound itself into her throat,
and caused her the deepest breath she'd taken that day.

Her eyes turned inwards,
but there was no deffinate way of seeing his face.
The sun then peered out from behind the wispy clouds,
it's warmth rolled over her as did her eyes roll outward.
They ached in protest to the newly found brightness,
and squinted accordingly.
A familiar tingle hit her throat,
And the sounds of live piano muscled it's way into the back of her mind somewhere.
She enjoyed it for no longer than 30 seconds,
And then, her throat and eyes dry, she left.