Beetle in a box
Box on an island
Island in the ocean
Ocean at my core
Category Archives: identity
Time Dilation #5
I suppose it was me and the clock, me and the concerned faces, me breathing and counting and getting nowhere. I suppose I don’t like being told that I can’t do something, so I try even harder for a while. A sense that to give up would be to fail.
Now I can feel it’s me talking from exhaustion (much like this morning, in this world now.) A sense of the pressure I put on myself, but then as now, sooner or later, I gave in, gave myself up to it all.
I remember the nurse or maybe he was a consultant? (It wasn’t Johnny V, we never saw him again, with his slicked back black hair and pristine striped shirt) but someone apologised to me and my determination broke free from my eyes, rolled in spheres down my hot flushed cheeks.
I guess the rest of the evening was spent in the theatre, but no aisle seat for me that time. I was centre stage, I was the whole ensemble, I was the diva under their lights and clamps and curtains. My abdomen sang wide, glorious and while they hurried, tinkered and sewed the gash, I loved him in my bloodied arms.
Home.
Time Dilation #4
I seem stuck, a little laden down, a little numb. And while today’s radiator warms my back to the sound of clocks and snoring, my younger hands lose their grip and tea comes tumbling, scalding, soaking into their hospital robe and I crumple.
Soon, cursor flashing, clock ticking. Tomorrow, younger, stronger.
Still stuck.
Worried the words will find me in a heap on their sterile floor but I keep going, like then, like now. Keep going and I slept half on diazepam, half on exhaustion like a dribbling drunk in their faux leather chair.
With prayer around me.
Time Dilation #3
This familiarity in sitting, waiting, a sense that I can’t give up. And if it were a Saturday I’d have cried at the woman between my legs, at her optimism for the day but not later. Later, no change and I sank back into the endless bed. Her trundled trolley of glinting things tidied away hope and wheeled it out the door.
Only the armchair held me, knew me, when I called out for help. I do wonder how her life worked out, the woman with the strange name who took my weight over the toilet. I still think about her, even now and the meds they locked away from me till morning.
Time Dilation #2
Wait for it to focus, wait and then there she is, the woman between my legs. I see her face, her reassuring smile.
My voice fractures into a thousand shards, little spinning me, little jagged me. Here a glimpse, there a glimpse, fingers inching closer.
I keep an eye on the table to the right, watch the line where the wall meets the ceiling. I don’t trust them, don’t trust lines but then again, I don’t care. Not now.
My laughter shatters the room. I trust her.
I fade in and out.
Time Dilation #1
Morning started in the thin pink ethnic t-shirt that took me under the tree I’ll pass by later. I’m sure the bole of it remembers me, it showed me how to bend into the nature. I said I’d do whatever it takes and I did.
Now I come to think of it, it was the pale green embroidered t-shirt, did I change in the morning, now I’m not sure? Either way trees came and went. They wheeled me inside.
Later. Round about now a new ceiling watched me sleep despite the spasms.
Pillows subsumed me.
For Now (Underland #6)
At the moment all she could think of was how much she’d laughed. Laughed, in a way she’d forgotten, startled by it, like she never realised her body could feel that way.
And for now, that’s all she could bring to this place.
For now.
It’s crowded in here, so many women and girls, kaleidoscopic iterations of herself. She could barely move for their jostling. But wasn’t that the point.
Back then at least, she could barely move.
She sat quiet amongst the women. It was a familiar way to be.
True North
If I could say anything to her, I’d tell her to still wear the Mary-Jane’s, they suited her. Their implied sweetness that belied her strength. In any case she’d never believe the steps she’d take beyond the pub in Wooten Wawen even if I told her.
And yes, the bells jingled on her skirt, noting how their sound hangs in the air, looping around, even now and what is it about the black and white Indian cotton that always comes to mind? Is it the waft against her legs, is it the foreshadowing of the woman in the making? Yes probably.
And if I could take her hand and tell her to choose a different skirt, one with less sense of contrast, would she? I doubt it. Did she buy that skirt and wear it because she had to, because she would think about it now, now when the black and white contrasts had become her life?
She would always choose that skirt and in an August car park it would billow out in the scented summer night. Billow out, like the curve of a balloon in a hot Summer sky. But then, you knew that didn’t you?
If I could say anything to her, I’d say don’t worry. Just wear the shoes, you’ll be alright. Believe me. And she does.
Buffers
It’s something about the sight of her son running down the hallway in their new home while his t-shirt, bright white, reflects the young curves of his face. And all the train tracks he will lay are taking shape in his mind, in all the spaces where he’ll grow and play as though the brightness of his t-shirt, of the day itself, will never fade and even if it did, they would survive.
It’s something about the possibilities of the layouts that he’ll make, finding links as he crawls around. And she’ll do the voices as she sits with him, as he scuffs his knees and laughs at the trains.
And outside now it’s something about the relentless sunlight on the spears of bamboo that need chopping down, the places where time wouldn’t stop. And every leaf waves at her like the rippled pages of a memory book, photos flipping past her face, brushing her cheeks from when the garden was primed for adventures and her son beamed as he burst through the door.
The hallway. Four o’clock. And he gave it a ‘ten thumbs up.’
It’s something about the chaos of packing boxes and the vibrant verve of a new start. That. His face. The loud tearing of gaffer tape and starting out again.
She learned to be good at that.
It’s something about her.
Stranded
Seconds tick down at crossings, marking time and if you take the time to look after a stranger’s baby while their mother collects some food, then take a moment, the only moment that you have, to hold the infant in your eyes, to wish him love and health.
Take a breath amongst the hubbub and the clamouring to pray his life goes well, that circumstances hold him and that years from now he’s not spotted sitting in a doorway with a tin can of cash by his cold feet, irrelevant to passersby who jostle for position, who want the next Must Have.
And while seconds tick down at crossings you try not to fall into the cracks between the paving stones, the concrete where your mother’s feet brushed years ago, her cashmere cardi fluttering in quieter streets. And if you fell would some hand reach down to pull you up, would someone come to save you? Would a stranger wipe smeared blood and debris from your cheeks? Would they hold you?
And your mother’s feet blur into your own. You don’t fall down while the seconds tick to nothing and as diesel fumes mingle with chips and grease, the baby waggles his feet in the pushchair, sucking on the saccharin of a sweet Fruit-Shoot. His mother returns and thanks you. His life is good. You pray it always will be.
Under the trees where you shield from rain, a raggle-taggle group set up their tables, you leave before their purpose becomes clear. Your chips are warm in the cold, a fleeting comfort while your mother echoes around you, her pearls glinting from a younger sun that tries to push through now, that tries to warm you.
Janey L Foster 