All entries for November 2007

99 i remembers not 100

I remember you

I remember running after you. It was December and I didn’t take a coat.

I remember the first time you made me bleed.

I REMEMBER WHEN MY BLOOD WAS BLACK AND I COULD NO LONGER SEE YOUR FACE

I REMEMBER WHEN YOU TOOK HOLD OF ME AND I COULD NO LONGER FEEL THE PAIN.

I remember forgetting

I remember not remembering. Frantically.

I remember the ceiling, and the walls, covered in dots

I remember counting those dots: for hours

I remember being numb

I remember being scared

I remember losing my memories, and regaining them, one by one.

I remember each second following the next

I remember losing count, dozing, starting again.

I remember becoming unattached

I REMEMBER WAKING UP

I remember falling

I REMEMBER WHEN ALL THE BLOOD CAME OUT OF ME

I remember when all that blood was on the floor

I remember my reflection

I REMEMBER WHEN MY TEARS WERE RED. They clogged my eyes.

I remember when I had no face

I remember breaking

I REMEMBER LYING ON THE BATHROOM FLOOR AND SCREAMING, AND HOW IT MADE YOU CRY, maybe made you break.

I remember agony in your eyes

I remember counting

I remember shame

I remember the humiliation. I couldn’t make them understand. I couldn’t make them stop

I remember the blue above her face and all the words I couldn’t comprehend

I REMEMBER THE CITY LIGHTS

I remember moment by moment

I remember the city lights

I REMEMBER WHEN YOU READ TO ME AND FELL ASLEEP WHILST I LAY AWAKE.

I remember crouching on the airport floor

I remember your hands

I remember you pulling me closer when I’d rolled away in the night

I remember the sky seeping into the room

I REMEMBER RED GERANIUMS

I remember not wanting to look

I remember the way you tried not to laugh when I tickled you

I remember how I made you stay up with me, how we didn’t sleep, how you held me and didn’t ask, HOW YOU KISSED MY EYES AND WAITED.

I remember choking

I remember shaking behind the door, how I couldn’t breath AND I COULDN’T TELL YOU

I remember when everybody wore my face

I remember when everyone lost their face

I remember when you made me calm

I remember those cuts I left in your back

I remember when you tore my skin

I REMEMBER MY BODY BRUISED

I remember cigarettes in wineglasses

I remember the way that from the train window it looked as though the street lamps were running into the pavements

I remember the sea at night and how I CLUNG TO YOU

I remember with what tenderness I trusted you

I remember waking up covered in sheets of writing

I remember when I read what I had written and was scared

I remember burning my fingers when I burnt them

I remember the froth on her lips

I remember when I tried not to think, when I tried not to be, and when I failed in both.

I remember when I tried to understand

I remember despairing

I remember the nothingness, the blankness

I remember the isolation

I REMEMBER OVER AND OVER AGAIN

I remember when there were no words just depthless pain

I remember hiding under your body

I remember BEING HAPPY

I remember bubbles.

I remember your tummy

I remember the way you used to try and put your fingers in my mouth when I yawned

I remember how your whole face crumpled up into one grin

I remember the way we pushed each other too hard

I remember your consuming ambition

I remember all those mirrors

I remember suffocating

I REMEMBER THE WEIGHT HOLDING ME DOWN AS I CHOKED ON MY BLOOD

I REMEMBER HOW THERE WAS NOONE THERE

I REMEMBER HOW WE STARTED PAINTING A LITTLE BOAT WHEN I WAS FIVE: it’s still unfinished.

I remember how I used to know you, and the you I used to know has killed a girl.

I remember when you came to me and told me what he’s done to you

I remember when you wrote me poems

I remember when you cried against the WINDOW LEDGE, for your life.

I remember when you cried because you couldn’t stop him dying

I remember when you tried to tell me without crying

I remember all the times I tried not to cry, and then those times I COULDN’T FIND THE TEARS

I remember when they opened you in the corridor, with people drinking cups of tea

I remember being exhausted and laughing and crying mixed together and the confusion hurt

I REMEMBER WHEN I SAT AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS AND HUGGED MY FEET AND BEGGED THE MEMORIES NOT TO COME

I remember all the nights I tried to find excuses not to go to bed

I remember all the excuses I used to find not to go to bed alone

I remember all the nights that finished with me sleeping and all the morning yawns

I remember the horror of my sleep

I remember when I’d call just to tell you about my toes, just to push away my thoughts.

I REMEMBER WHEN YOU SAID ‘MISS YOU’ AND ADDED ‘AS USUAL’ AND WHEN I SAID ‘AS USUAL I DON’T BELIEVE YOU’ YOU SAID ‘AS USUAL I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD’.

I remember red nail varnish. I can’t believe you might have killed her.

I remember when I stayed up typing ‘I remembers’ and couldn’t go to sleep.

I REMEMBER WHEN YOU SAID I WAS AN ANGEL.

I remember when you lay on the tiled bathroom floor.

: 22 Nov 2007 03:49 |  Tags: 7 Icw Week |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

the journey

i left it to the last minute and haven’t had time to edit it: there’s a guy sitting next to me biting his fingernails: i want to hit him, be sick or runaway.

my mixing of genres didnt work so i just took out all the fairytale stuff -it works better, though isn’t really a story:

The journey

Day 231 once upon a time

Little has changed; though slowly the constant damp of sweat all over me is becoming less irritating: maybe it’s because I’ve bitten my fingernails right down so I’m no longer creating further cuts for the sweat to burn in. The greyness of her skin is neither worse nor better though my fevered imagination keeps seeing a blush in those cheeks. Reality is skewed; maybe it’s not imagination playing but past and present overlapping. Every hillock in this road seems both like the first and the hundredth. I try to hold onto why I’m doing this.

Day 235
The driver has yellow sores all over his haunches from the hillocks. He wants to stop. We have been able to shift position, he has not. We give him the last little bit brandy, we need him to continue. Now there is sweat and insects.

Day 247
He’s always asleep. How can he sleep when the road is so hillocky and sweat blocks one’s nostrils. There is no one to talk to. What if I lose my sanity before we arrive?

Day 248
The air is sulphurous. The clouds are turretous. I think we’ve gone wrong: we’re lost.

Day 251
She is grey and damp. The addition of sweat to her greyness makes her seem more feeble, closer to death; more mortal. I want to touch her but I’m worried about infection. The lack of water is getting to us all. His skin is reacting badly: this kaleidoscopic show provides something to focus on. I hardly notice my own sweat anymore, even the insects have become an accepted part of my view, merging with the black dots floating in front of my eyes.

Day 252
This morning I woke up on my back. Nothing was moving. I was neither in the van nor on that never ending hillocky road. I put out my arm and grasped a hand, cold, clammy. It wasn’t her. I could just see the red tips of autumnal forest. His corpse was polished. There were forty perfectly round white penny shaped scars starring his torso. He had nothing with him. She was further off, where the grass was longer. I wept for our mortality.

Day 253
I spent the day lying in the grass. I saw a ladybird.

Day X
I don’t know how many days I lay in the grass but today I got up. I dug a hole. I lay next to her remembering how red used to move within her cheeks. I said goodbye.

Day X + 1
I put her in the hole. I got into the hole and lay down on top of her. Then I got out and left.

: 01 Nov 2007 13:41 |  Tags: 4 Icw Week |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem