Scratch to bleed
I am trapped and swept along in a horde of workers all clamouring for the attention of a non-sentient being, non-being entity, unfeeling and unwashed and illogical, masses clamouring nauseous. I feel dull and repetitive and listless and ashamed.
I am free, they tell me. Free to serve, free to act, but always in my best dress and matching muzzle. I am trapped. In a mass of grey cotton clouds, seeming fluffy yet rough-heavy with water, retaining me, flush to the surface. The inactive captive sways, my captain.
I am tired. Been chained to the radiator for weeks without the promise of a healing wash and dry, heaving fuck at the end of a hard day’s work of waiting and waiting. I can feel the wrinkles around my squinting eyes become permanent, minute by minute by minute and mute. I am queasy with the ghost and green with the promise I can’t fulfill.
I am sick. Of absence and doubt and mindfulness and helpfulness and helplessness and whipstitched seams. Rip. And break apart. And breathe in and cough. No oxygen is forthcoming, no mask enough to veil the unmasking.
I am afraid I need to be bound and gagged and fucked and beaten mercilessly every time I mince our words again, again. Beat to the beat of a beating heart I can’t prove still beats there, in a chest cavity unknown. Write and release. I must do something. Eke out the short-lived high of the quickly exhaled paragraph or the quickly inhaled puff. Whichever makes me come quicker. Scratch my skin and bleed. And bleed. And be bled.
And admit once and for ever that no one is coming to save me.
9 July 2008 at 4:30 pm
Hmmm. Did you have that cup of tea and cigarette?
(That was lovely. And horrible).
9 July 2008 at 8:44 pm
I’m probably not going to sleep tonight, after reading that.
(In a good way, I hasten to add.)
9 July 2008 at 10:09 pm
But does the act of writing some of those riproaring phrases not chirp you up?
9 July 2008 at 10:42 pm
beautiful particularly the fourth stanza. i felt incredible dark myself and wrote a morbid fairy tale. it lifted me a bit. i hope writing this released some of the darkness from you.
10 July 2008 at 12:28 am
that last paragraph, the last line. oh yes. beautifully done.
10 July 2008 at 12:44 am
This is like a mid-way scene from the main character in my first (yet to be made, and may never be made) feature film.
Damn, I love the way you are able to create such mood and intensity with your words… and the imagery that comes from that.
10 July 2008 at 3:59 pm
Z: I had at least a couple of packets and three kettles worth, promise.
AUW: Please sleep. It is important and good. Thank you.
Clarissa: Oh, definitely. I compared it to drugs and orgasms, so yes, I’d say so!
Lissa: It’s a release, though it feels very short-lived, but yes, it always helps. Glad it did for you, too.
The Happy Misfit: Thanks. That last line weighs on me like an overstuffed shoulder bag.
Dinos: Gosh, thank you, you make me sound positively hallucinogenic. [Your twenty quid is in the post.]
13 July 2008 at 12:32 pm
This deserves a few re-readings. I got more each time. Disturbing and inspiring in perfect measure. I particularly like the line ‘I am queasy with the ghost and green with the promise I can’t fulfill.’
15 July 2008 at 1:30 am
I think I may have just fallen in love with your words.
I think you may have just made me utterly captivated with a feeling I haven’t felt for a while.
I think I may have to break up with my boyfriend now.
He doesn’t like me having emotions, or being wordy.
15 July 2008 at 10:20 am
Jem: Thank you! I can’t imagine anyone reading my stuff once, let alone re-reading. ;)
Lynn: Hello and welcome, Lynn. Emotional and wordy is our specialty here! Feel free to indulge.