nodtothewillows

[nodtothewillows]

I pace the garden path and think of you. There is no trace of you here. No secrets hidden behind screens. I cannot wonder on what this pain means anymore. Smoke travels through a half opened door, but there's nothing to obscure. The wind reaches out her arm and brings it to a close. There is no weight greater than the silence that ensues a just-slammed door. Its closing reveals death by my front step. The dead bird that has laid in the grass for days now, no bigger than my palm. Feathers half cotton wool. I don't see things like I did yesterday. It is just a bird returned to the Earth. Wings unmelted, collapsing inward. There is no Father, no Mother. No lamenting lover. Just a regular visit from the cat down the road, to remind himself of his own power. To gloat as if it had killed an un-fragile thing. As if there were any dispute of who would lose, and who would win. The starlings are calling again. It is South-West home. I don't have to fly with them to know. You cannot be them. You cannot be the warmth of the ground on my feet. The friendly black cat that sits by my gate. And I am as grateful as I am torn apart. So, bury me with the birds. Lighten the load. And when you miss me, press your ear to the ground. Deep and rhythmic, racing, then slow. The moving of the earth from the piece of me you keep. Nobodies woman, for somebody's man. Unceremonious in my leaving. Ten eyes, ravenous in wanting. Sharpening their beaks on your marital stone. Come, I will whisper one last time, come tear the flesh from these bones.

[nodtothewillows]

I sit in front of a screen, paying for her time. I try not lie, but I do it all the time. Maybe this mess isn't his making, it's all mine. I don't want to bitch or moan, but I wish you just called me on the phone. I'll wake an hour early, then hide all the mirrors. And maybe the effort will be the difference between hello or goodbye. And it all boils down to shame. I'm too old to be playing games. But I promise that these rules have more power outside of my own head. Tell me to at least make an effort, not to waste another day in bed. Standing a little too long in the shower, try to rinse the images of you breathing heavy out of my head. Crying always did come easy to me. And maybe it was for the better that you didn't even let me try. Most days seem to end before they begin, can you tell me it was ever different with me? Was it the reason why? I know that you have been distant, and I guess that's alright. I hope you find other ways to pass the time, I'll pretend I'm not waiting for you to leave again. Maybe the wait will be worth it, and you can tell me I'm worthless. Tell me I'm worth this, and maybe I could believe it. Call me by any other name, I know what that means. Maybe I can live one more day, if you can do the same.

[nodtothewillows]

17:10

R2 through Exton

Where every house is the dream

& every road is half asleep

I don't like to be alone

Dead on arrival

Alive on the ride home

It's been getting darker

I've been waiting for rain

"Have you thought about dinner?"

I read the words then hide the screen

And the guilt opens the doors

Next is Greetham

A man hits the red button as if his day-sack hid wings

Elephant & Castle

Tip-toeing the edge of the platform line

It's our blood in their veins

I look at new memories like I've seen them before

I would smile at each passenger as they emerged through the doors

Now I try not to catch eyes

The reluctant suicide

Crying at dead moths spinning silk coffins from webs at the window

I wish for it to stop

I wish for it to go

Blurred lines turn to trees

Takes a junction to expose them

I un-cross and re-cross my legs

uneasy beneath their cold

hard

stare

I blame the engine heat for blushed cheeks

Could it be so easy?

Trees that reach 10 times past our shoulders

reduced to smears in the frame that restrains them.

[nodtothewillows]

It's fine, that you aren't mine. It doesn't weigh on my mind. Of course, I'll be fine and I understand. I'll be a ghost to all your family and friends. We inhabit the past as a means to an end. So, the curious will ask and you'll talk of a town where the church is more than most, but is less than was dreamed. Ain't that just the way of things? It's just a song. It's just poetry. But it's unsettling how this town is marked by the things that it lacks. Like the blue on your drive way, or a grey and white cat. I watched telephone boxes disappear while the Orchid's refused to flower year after year. I tried my best to pretend it meant nothing. Your house wasn't empty. The bedroom window was still where to find you. Your house, the smell of damp and of Chloé. The stock pile of sauerkraut in jars in the hallway. Cans of apple pie filling too numerous to count. It's not fine, but we'll be fine. "One day we will all meet again, as friends." Your Mother's words, not mine. Heaven holds her and Heaven knows, your Mother knew us better than we ever knew ourselves. So I'll be back before it gets dark. When your Mother's voice is bird song over the park. Illuminating the shadow of the place we both know. We are all ghosts here. Dusk's gold caught in willows and reeds. We can go, but we never really leave.

[nodtothewillows]

You know my eyes weren't for seeing then 

Watching wave after wave roll in

I didn't see what was in front of me 

With a tide on the recede

The waves, they weren't rolling in

I was watching them flee  

Does the bed ever tire of you 

always being on the run? 

I couldn't accept what I was seeing

So I kept your cup warm

But you were drinking something different then 

Mint leaves shed their green

Hot palms

Cold white teeth 

Your eyes would be rolling

But you kept yourself clean

Gulls sang over a George Street home

They were calling us names

Guess you tired of chasing waves 

That never bothered to leave 

In, out

Up, down

I made you nauseous somehow 

The Sun was watching then

Though Her warmth wouldn't reach 

Stripped down by the salt of the Sea

Bare bones laid as Seabird feed 

I tried to be soft silt then 

But I was pebbles and stone 

I couldn’t slip through your fingers 

There was a force to your throw 

Now your cup has grown cold

Am I the wave that you're waiting to break?

You were always the patient one

Pooled like wax at the dying of the flame

Was I the ungrateful one?

Leave your mark where you wrote my name

Was I really a cure?

Can you say what you mean?

Are you back on the run?

Have you run out of steam?

[nodtothewillows]

Perhaps if I was a better poet

If I was a poet at all 

My words would have shaped your will

To be my will

If my words had any strength 

They would have moved you to my door 

I feel like I am always searching for the words

In the mouth of another

Would you expect any more of me?

I doubt my voice as soon as I speak. 

In my mind there is a great Olympian Summit 

A place thoughts refuse to carry me 

But I know your face as the one looking down

Some divine space where my faith still lingers 

I never carried my words further than just past my lips

And so those lips kissed hardened fingers

Of which conjured sleep 

Dreamy lullabies plucked from strings 

Tongue and teeth formed words less heavy 

Sweet and embalmed in melody 

I was hopeless 

You were Godly. 

How hard I would fall to my knees 

How softly you would stroke the hair from my eyes

What I wouldn't do to be thrown at your mercy one last time 

I was so fearful of the coming of these days 

These days you are known only as a name 

How cold it is to fall further still from your gaze

Three thousand six hundred and fifty two days

So the nights where I still miss you enough to lack sleep 

I am sat beside you on a busy London Street 

I remind unhearing ears that neither of us really know where our love was fated to go

Did we determine the path to our own pain

Or was it written before we were ever made?

You held all the power

You knew everything

You're the only One I've ever known to be in all things

It's too late to be told

Unknown are the years between losing you

and a life time of growing old

Now I speak to covered ears 

I scream where there is no air to breathe

If I was a better woman 

Would you believe you were a better man?

You made the best of who I was then

You're still the best of who I am  

Young pilgrim, don't you drink yet from the Lethe  

There in the next life is the life you promised me

Travel back the years with me upon this Charon's skiff

There by the Witham it's early winter cold

Five a.m. early morning cloud

Dawn’s chorus was your dawn arrival

No louder sound I had ever heard

The air expired from the lungs of each and every tiny bird

As if thunder had to this day gone unheard  

And though the Sun had hardly kissed the sky 

And my heavy feet hardly left the floor 

There you were

Floating at my door 

And there was holiness in borrowed warmth 

As you held my cold hands in your hands

Your head shrouded in street light's gold 

There, for the first time I believed

I am more than just skin and bone.