Drops of water chase down the window of the train. There’s a child, young boy, black hair, teeth, opposite me. He has one hand on the table and the other in his lap. His mother holds a rucksack, his rucksack, decorated with a smiling cartoon that I don’t recognise.
I follow the rain as it falters, mid window. It shivers as the train moves, but it stays stuck.
The child stares at nothing. His mother is restless. Her eyes are shadows. One hand gets a firmer grip on the rucksack. The other is everywhere. In her hair in one moment. In her handbag, the next, scrabbling for a tissue or a list or whatever mothers need.
There is a conversation about politics on the table next to me between a pin-stripe and a black-suit businessman. ‘I mean, it’s just ridiculous.’ and ‘I totally agree, they’re all wankers.’ etc.
I reach across and ask them for the time.
‘It’s 6pm.’
The woman opposite me checks her watch.
‘More like five past’
and pin-stripe does a half nod smile and ‘er, so yeah. As I was saying’
The child looks at me, straight into my chest. I smile at him. He stares into my chest, and I carry on smiling. He seems to be unaware of all the hedges, trees, sheep, buildings, metal, wood, metal jetting past his head. Smiling and staring, I see everything.
A lonely tree in an empty, green field. Its branches crawl across the dusking sky. Men where there are no men. Tricks of the light. Jumps and hands firmly in pockets. A man standing, bald. In the big windows. Still. and bald. And blue. The room was blue. A house reflection in the shadow. A whole pool of shadow. A leap. I almost-
The child looks at me, straight into my eyes. The mother’s a shadow, blind to the busy seats, the inane chatter and idle connections. As if I shouldn’t look at anything else.
He is browless. His eyes a light brown. I wanted to see a miracle. I just see colour, and a pit of black.
No.
I turn my head towards the window. The rain has all gone. I missed the race. Now there’s just reflections. Reflections and trees and a purple moon, boy in the light with black hair, head shake faster and faster and fall, onto the table, mother with lipstick, through my eyelids a shatter, train slows and doors poft.
Train shudder. Just the sound of the train.
Eyes open, and I’m alone. I walk to the toilet, wash my hands. And I wait for the train to stop.
Untitled Two
Moon haze stains the window. My eyes are too heavy for the cotton sheets. They are nothing, here. They are no-one’s and they are nothing.
Heels arch. Toes curl. Lips like a fist and take it. Take it.
And again, back pressed to the grey duvet. Silence and zips. And breathing through my nose. Silence and turning the light back on. Silence and then door lock.
I’m wearing a nightgown. Ribbon around my waist. I don’t need the money when I’ve got ribbon. Ribbon for the world. And my hair can be ribboned and I can find a tree and I can climb the tree and I can see a field from the branch-
Feet flat on the duvet. Grease hair, white shoulder. Something happens.
I don’t know if that’s the moon or just pollution. I hear there’s too much pollution.
My fingers are fingers, and I touch the glass lightbulb. The searing lightbulb. I touch it with my fingernail and scour nothing. Feet flat on the duvet. Ribbon around my waist. Lips like a claw and I touch it. Touch it.
I door click, I light off, I breathe through my nose. Zips and silence. And I breathe through my nose. And again, back pressed to the grey.
And I want to peel the moon haze and press it to my face. All around my face, so I see nothing but the mist and the impression of a star in the glass of my eye. And I have eyes, and I can swallow, choke, I can choke the dark and. And something happens.
A lightning flash. Or a choke, and die.
Silence and zips. And door click. And grey, again. My eyelids are too thin for the yellow ceiling. They are no-one’s and they are nothing.
Duvet feet. Upright and I caress the glass of the lightbulb. There is a man, down on the street. I know I can see a man. My fingers creep to the metal at the top of the cold glass. And my claw is like a fist. And my fist is like a fist. And my feet are fists. The ceiling is a fist and it punches, and I throw the lightbulb smash, and I dance, fuck it, fuck it, I dance with my fists and I hope for the moon and there is brown, everywhere.
Soaking the blood.
Door click. Silence and zips. It will be morning, soon.
He had bushy eyebrows. There was an ingrown hair above his lip. He had more hair on his inner thigh than on his shin. His shin was shiny, and smooth, if you touched it right.
*
There are birds on top of the pylon. Muted by eighties fuck-rock in the bus. Most of everyone is background chatter, playing on phones, matching heads for love, giggling and there might be some commotion, soon. I see the birds on top of the pylon, and then they’re gone.
white line on the road, again, again, again, again.
We could be here forever. The head on my shoulder stops and starts to snore. I like the rhythm, I like the heat. I like the way our hair touches. Perhaps we will get stuck, and we could be here forever.
The English Teachers talk about tax and everyone does anything behind them. Once someone got a blowjob in a school-trip bus. Someone told me. A teacher found them and told them to stop, and nothing came of it.
*
He had a straggle of hair under both of his knees. There was one long hair above his left nipple. He never touched his armpit hair. His chin was clean, and he never scratched me.
*
We’re at the ruins of a castle or a monastry or somewhere people lived and prayed. We are with the rocks. A man in a cossack leads us around, speaking words.
There aren’t any clouds in the sky. There’s a ditch covered in brambles behind all of the rocks. I think about running and jumping into the ditch, about having dirty palms, about bleeding and tearing into my polka-dot dress, about drinking the ditch water and swallowing and swallowing until
The monk stops and asks if anyone knows anything about rituals. My bus buddy, awake, raises her hand.
‘Rituals are things that people do over and over again’
and I force my fingers into my palm. I look at the sky. I feel the lace under my left shoe. There is hair over my eyes. I can see all the blue and there’s two planes above me. One flies over the other’s jet-stream. It looks like it’s going back in time.
My tights are sore around my thighs. I try to breathe but my tights are sore
hands clutching the stretch, ripping a hole. a huge hole. and another. they might meet. and cross each other. what then?
*
He was bald, but hair matted to his chest. My hair lay cold on the pillow. His hair matted to his chest.
*
It’s all whispers and a Teacher in my face. Girls with pigtails laugh and the boys are on the ground, away from all of the commotion.
‘Speak to me,’ the teacher. ‘What’s wrong?’
the brambles look thick. I curl my finger. I moan. Through the hole in my tights, I moan. I throw my head back, I open my mouth. I let the sky into my mouth, and I moan. Thinking about his matted hair, his hairy thigh, his stretch stomach,
‘Christ. Everyone’ but they’re being hurried by the monk, to some more rocks,
‘Stop it.
You have to stop it’
his grey eyes, his frown and the way he hummed along to Bach and taught me how to play Liszt on the piano
‘Christ almighty. Stop it.’
and the way he made me love, I didn’t want love, but he gave it anyway, and the way his teeth grinded when he stopped
a Teacher grabs my waist and I am on the ground. I am under a jacket, and on the ground.
laughing and laughing and laughing
at how the sky is so full and
*
He was getting the post. I ran. And I ran.
*
No comments:
Post a Comment