false proximity (in a life that was, that no longer will be).
29/12/2005 :: 11:38 pm

three, four, five thirty and then
once again, a white light crosses my ceiling from past the curtains of this pretend hotel room, and it stains my memory red. it cuts across every surface. every sense improves when i'm lying next to you. i can inhale the world. we listen. there is never really silence.
there's the distant hiss of motorway traffic, it makes me wonder how urgent their escape must be to be driving at high speeds in the darkest of the dark hours.
there's a bird singing - we teeter on the brink of dawn. i was quite happy to lie awake all night, watching every little movement, hearing every little sigh. i fall in love with simplicity several times over.
there's your heartbeat, there is warmth. yes, i had a checklist behind my eyelids and all the realities were accounted for. the beauty, the blanket of night. i am just child here, curled up safe in the dark. i thought my cradle could never fall.

three, four, five thirty and it's so distant now i must ask - were you even there at all?
when i finally close my eyes i can see the shapes and colours of your soul, outlined above me. this city soundscape brings us such sharp illusions. you could lose yourself in it, like quicksand.
there's your body, your hair falling past your half-shut eyes and the way you look down, an examiner determined.
there are whispers burning in my ears and luring me in, a thousand declarations of love everlasting. i'd waited a seventeen year winter to hear these words and so-
there are your hipbones, there are eleven bruises on my legs. well of course i let it happen. i thought we were valleys and peaks, white teeth. oh, i truly did believe you were the happiest you had ever been. these were the words you sold to me.

like a jigsaw puzzle in a broken box, gathering dust in the kitchen cupboard of a grey british holiday cottage - the most important piece is missing. i'm still trying to pick up the rest. i was always a little frayed around the edges but the day you came into my bed with your phantoms and your lies and took the last thing i had - well, i never will be whole again. that part is yours now, yours to carry with you always or bury at the bottom of the garden. i trust you will do as you please.
the truth is, if ever i find my nino quincampoix, my denis denis who would never waste words, i could now only offer him damaged goods. i'm ruined, im rotten to the core - you know this because you've seen it. you left your mark against it.

thank you, my sunken lover - i shall never forget. its a gift in the form of my only regret. this is a familiar moment once again. this is a moment when.
and i realise for the fifth time when the sun rises that you didn't mean the words you whispered under the blanket of night. you've got a flawless disguise. you had the world fooled. the moon is torn in two. and you trip me up, you drill holes in my head.
all over.
if only, if only and if only again.
uses, abuses.      (i still have three bruises)
sirens and wires.
    distress, this dress.
four days to recover
well, how can we be friends?

of course, i'll try

but i don't think it will ever happen again.