Simple Simon Says

I'm thinking back to the days of waking up feeling short of breath and afraid.

Thinking back to Doe, steadying my warm, trembling hands with her cool, capable ones and telling me that whatever was outside would stay outside.That we'd done our penance. That we were allowed to be happy.   

I remember not being able to tell her that the outside didn't matter to me. That the lick of panic down my spine was the fear of what was inside - inside her, inside Silver, inside me, what engraved pattern of history, genetics and destiny we might carry inside us, inescapable, endlessly repeating.

Ave Caesar, te morituri salutant.

You

You are the person I write my notes to.

You are Requiem and her tumor, You are Dollface and her cancer.

You are the metal I taste when I bite through my lip, You are the talc on my grandmother’s handkerchiefs.

You are the reason I count things twice.

You are luminescent in your defeat, You are the dull ache in my spine.

You are the labored breath of my mother’s asthmatic lungs, You are the years of dust on my father’s old loves.

listen.

I find him sitting in the corner of the garden. The same corner I'd sit in, and and count the hairs that came away with every slide of my fingers across my scalp. My hair's thick now, all honeysuckle - scented and windblown, and my brother is all sharp cheekbones and curled lip.


"I don't...", I start to say.


He reaches out his hand (his long, narrow hand, so unlike my wide palms and short fingers) and touches my face.


"I'd forgottten what you sound like." he said.

No, the sun does not shine.

I hate waking up before 7.30. I do not feel re-freshed and 'ready to face the day'. Listening to birds chatter is a completely pointless exercise. There is no such thing as getting up on the right side of the bed. When I'm up early, my neck hurts, everything is blurry and I have this unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something's just plain wrong. That's my cue to think "there is no spoon" and "there is no morning commute".


Today I've washed my hands so often I've halved a brand new bar of soap and my palms are tender.


Sometimes I want to go back to the days when my biggest fear was Kevin and Kenneth calling me Aloma Paloma Drunkard Clown. And then I remember what it was really like in those days, being an awkward, bug-eyed kid who always said the wrong thing. Then again I still say all the wrong things. The difference is that now I don't even try to say the right things. Not always.

Things I like not

Not realising I'm out of balance


Egg yolks


My feet


Apples


Mustard


Missing trains


Public bathrooms


Feeling so hungry you're nauseous


Low marks (yes, I geek)


Fungus


Dentists


People using 'fag' as an insult


Me using 'fag' as an insult


Flu


Buses


John Le Carre


Feeling tongue tied


Funerals


Names like Paul or Jackson


me

No, I will not be coming out to play.

Gah

I'm tired. Not whiny, I don't want to clean my room tired but a kind of tiredness that's filling the hollow spaces in my bones with lead. Times like these, I rewind over every insignificant detail or decision that's gotten me here. Like deconstructing a game of chess. Only, in reality, I can't separate the black from white and put everything in their own, neat squares. So I make rose tea, listen to The National and eat apricots.

Odd = me

I was strolling along today, when I suddenly realised I don't quite know what to do with my arms. I tried swinging them all briskly like the women in those exercise videos broadcast on TLC at the oddest hours, but it felt super- weird, like telling people that you love your grandmother when you really couldn't give less of a shit weird. Stopping, I tried to let them sway naturally to the dulcet sound of  'Start a War', causing the not-so-high-powered business type behind me to snarl, "junkie" and stalk (rather unsteadily) ahead of me in her Bandra Blahniks. Bitch. Folding my arms across my chest was the next P.O.A, but it was too, "I am emo, watch me bleed." Also, I found myself unable to walk in a straight line which made me  sad in all kinds of non- shallow ways. Jamming my hands into my pockets (I love pockets. More than my grandmother even), made me look faux cool. I was cool with being faux cool, so I bought my oranges.

Today

something brilliant happened to an acquaintance,and I was happy for her.

Happiness is

buying cotton pants

a month passing without me getting tired of people

having a new, favourite band

freshly laundered sheets

last minute plans going beautifully

someone rubbing my shoulders

mint milk chocolate ice cream

the colour indigo

the walk from Colaba to VT

steak

sitting near a window in a train and listening to Sweet Disposition

not being asked for my i.d.

receiving mail


after eights


sloppy firsts


cabs.



Where the good people are

I miss having good people. People who call me for shits and giggles and not for hey-wassup-how's your headache-can you please give me information that will take the shitfest that is my project and elevate it to mediocrity- and if you don't you're a horrible human being who deserves to be badmouthed to the extent that you begin wondering whether it's worth attempting to be honest in the first place? OKTHANKS.

I try

Will it be loud?

Like your car backfiring or

Dropping a stack of plates onto linoleum?

We’re oddly quiet. All of us.  After hours and days and weeks spent in that smoke filled room, playing Mr. Jones on loop. After doing our best to feed our cravings that twisted, writhed and palpated. Begging, begging. Today we air out the room and close the blinds and sit on the ground among the ashes and coffee stains on your mother’s hideous carpet. If anyone knocks on the door, we fall silent and sit still, until they go away.