free write.

I feel the paper skin of the tree near the oval beneath my fingers, in memory, I touch it and it touches back like glad wrap sticking to ones fingers. In this tree I would sit after climbing, it was a story, I told it to myself so that I could learn to listen. It had leaves that glittered like water droplets, they decayed like all things do and they also grew again. I was five years old and I was sitting under this tree with my friend, I had a purple water bottle with fairies on it, the water bottle had a band that could be worn across your body, so as to keep it safe. Keeping ones possessions safe was an exciting possibility to my five year old self, I liked the responsibility and I also liked ignoring that responsibility, I lost my possessions all the time, I mourned them, I experienced guilt - when I did keep things safe I would be so proud, I would treasure said things. Some things were lost to forces beyond my control – an older boy, a bully, a mean kid, he took my small wooden white toy rocking horse and buried it in the sand pit. My friend told me she had seen him once whipping a younger school kid with a skipping rope, someone else told me he killed his dog. Every day at recess for the rest of the week I would dig through the pit of sand, other kids in my class would help me, it was an exciting mission of togetherness, it prepared me for the community experience of grief, one day we found the broken pieces and I mourned the loss of the dignified resignation to a task, the sense of purpose I’d so briefly experienced. We went back to dangling our legs off the thicker lower branches of the papery tree and playing with its strips of skin that we picked at like scabs, the balance in the way it gave in to our grimy fingers (with nails bitten to the quick) and resisted just enough, was full of magical, physical intrigue.

excavation

living like we do on this precipice

of disaster, a wavering truce

with the forces to keep our

cores intact, we start the day a little broken

but there’s all this goodness in it,

in your vulnerability and mine

this weekend and this season

this reality of fragile pieces

            you sleeping next to me

            sighing

            in dream

also, it’s the season to cut people off

no one’s disposable but also

there’s too much toxic

            in the communication

            channels

            she says she’ll write to me in one week. It’s not

            a permanent severing. there’s just only so much energy

            I can give (she’s a taker)

            (or maybe I am)

            (maybe I shouldn’t

            put people

            into categories)

after the sun sets I bide my time

before undertaking the epic rewiring

my brain rolls out untethered

and I flick through its draws

and there’s me, aged 5

locked in the bathroom, internal

compass spinning out of whack

I think what I’m trying to get at

is the way we keep going

or something. waxing lyrical,

seb calls it my trippers logic

but I think

do whatever you can

to find the beauty in it

just do whatever

you can

Spiders and other things.

I think about spiders 

my house is home 

to so many now that when we smoke a joint

out back V doesn’t wanna sit under the decking roof

‘too infested, they might fall on me,’ she says (she’s been dreaming

about spiders

falling

on her)

and I guess that’s a valid concern, but who am I

to tell them to leave / we’ll just stay out

of their way

for now

In the grey light of my morning room I’m

distinctly not-yet anxious. I wake up further

to enjoy this moment. I think about my friends,

I think about all our very different childhoods

that we didn’t spend together

I think about the stars

how I want to know more

I think about P playing guitar in her room (such pureness!)

and I think about myself the other night

sleeping on that top bunk 

in some kinda mortal peril

spinning out on acid, thinking all the bad things

thoughts carry such weight, sometimes

On the train to the gig I think about a call I had

a middle aged man celebrating one year without self-harming

I could have cried through the phone, heartbroken with joy.

Random tethers of kind connection

pull me closer to the earth.

I think about all the pieces of you I carry

around with me (in my head) and the process

I have to go through, of letting go

I think about my new psych, how calm she seemed and how

that enraged me at first (for some reason) – made me interrogate

my own resentment

of calm people, weird glitch 

I think about E and her words

that tumble out so raw, and my own

that must jump hurdles to be born from my internal voice

the effort alone stifling

the need

I think about

Jupiter. Big mama of expansion 

I think about dreams 

I think about you and your child self

I could cry out, from tenderness

I could call you and cry, for an hour

I think about your pain, and everyone’s

The lessons in this haven’t yet presented themselves

I’m still searching for the meaning

but I think I’m onto something – something about love

and fear, crippling

and the constant trying

to be alright

and like a baby I just want to be held, and like a mother

I just want to wipe your snotty nose clean on my sleeve

and kiss your forehead when you go to sleep.

I think about what you might be doing today

while the cogs of trauma whir into function

face of laughter, grinning through the elements

I could fall to my knees from tenderness

it's the resilience against all these impossible odds

I try not to think too hard

about whether you've thought about me

I think about gratitude and awe

and all of us like siblings

waking up slowly across different

suburban

streets