She is there when I get home,
I shut the door on pink skies, pollen, pimms and cucumbers.
She gives no warning and needs no invite,
She’ll break down every door and travel every mile I try to put between us,
I wasn’t sure, but I thought she was coming; because of the stickiness
Fidgeting with flickering eyelids, shuddering and shaking and lying in bed awake
Until the moment of waking, well, of everyone else waking,
But I didn’t think she’d come today,
with the salmon sky and the strawberries doing splits on jugs of pimms and the sweating cucumbers.
I’m standing at the door,
I know she is inside and my breath is caught in the hallway,
I want to retrieve it and put it back in my body,
But its slumped on the floor, defeated, unable to find the door
The stickiness is now what reigns my throat,
like a slightly curdled coat
of milk, three days old,
It’s not right and I need light, but no light fills the flat, and I knew that,
I knew no light would fill the flat,
Her clothes are strewn across the floor,
And every curtain is shut,
I look to my rooter – wires all cut
I hear her shriek
‘You know I HATE it when you try and communicate’
I climb the stairs and find her sitting on my bed,
Brushing wiry black hairs which overgrow her head
They fall, scarring floorboards, freshly painted white,
Whilst she sniggers with delight,
I’ve seen her face before, but yet again, I flinch and am appalled
grey it sags like a tired old hoover bag,
‘Oh good, oh good you’re back’
She jumps up and ties me to the bed.
Rumbling around in her surgical tool kit,
She removes big steel pins,
attaches my ears to my head,
and covers them in thick cloth,
so I can hear only swish, swash,
swish swash.
Then she takes out cold metal clamps and forces my eyes open,
removes her pipette and drops in staining grey paint,
Now, like her, I see no colour,
Lastly she fills my mind with dark fluff,
From her dirt stuffed hoover bag head
Rejoicing, she jumps on the bed,
‘NOW the conditions are right for my stay’
I’m to be her puppet, she’ll move my arms and legs,
will nod and shake my head and even move my mouth to say
things like ‘I love you’
And everyone will think it’s me because they don’t know,
because she won’t let me say, that she’s here, that she’s come to stay.
But then after weeks and sometimes months,
the paint stings my eyes and they start to water,
Giant grey tears roll down my face
‘Stop crying, stop crying’ she shouts,
reaching for the pipette, frantically squeezing in more and more,
but they keep watering,
murky streams down my face.
They dry out and days pass and
I notice her toothbrush is no longer in the bathroom,
and one curtain is open a crack.
And then one morning, I hear a bird chirp,
And I run, panting, into her room
Left only are two black wiry hairs on the white pillow.
She has gone.
I fill my eyes with all the colour and my ears with all the sounds,
And try to put at bay, the thought that she will come, again, to stay.
