part one
So the baby decided not to
stay
all week I've known that
but would not believe it
even hours ago I'm
laughing
thinking how I would joke with
you
15 years on
So now I cry fat red tears and
flesh
inconsolable over an 8 week love
affair
with your dreamed image:
black haired, green & hazel eyed
boy
My craving shocks me
is my life this empty?
So now I know death
I do not like her
she says nothing
Just takes the things you
love
my best friend the dog
my baby,
my innocence
part two
I think of you as ageless
now
not the tiny opaqueness I put on
earth
I love you because in your
smallness
you have taught me things
that have taken me months and
years
Amazed at that
heart-falling-through your body feeling
like being jolted from a
dream
that happens when you
love,
I fall into the illusion of
possession
naturally enough,
my baby.
So you're leaving hits me
hard
and I spend days among the
ruin
trying to know the truth of your
life
my darling
so connected with mine
And there I see a vision
of me
that's not about what I'm meant to
do
not about career or path or
particular
but just a framework
to allow life's
unruly
anarchic
organic
experience to happen
and for once I know the
graciousness
to let
the self
unfold
part three
Time heals wounds but
sometimes blood solidifies
into a scar
over which layers of tough skin
forms
so that even friends
can't touch that place
and my lover grows tired
of living with it
The dull ache of
depression
settles around me
like a fat lip
so I can't feel what I'm like
anymore
I'm always asking
myself
what is it what is it what
is
wrong
in the mornings I hope
today
will be better
and in the evenings
I try to breathe out and
make my peace
but I don't
Something's got to give
and I'm afraid
by Kathryn McConnochie
