POST MORTEM 2000


One night after the cinema, on a tram coming home, I felt love exorcising itself.
This was a known sense from former relationships, but this time was deeper, colder.
The spirit of love evaporated and to replace this, I started to Drink.
It blurred the edges, softened the corners and made sleep possible.
Empty energy but solace in being warm and stupid.
New ideas, original to all previous drunks, denied, explained away or ignored.
A distant feeling of suitcases in wardrobes, packed with silence and waiting...

That night I lay in bed beside her, wide eyed in the dark of her breathing and
trying to hold on to my first ideals of soul mates, knowing I was now dead to her.
Caught sight of myself once in the bathroom mirror, after snapping at her in the bath
and stopped my heart; the Wolf was revealed, cold hunger, razor eyes and killing intent.
A dream a month before this, where I fought with a beast made of Hate, an entire body
of muscle and animal fury, whose sole reason for existence was to destroy
with mindless power and wild anger.
Combat to the death with a mirror twin. I woke before either of me won.

( Three years later in London, a similar dream where I chopped the monster into pieces
until only the head was left - and knew I’d never cut this small enough to not grow anew.)
Did she expect me to stride manfully into this carnage? Probably not, only hoped
for some love. The arguments started after the light was turned off at bedtime, in attempts
to clear the air - this was a mistaken failure.
I forced her to be strong enough to turn against me - this was a great success.
There remains a cut on the kitchen floor where a knife was thrown as lightning.

I hurled a glass against the wall
To smash the curse
And grenade the spell
And now, three years later,
Tell me again why I wanted to be understood?
Her personal Stalin in a cult of one
Enraged with confusion over a father’s birthday.

But I digress.
She took the Pill only to regulate periods, I cleaned too much
Never f.....d enough. I was a boring housewife.
Whose sarcasm will win a demeaning victory today?
That bedroom was a cemetary for two
IcouldnotbewhatshewantedbecauseshecouldnotbewhatIwanted.
Vice versa in role reversal, rehearsing miscomprehension.

Refusing to go against my nature and compromise
Because I felt this would be a betrayal
Of my gloriously high standards of ‘truth’.
Sleeping pills to change the scenery, obliterate another day.
Tired of talking, so long final silences
Where neither speak beyond ‘Are you all right?’
We were not all right.

Now in her flat weekly to wash clothes
And in twice yearly meetings
Watching her change
As if seeing the world from above after death
But now
Without the unemotional detachment
The unsuitable mate or father
Who gave in to the chemicals
And thought it love.