Friday, April 11, 2014

Bright and sharp is the call of the bell; hard and smart is its sting.




                                                                                The forest is death cold, damp and so choked that I am blind for more than a few footsteps ahead. The leaf mould floor is so thick with decomposition that I stumble dragging my legs through fungal soup.  Smells of earth stink up my nostrils; sweet decay follows every move I make.  I have been lost here all my life. Since I first crawled out of from between a trees split roots as a newborn fool. Since she left me here longer ago than I can now remember; my breasts stinging with our first contact. 
                                                            Birds shriek about sex and territory but I don’t listen, all I do is keep looking.  I see a shadow eclipse the moonlight and open my mouth to call her name but only butterflies come out. 
      She is hiding, behind a smooth trunk of an elephant shaped beech don’t ask me how I know.  I lock on, lethal fever joy flushing through my chest.  I surge toward her my heart pounding as angry pine branches tear at my clothes. Bright beads of blood jewel up my filthy skin but keep going. In my mind’s eye I can see her, grinning with childie delight at my approach, preparing to jump out and surprise me. Finally I am through the thicket, cut and ruined but there, hesitating behind the tree that harbours her. I throw my arms around it, long and loose, to feel the beat of her squeal, but only naked bark welcomes my embrace. All that is left of her is the scent of her skin to encourage me.

Bright and sharp is the call of the bell; hard and smart is its sting.


She keeps the game going, lures me on a trail in the undergrowth. Longing to fall against moss with her mouth inside mine, I keep moving.  A spider has used one of her hairs to weave a signpost into it’s home, her clever fingers are as deft and subtle, but I recognise every bright filament.  I take off what is left of the tatters of my shoes, to rummage deep into the sticky mud with my toes, where she stood to signal me.  The rude sounds of the sucking wet soil help me piece together the fragments of the fading memories.


                                           Ours was a precarious affair, full of bitter revenge and feminine fears, we slept in ditches, rolling among soily grass roots, opened our eyes to stare down bruised skies at dawn. She was huge, fertile as a boar, able to ferret out my concealed things with her curved and wicked tusks. We never had enough of skin sliding against skin, of fragrant sticky nests under arms and between legs.  She picked every flower she could find to press between my creases, fragrant petals crushed into a rich pungent paste.    
                                                               Suddenly I hear her carelessly snap a twig somewhere to my left and my naked feet plough the soft ground running to catch her. I pretend I will scold her now for playing so ruthless when both of us are tired. Tired of missing the honey whispers of hot breath into silky hair.  A badger eyes me balefully and I know why none of the woodland creatures are disturbed by my presence, I smell like I belong to them. Why does she not come? What am I, if I am not hers? Whose story am I in, if not a story of us? Where else is there beside the softened mossy rocks of our copse? 

Bright and sharp is the call of the bell; hard and smart is its sting.

                                                                                                   
                                                                          I lie down to beg the ground, beating the wet soil with fists and feet. “Why me?”  I call down into a rabbit hole to her “I’ll do anything.” I choke on lungfuls of dirty air and whisper bravely as I can, my pitch too desperate high. “I give up; you win. Come, I need you back.”
                                                                          As I crouch there in the bramble of scrub, a wet thorn branch tangles in my hair forcing my head backwards sharply. I moan out loudly hoping it is her come back to provoke my desire, but she is not there. She is not coming.
                                                                                              Finally tears fill the cavities of my face. I am ashamed of what I have become. I know she will crow when she sees me crying, after all the tears she shed for me, but I have nowhere left to look.  I pull away the last rag of what were once my clothes and enjoy the sharp acid sting of the cold night.                                            
She is gone; I must forget her.                                                

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

bully girl




I was bullied as a child.
Taunted with names as many are.
So I learned to bully back.
Learned the sweet thrill
Of pinching soft nipples too hard.

I grew with the power to wound.
Attractive to the weak and the teary.
I loved myself powerful and
It seemed I was loved in return,
But some people still spurned me.

Why those others interested me
More than those who liked me
I could not comprehend.
Perverse wanting what you’ve not got
Maybe, or perhaps in your heart you just know.

The self-assured did not like me
They could see how I always talked about me
How I never admitted to any flaw
How I could never let my hair down
And just naked be me.

The more these people walked away
The more I wanted only them.
The more I pursued them with my
Usual ploys of gifts and cajolery,
The more I saw them run.

Eventually I had to explore
That they knew more about me than I did.
Knew what I was up to, my tricks,
My techniques for making them my prisoner,
That they were too wise to be caught in my spider lies.

So I let it go and with it went
All the glorious swag my blag had bought me.
I had to learn to simply be nice
To be selective in my friends
To be only, easily hurt me.

Now when people try to bully me
I bare my teeth, but I understand
Why they choose this niche.
That the journey away is hard and long and often cold
But every fighting dog, one day gets old.