Wrapped in a blanket,
I pass the morning (it’s noon already?!)
with GLS’s letters and a piece of flatbread
with peanut butter and dried apricots
since peeping at long bygone lives
and inventing odd dishes is the most I can do
while I wait for the final act of misfortune
I brought upon myself when, in a hormonal haze,
I followed tradition and a state-sanctioned
cursed primal urge.
I’ve only ever talked to myself, even if the words were directed at you,
and you wouldn’t hear my voice anyway, as you aren’t here—you never were,
now that I’ve realised that in order for you to appear before me,
I must first dramatise you, assign you a genre, and only then deconstruct you,
finger by finger and toe by toe, until there is nothing left but a bare midriff
with a navel scar, the only evidence that we were once one.
If I fled to Norway with my bubble-wrapped dispositions and unbearable cravings,
would that be proof that I had finally shed the provincial attitude I was born with
or that I was a habitual procrastinator, constantly pushing aside the urgent need
to solve the mundane complexities of my pre-divorce life and start breathing again?
Perhaps I would have met a local songstress there, singing about listening to the ocean
and climbing her way in a tree—not that she would ever so much as glance at a bloke
almost twice her age—and felt my heart skip a beat once more. But that’s impossible,
because first I would have to shower, change, and hit the streets of Granite City, leaving
my granite tomb that I sometimes humbly call home.
Whether I listen to the clatter of a typewriter or the crackle of sparks
in the fireplace, my voice remains feeble because, in a way, I’m still a child,
for there are things in old books I haven’t learnt and likely never will,
convinced that what’s left is to talk to myself—and even that out of habit
rather than necessity—while sitting in a dark room with the curtains drawn,
staring at a volume of Cavafy and a cup of cold redbush tea, wondering
why I am sad when children were supposed to be carefree, innocent
creatures of forgive and forget.
hidden pilcrow 