Couch day

Fresh mint tea
Made with the greenest of leaves
Smells so verdant 
as I sit a year later in a cafe enjoying my own company in freedom, holidays, just to be.
and I think back.

That day
Sitting from early, early, in nervous fidgetiness
On my body is drawn an arrow.

This one.
And some writing which I can’t bring myself to read
And a signature as if I am an autograph book.

A memory of the last day at school
All us girls had small books with a fancy pen to write with.
Nervous excitement
Exams over
Results not revealed
Future possibilities
So near
So present.

Just like now – completely present
To this moment, to an uncertain yet hopeful future
Completely and positively alive
And next to me
Is he
And our hearts beat high and quick.

In this place
Expectation and fear,
And yet outward face
Calm – be calm,
Breathe in calm.

Rising dread as one by one by one
The ladies in gowns and thick green socks
Wait 
and then are led away
Not to return.

I must be still
I must be strong
I needs to be completely flat
And unreflective
Like a mill pond on a grey day.

Reflecting solid colour prismatic grey
Reflecting absolute stillness on the surface
Reflecting absolute matt unrefelctiveness
Biddable
Polite.

Not the RAGE I feel inside
Not the screaming dismay and panic
or the despair at the thought of the knives.

The blood, my blood
The cutting through of
Sinew and muscle and tendon
And skin and fat 
The delving inside my body
Of hands to pull out
 Not a baby
But something that I have grown inside myself without the help of my help mate.

It grew in the dark, unknown, unloved, it formed and reformed
With no visible sign or symptom
It grew just like my angry baby
All pulsing deep purple and red.

My angry baby had her own
Secret friend
Growing inside her
Pushing and stretching her tiny baby organs.

More for me
Said the secret friend
And the organs in their newly formed beauty and perfection slid in the primal slime of insides
To make room for
The secret friend
Unknown
Unloved
Growing in the dark
As my angry baby grew in the dark recess of me.

As I sit on this petrol blue plastic couch
Waiting for my secret friend
To be born.

The hours of silence stretch and push
As the bladder and uterus and newly formed strings of intestines did inside my angry baby.

I sit at last
Knowing it’s my turn on the table
It’s my place, my right to be here
It’s my privilege and my terror
To be here. 

In the cafe 
a table of mothers with toddlers eat breakfast
a business meeting at the window table
a writer sits at the back wall with her laptop open and typing
and I drink my mint tea and am thankful 
for the day in early summer
and the soft warm rain
and my life.

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