The Change part 1: She Changed her Mind


When did the change happen?
There was a moment?
When she was in the pain of the moment
There was a gradual realization
Of the situation
So incremental, so creeping
she didn’t notice
Until she positively knew
That it was time to swap.

There was a division
Between that thinking which she now called past
And the present moment and growing
Forward
Which she called the future.

And it was a time between two colours.
Prismatic, all colour black and ultramarine, Lapis Lazuli blue.

Exclusively for three years
she wore
Black.
To mark the passing of her father
And she realized, this too has markers
And way stones
It made things simple
she wears black – he is dead
she wears black – to be invisible
she wears black – to remember
she wears black – not to forget
she wears black – and knows everyday
He is gone.

Every piece of clothing,
Underwear to coat, all black.
This made all her sartorial choices
So simple.

She binned all the rest of her clothes
Let go,
let it all go
And had very few options.

Not too much to distract herself with
It was good
It left room in her head for other
Artistic and creative choices.

she could have happily continued in her black
When something changed her mind.

A big thing
A thing not to be ignored
Or covered in black.

There was a new she in side who demanded
Shouted and screamed – enough!

This new she was reborn from
Operations and poking and prodding
Diagnoses, medicalization of her entire state of being.

From this was born colour.

Black is no longer any good.
It can’t hide her
It can’t corner her
It won’t make her invisible or silent
And he is dead –
so what?

Moved on in grief
No longer must she mark every day
A turned over page corner, coloured black.

Now she is so angry
Angry with herself
Angry with him.

She wants to erase him from her life in Futurist violence.
Burn the clothes
Smash the pictures
Cornellia Parker his trombone
Slash his coats
Give his shoes to wild dogs as Sylvia Plath would have done.

Eradicate him from the house
He is gone
she wants all his crap gone too
she will not start every single day
Remembering him
That is more than she did when he was alive.

He is in her
He made her
She does not need to speak his name to remember
Every cell in her body is there
Because of him.

Every cell including these oncological ones?

Sister Cancer is nestled in her breast
So close
So alive
Multiplying day by day – stretching her arm and fingers to touch her.

Sister Cancer didn’t mean to hurt
Or make cry
She can’t help herself
It is written in her code
She is just doing what she knows how to do.

Mourning the dead
Will not help her now.


This is the point when she changed her mind.

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