for archival purposes

A Recipe for Simnel Cake

Blue, Green, Brown

***** **

Memories

Please Miss, But

Silver Coins

Socks

The Alphabet According to Jas

Tu Me Manquerais

bask in the feeling,

savour every sweet moment

assessing my internal thoughts,

i look for signs of change and find

that underlying stress has caught

itself up somewhere in my mind.

much calmer than i would have been

twelve or even three months hence,

complexities i would have seen

all gone. there sits a simple fence.

it does not do much on its own

(one fence makes not a building ground)

but thorns and brambles which had grown

are stripped, and here i think i’ve found

a way to move more easily

through what before had caught me fast:

i cook some sauce and some fusilli,

i feel as sure as every poet

who has ever written about a lover

and as sure as every child

who has yet to discover that the world

does not revolve around them.

i am wrong, but certain, that the

love i feel for you is somehow unique

i sometimes sit and ponder words of old

(some sweet, some harsh, though most fall in between)

and wonder what on earth it all could mean.

the shining metal’s turned to tarnished gold,

i think in eight foot steps, but ten, i’m told,

are what i need to get the structure clean.

the metaphor is hazy and unseen,

i do not think on it you will be sold

when even i (in verity) am not:

i mince my words and let them sit and spoil,

i have no right, i, ruffian, bully, sot,

to ask or want that on this you should toil.

and is that even true? the statue’s rot

we move into a new era.

i have both dreaded and dreamed

of the day our lives no longer intersect:

it is coming, faster than i expected

and slower than it might have.

that cruel and mocking lover of old

has left me once more, and i try

to sort through the feelings and memories

i keep hidden away for lack of anyone to understand them.

in my room, two hundred and fifty miles away,

there is a box containing every letter

anyone has ever sent me. i have kept them all.

this is like that, like a sealed box in my head,

with all the words you have spoken and

all the memories i have of you inside.

i want so desperately to reread them, to rewind the clocks and

feel it all again, and then put it away and

forget.

we are in a period of transition, and i know

that if nothing changes we will move out of whatever

uneasy and unstable truce

we have found ourselves in, and into

nothingness. i used to be so scared of losing you

that i would set my claws into anything i could, sink nail into flesh,

to stop the drift. somehow, without realising,

i’ve changed, and maybe you have to.

there is no fight left in me for this. i cannot tell

if it is because i have not the strength

or because i have not the will.

if it is the latter, i am sorry.

this box holds some things too painful to contemplate.

there is a list of concepts and items with one common thread,

a ring, that i don’t know if you still wear, pressed tightly into my hand,

and a small coloured stone with an indent the size of my thumb.

there is a painting of people sat around a blue sofa

that no longer sits where it used to.

most of all, there is a set of messages about time,

and its powers of healing.

i know these belong in the box, with the rest

of the memories i have about you.

i cannot do the unthinkable and cut them out,

cannot destroy the discomfort of loving.

they are the last remaining evidence

that i have to myself, to remind myself,

when we begin this new era,

that this was real, and it mattered,

do not mind the tears;

most alive i’ve felt in months,

i was wrong; last year’s

stress and panic right at the

torn apart both in

body and mind. caught between

stuck on the sofa

with nowhere to go,

try think solutions,

all end in a no.

obvious answer

is busy and stressed,

can't bother her now,

or take her scarce rest.

think - run distraction,

that echoed maxim,

but all that i try,

hollow and taxing.

type out a message

where i ask to call:

delete, lest i drag

him into my fall.

he's doing better

and she's doing worse,

they're too far away,

she's lost phone and purse.

too many reasons

i can't fix this one.

try call a doctor,

try do something fun.

fail completely,

sit paralysed here,

ask how many days

cruel beyond belief,

this in these circumstances.

mutual worsening.

it’s crueler still that

honesty would degrade things.

how wrapped up you seemed to be

and yet, without much time for me,

made sure i wasn’t left alone,

it meant a lot, although you groaned.

it crossed my mind to feel some guilt

that into your enjoyment spilt

the need to go to lengths for I,

so I obeyed, I’d try and try

to follow your instructions clear

right out the gate: soon as I’d hear

them. list and learn, and if i couldn’t

I’d push until my body wouldn’t

carry on, and then feel bad

that I had failed the tasks you had

bestowed on me in all your grace;

could barely look you in the face.

“is this abuse?” did cross my mind,

from me to you (awake and find

the question should perhaps be flipped)

to answer those, i’m not equipped:

i knew that under all your pains

you liked the pow’r, a thrill you gained

from seeing me submit to you

try to catch the dream

back: forgot how much i crave

that structure and calm

try to push the dream

away: a cruel reminder

hit “bad” right before

a week where i will worsen,

sweet sirop turns sour

and cloying as i hold off

when we were young and in primary school

they taught us the scientific method.

germinate seeds, and leave them to grow,

write down what you think each will

do, when you sow

them at the same time in different places.

three of them grew in the light by the window,

and one was cast out to the dark

of the under-desk cabinet:

the light ones were marked

by what they each lacked;

one was soilless, the other unwatered.

the fourth seed was given everything

that it needed, and bloomed just as you might expect.

neither other seed grown in the light of the window

got past a small smattering of roots

but the seed that we left in the under-desk cupboard

grew (although it was small).

and i can’t help but wonder how much of the reason

was the glimmer of hope that it had

every time we needed to check on its progress.

for it’s easy to measure the growth of a plant

when it’s visible there in the sun,

but to water and measure the seed in the cupboard

it was exposed to the light that we needed ourselves

to get the job done.

now, i don’t think that that would have made all the difference,

and plants can still grow in the dark,

but i wonder how much those snatches of sunlight