#twylabrown

JAMIE:

You could never imagine that feeling I can’t describe. It’s always the way isn’t it… blindingly high, or, just having had the world’s most frantic panic attack…  you know the ones, where you see spots in front of your eyes and it’s like you snorted a sherbet fountain or some shit like that because everything’s popping in the bridge of your nose. See. It’s super easy to describe that one, like, hell, I’m no poet… it’s kinda common sense innit?

(beat)

and then there’s this one… (pause)

It’s weird what we perceive as bad news isn’t it? And how do we know it is actually bad news? Like, Is it defined as bad news, and then worse news or is there just good and bad news? It’s like, being referred to a therapist, and then being diagnosed with depression I guess.. what constitutes the bad news? Surely the therapist is good news, right?

My bad news was that she was pregnant. Like, fuck. Isn’t that the worst nightmare of every parent of every teenager ever? My mum’s outward reaction was definitely cooler than her inward one. Sure, a clip around the ear and that shaming look was enough to let me know that I’d fucked up but I knew she was upset. She smoked a whole pack of fags over the course of that weekend, and she doesn’t smoke.

But hey. We were all born to be fuckups.

(beat)

My worse news was that my daughter had died… so I guess it’s arguable that the “I got my girlfriend pregnant” news was in fact good news.

(beat)

She just stood at the sink washing her hands and I didn’t know what to say because what do you say in that situation? We both just stood there and she didn’t make eye contact and I remembered everything, exactly how it was, from beginning to end. I walked home on my own, and next thing, I’m screaming at the top of my voice, ‘I HATE YOU’ and all that and then I’m retching into the toilet bowl, head against the wall and nothing comes up but that’s not the point because I may aswell be puking my guts up and the fags and all the weed didn’t make a single difference because I smoked four of them that night and this was where it got me and that’s by the by because maybe it’d all be okay and maybe I just really really needed a drink right then, or maybe I needed my mum to pick me up off the floor and hold me and make me some comfort food- or- something- and then everything would be okay except I just shouted at her about how I didn’t want her interfering with my life anymore and she ran away sobbing and shut herself in her room and suddenly I was way out of my depth and this wasn’t just something I could fix with a bottle of Jack Daniels and playing the same Fleetwood Mac song on repeat and so I threw up for real and it was fucking horrible and my eyes and my throat were sore from crying and heaving and then I fell asleep just inside the bathroom door and it was just like when I would get drunk on the weekends and I’d spend a good 40 minutes vomiting before passing out and in the morning all I would have to do was deal with the hangover with the help of a chip buttie and a lucozade and pretty soon I’d be good as new and ready a second round. I just pretended it was like that. Which is all well and good until you wake up for real and the headache’s still there and there’s still a bad taste in your mouth and you’re confused because you just don’t get why because you haven’t been drinking and then you remember and you wish you had except you are 100% without a doubt stone cold sober and things are still going to shit.

And I wished I could be drunk forever.

Essentially what I’m trying to describe doesn’t actually exist… the feeling is nothing, essentially.

(beat)

We’d had her a year… a year and four months. Sorry. (he looks up) Should I stop?

(beat)

I didn’t eat properly for the next few months.. normally threw whatever I had back up again. I can’t remember anything about the funeral… That’s bad isn’t it? I remember every second leading upto it in agonising detail… but the actual thing? May as well have never happened.. Rosa’s mum read the eulogy… must’ve been some eulogy. (he laughs for the first time)

The feeling is nothing.. I think that’s the best way I can describe it.

October rain is all that I can hear

It beats against the glassy window pane

The silence is the only thing I fear

So while I’m lonely let me keep the rain

It’s always better when I’m here with you

It hits the hardest when I am alone

October ends, November starts a-new

I’ve spent a long year waiting by the phone

And still the rain keeps falling thick and fast

Bemused am I that life will still go on

I can’t fight feeling that you were my last

That numb realisation you are gone

I never guessed this was how it would be

A false tattoo

two pounds in change

a dictionary marked on his favourite page

(myriad, myrrh, myself, mysterious)

a crumpled poster of The Smiths

a box of matches

some fabric patches

a discount card for his local caves

a tiny barbie shoe

(from his daughter, just turned two)

half an invitation to his neighbour’s barbecue

back in 2003…

also 5 paracetamol, a dozen ibruprofen,

tic tacs and a couple nurofen

I remember when you

peeled away the soft plastic

sticky side down on my forearm

I’d known you a week

a bond made over our mutual love of 

false tattoos.

There it was, perfect and complete,

shiny when the light caught it,

damp and new and flawless

like a silent baby

and then it faded

Here I am

here’s that metallic taste

a long plain t-shirt and

lying on my side

inspecting my hands

no-one’s calling or talking or typing or crying or laughing or bitching or singing or watching

we’re all just here

but separate

lying on our sides with our backs to the room

inspecting our fingers and wondering

where the hell everyone is

a strip of grey light

dust

Hands in curled hair pressed to my cheeks

I’ve cried into her curls more times than I 

can remember

sweet smelling and soft,

her hair is my comfort

the bringer of change when she shaved it all off

I remember the unrecognisable difference 

curls all gone, she ran a hand through

her flawless clippered hair as I greeted her

“Hello Sinēad”

With this change brought new change,

hair grows and so does love

and her curls were smaller

darker

then lighter

I slip my hands into them even now

and the calm is back