Black Boxes. Caroline Smailes

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СКАЧАТЬ you'd hold my hand.

      And we'd walk in silence.

      Words didn't carry meaning for you.

       ~How many hours did we spend together?~

       ~How many hours passed in silence?~

      And I always preferred your place to mine.

      You lived alone.

      You preferred it that way.

      You liked your own space.

      One room—bedroom/lounge/kitchen.

      And then a door to your grubby toilet.

      Your furniture was shabby.

      Your toilet was always grubby.

       ~No it was filthy!~

      But in the corner, just beside the sunken brown armchair.

      Your guitar rested against the wall.

      But the guitar would wait, as you mixed, rolled and twisted the end of your joint.

      Then you'd balance the smooth roll of paper onto your lip and you'd strum.

      And you'd sing your sad sad songs.

      And the lyrics wouldn't connect with me and with us.

      They were of places and experiences that we'd never shared.

      But I wanted to recognise myself within your words.

      I wanted to hear you recount experiences that we'd shared.

      To be singing about a depth of emotion that you had suffered because of me.

      And that's why I kept coming back.

       ~You didn't realise did you?~

      I wanted to make you feel something in the hope that you would commemorate me in your words.

      Like you had for the Indian Girl.

      That you would give me a purpose in being.

      Because you stirred me when you sang and you strummed.

      You turned something on within me.

      You made me want the performer in you.

      And I'd wish that you'd sing and strum something that would make my insides explode.

      A song to communicate the words that you never spoke to me.

      [sound: humming of an unrecognisable tune]

      That was before we ever kissed.

      I used to think that first kiss was an afterthought.

      A something that you never really meant to happen.

      That we'd travelled as far as our friendship could go.

      And that the only possible next step was a kiss.

      A kiss that should never have been.

      [five second silence]

      But it did.

      And we did.

      And then Pip did.

      And once when I questioned why you sang such sad sad songs about places and times and happenings that I never understood.

      You said, I sing them because I like them.

      And that, the words don't matter.

      That, it's about the way things join together.

       How they loop.

       How the syllables become beats.

       How the beats have to fit.

      It was a timing thing with you.

      It was a red thing with me.

      The view from here is red.

      [sound: humming of same now vaguely recognisable tune]

      I had short hair when we met.

       ~Do you remember?~

      I spiked it with cheap gel.

      That was then.

      Now my hair grows long.

      If you call out at my window, I will let my hair fall down to you.

      I must remember to blink.

      My eyes are dry as I stare out of my window.

      Red eyes.

      I want to dip my fingernails into my eyes and I want to scratch and scratch and scratch my itch.

      But I don't.

      But I can't.

      [sound: fingertips tapping surface]

      A memory may flake off and stick under my nail.

      And I won't be able to put it back into my eye.

      And then I will forget.

      And I can't let that happen.

      My memories are all that I have.

      [sound: sobbing]

      So I look out of my window.

      [ten second silence]

      And I look onto the sand and I don't blink.

      And if I stare and stare and stare through the pain.

      Then I can see our names.

      I see.

      ALEX+ANA.

      Then I lie flat.

      [sound: a body flopping back onto bed]

      My back stuck to my red duvet.

      My arms and legs a perfectly straight X.

      I open myself.

      I open all of myself.

      Waiting for you to re-enter into my picture.

      I СКАЧАТЬ