Things that don't suck

Doorsteps. Windows. Balconies. Bare feet. Feet on wood floor, feet on grass, feet on sand. Zu viele Bäume zu zählen. Hängematte. Langsam gehen. Rennen, so schnell wie ich kann. Waiting. Red lights. Green lights. Gemischte signale. Nicht genau wissen, was du willst. Pepper mills. Packing. Unpacking. Making an old home new. Making homes of bodies. Haut. Old scars. Haare. Die eigene Haare schneiden. Nakt schlafen. Zufälle. Zu Hause alleine tanzen. Seeing you dancing. Land so flat the sky pulls me miles away. Long breakfasts. Broad shoulders. Friends on my sofa. Mit dir auf der friends-Ebene bleiben. Streaks of rain falling in the distance. Listening. Croissant. Croissant dipped in coffee. Biscuits dipped in tea. Waking up. Waking up alone. Waking up alone after dreaming I wasn't. Überhaupt träumen. Haut. Hände. Hemden. Loose collars. The space between your neck, your shoulder, your collarbone. Grenzen. Singend fahrradfahren. Making a mess. Words. The sound of your voice, whatever the words. Comfortable silences. Leaves on trees. Leaves on the ground. Leaving someone I love. Blossom. Soil between my fingers. Wind on my face at the sea. Warmth on my back. Air on my legs. My parents. When you're talking about something you really care about. Touch. Coffee cups. Sun beams splitting the air. High fives. Telling friends how much I appreciate them. Telling siblings I love them. Peanut butter. Underpants. Spontaneous gifts. Seeing you laughing. Waves crashing on rocks. Holes in my pockets. Clouds, sweeping, rolling, drifting, feathering. All my little hopes and fears. Mountains that can be climbed. Mountains that can't. Abstand. Nähe. Doorsteps. Windows.

seven sins

they say there's seven sins, but i lost count:
sins soak into my skin and spill out through my mouth,
drip into my saliva, and trickle down my throat,
filling every last inch of me up until i choke.
like tar in the air, blistering my lungs,
clogging up my arteries til i can't run, or even walk anymore,
just sit down and stare, and shake my head at all we've done.

see, we've been here before; we never really left.
humans and war, forever best friends,
destined to stick right together til the end,
walking the earth, hand in hand.
so hold my hand tight, sink down to your knees,
and bury your head in the sand with me.
they say there's seven sins, but i lost count.

see, you and me are different; that'll never change.
the problem's your religion - our god ain't the same.
the problem's in your pigment - our skin doesn't match.
the problem's in your short skirt, that begged me to snatch
at whatever i could get even though you said no.
the problem with equality is: everybody knows that
you and me are different, and i'm gonna show you
that my way is better, that you are below me,
my people are stronger, we're the ones who belong here,
my words are the bombs here, so watch as they fall down,
and bury us in endlessly repeating history.

they say there's seven sins, but i lost count.
as i walk the streets, sins lying all around,
like fallen leaves, cushioning my feet,
softly beckoning me to sleep:
"come, lay your head down, now, close your eyes.
forget what you saw, go back to your life.
coffee, bar, romance, clothes: sleep tight.
yeah, you and your friends are gonna be alright."

but we've been here before; we never really left.
always building walls up to protect us,
walls around only the ones we select,
walls that keep our hearts bereft
of empathy for the ones we're not,
for the ones who weren't born with our lot.
and we tell ourselves that they didn't earn it,
that it's their fault, and we turn.

cos you and me are different; don't tell me we're not.
there's no room here for immigrants - we're full right up.
we're too busy consuming, consume, don't stop
to think about who made it all, and what they got paid,
and how much oil and coal were burnt on the way,
and the countries that they're from, and the part we played
in centuries past, to make it this way.
they say there's seven sins...

yeah you and me are different; don't tell me we're not.
the problem's who you're sleeping with - see, sex has got to be
a man with a women, and while we're on the point,
you're the sex that you're born with; you've got no choice.
your body should conform, and so should your voice,
your size, your shape, your ability.
the problem with you is, you're different from me.

they say there's seven sins, but all i wanna count
is the small things i can do something about,
and the people that i love, who are different from me,
and the people they love, who i ain't never seen.
and i'll keep my eyes open to the shitstorm around,
but somehow i can't let it hold me down.
y'see, we've been here before, but there's cracks in these walls
that i can reach my fingers through,
there's still a chance to connect beyond the individual,
it's a myth that we are separate; their pain is yours too.
so don't just sit there and stare, don't bury your head,
don't close your eyes and sleep, don't turn away.
their difference is just a chance for you to learn.
their difference
is just a chance
for you to learn.

worlds spin

it was just a coincidence that we met that day.
two points in one time, two times in space.
worlds spin towards each other, and spin away.
and as you spin and turn,
shadows creep over the contours of your skin,
shadows that leave no trace at all of those moments,
where such strong light seemed to shine
on what i thought i saw,
but almost so much light as to blind,
before each time you spin away.

and slowly my gravity distorts,
axis spins, quivers and shifts,
and i did not choose this but can't resist
the pull towards,
that twists my orbit a bit
too much,
chasing the fading light behind
curves of absence,
not really wanting but unable to stop,
as if my spin isn't stable enough,
pulled in like towards a small black hole
to plummet and drag in
everything else that matters,
all matter sucked in,
indiscriminately,
until i know i can't see you anymore down here,
can't see anyone else,
can only see what i think you must be,
how you must fit exactly to me,
fill up my shadows
with something that will finally hold me in place,
like gravity given a slap in the face.

and i know this spin isn't good for me.
worlds spin together, and spin away.
i think i can't see you for a few days.

the days go by,
and the shadows fade,
and the gravitational pull
slips away.
this is not
an orbit
around you;
it's just a beat i'm moving to -
two hands, two feet, two shoulder blades,
two eyes, two knees, two sides of my own symmetry,
one spine running down between,
a clean cut right through my own breadth,
my very own axis, around which i spin,
two halves, planted firmly on the ground,
one rhythm, split to many sounds.
this is not an orbit around you;
it's just a beat i'm moving to.
two worlds spin to their own beats,
but just so happen to chance to meet.
it was just a coincidence that we met that day.
worlds spin together, and spin away.
and i can only see you, if i spin this way.

waiting for / explosion

it must be coming soon.
there's been announcements everywhere, on screens,
and you can read it in people's tight faces,
jerky movements,
   too sharp,
       hands tense,
           eyes checking.
all these people are making you nervous.

you should've stayed at home, inside.
but who knows if that would've been better -
the air thick like honey,
eyes to the window,
ears so compressed by the silence
that you'd have tried to push music inside to cover it up,
but none of it would fit.
and what if you'd get trapped in there?
what if it would hit your building?
no, being inside would be no good.

but being out here isn't so easy either.
anxious bodies, everywhere, moving too quickly.
eyes meet and then flick away.
where are they all going?
your body, charged, but not sure where to move -
over here, follow them, err, no, sit down, stand up, go,
listen:
the explosions are coming.

the explosions are coming.
you don't know what kind, what to expect.
you don't know when, but it must be today.
you don't know where, but not far away.
you don't know how many, but it could be a few.
your body, charged,
ready to flinch, wince, crunch, crouch, crash, shield,
don't
    look
        away.
it could happen
                   any
                     moment.
you know,
     you have to say it at some point.

you know you have to say it,
at some point.
it's been building for weeks,
at first a murky paste stuck to the bottom of your feet,
and then slowly spreading like jelly,
up through your legs, your belly, your chest, your head,
until gradually everything was shaking,
uncertain if would stay together, in one piece.

you know you have to say it,
the truth that crept up through your shoes,
and shook
          right
              through.
you know you have to say it,
and you know what will happen when you do.
you know, the explosions are coming.

aftermath

i cannot speak.
i cannot mouth
                            the words
cannot fit to you now,
or me,
          after
the mean face of sleep,
when a fierce slap of daylight
fights back the echoes of the night.
i cannot rest.
you cannot know,
but when you come in here,
to hear you is to dream,
drums that beat a heart to fright,
the bate to catch a mouth to choke,
to squeeze around a bruised throat,
to tighten breath to stop a chest.
you must go.
i cannot keep it in.
i cannot be
                  where
                            i want to be.
i cannot want you
                            to wear yourself down.
i must wear another face.
you cannot see me
                              like this.
i cannot look at you,
not knowing when the sudden flash of
arms feet flying past too fast
twisting, flaying, body braced, colour streams,
gone.
i cannot feel.
you cannot know
the numbness down here.
i cannot move.
you can.
your little movements, jigsaw fitting
with everyone else's little movements.
i cannot make
                       sense
                                 of you all.
you can make,
you cannot leave me
                                like this.
leave me alone.

beats and feet

the high-pitched drift-haze falls to slumber.
you didn't know you could try so hard so long,
only to find that this was the blunder.
this was the trap that held you snared,
that kept you small and scared
of doing something terribly wrong,
of losing your place in other people's hearts,
as if that's all you centered around,
your own beats made of other hearts' sounds,
your own feet on other people's ground.

you didn't know, but how could you,
when you went through what you went through,
when trying hard was all you knew,
the only way to navigate
the steps and stones, the steeplechase,
where love was both dangerous and safe.

you didn't know that if you stopped,
your beats would grow far up and wide,
would reach through air and ocean's tide,
where waves are only surface breaks
in what the eye can't penetrate,
where skin bleeds into fins and wings
that swoop and soar
without the need for conscious thought,
where feet stretch miles underground,
where a single breath is all you need
to take you back to unity.

you didn't know, and that's okay.
and tomorrow you'll be trying again,
trying to get the buzz, the fix,
of someone else's beats and feet,
and when you do, that's okay too.
remember, it's an old part of you.

the well

Today, i'm going down a well. i just found it, lying there. probably it's been there for quite some time; i mean, i never saw it being dug out, so either it's always been there, or they dug it when i was very small. but i just found it recently.

i'd been rummaging around in the the long grass, you see, busying myself with the brambles and the weeds, tidying, clearing... busy.
i had to come out here, because i just couldn't be in the house anymore.
i don't know exactly what happened, but the walls were suddenly not so comforting: not so much protecting me from the outside, creating a cosy, warm place; but suddenly closing in on me, and getting in the way of my movements. and also, in a certain way, the walls seemed empty. the house seemed empty, unfamiliar, as if i didn't know how i got to be there at all: as if it was someone else's house. so i came out here, and now i'm going to have to go down the well.

to be honest, i'm a bit nervous. i don't know what's down there. i mean, it's been there a long time. and it sounds strange, but it seems to be pulling me in, like when you're a bit afraid of heights, and as you look over the edge of a high place, something seems to draw you down, your mind unstoppably imagining falling, as if, when you wouldn't keep very attentive, you would probably just slide over the edge. that's how it feels like by the well. it sucks me in, and i'm a little dizzy, my head spinning, as if control is slipping away. but i won't jump down. i'm going to climb down slowly.

i've got this rope, you see, which i wove myself, actually. for years, i've been weaving threads. i thought i'd use it for climbing high, up trees, and i did do a bit of that. so, you know, i'm alright at using it: knotting and climbing it. i didn't think i'd use it to go down, though. i'm going to tie it to my favorite tree, there - the huge apple tree, that's been there as long as i can remember - so that it, you know, holds me.

i'm a little nervous in case i can't climb back out again, but i have to go down, now that i've seen it. as preparation, i'm trying to remember the opposites: you know, how movements always contain their opposite, so that a push contains a pull, and the idea of lifting up is contained within the idea of moving down, since all movements come from the inside, rather than the outside. i'm trying to hold on to that idea: to hold on and to let go.

-

I'm part-way down the well, now. it's dark here. really dark. i did bring a little head torch, but it just makes a thin stripe-spot of light. it's dark and i don't know why, but i feel kind-of defenceless, and it's making a small panic prickle across my skin and catch in my throat.
it's dark, and it's very, very quiet, and i don't know why, but it makes me feel very small, as if i need to curl-crouch inside myself, as if there could be nothing else to do.
and, i know i came here myself, but it feels all of a sudden as if someone left me here. i can almost feel their absence, as if they bleed out of the air, drain the warmth of it away from my skin.
it's cold down here.
i know i chose to come down here, but for some reason this feeling of being left alone is making all the energy sink down in a slow collapse: a prickly, panicked collapse.
and, i don't know why, but my skin is becoming paper-thin, vanishing into the dark, empty quietness: no defences. and suddenly, it's as if my chest is too soft and open, as if something is flowing out of me from there, and as if things could too easily come in from the outside. painful things. it's too open. it's not normally like this. it's too soft, and it's spreading, and overwhelming sadness washing all over me, sadness so sharp it cuts from my chest down into my belly, and suddenly i'm crying in the well, unseen tears, that seem to spill out from long ago.

i'm not sure whether to go up or down. i shine my little torch light on the rope, look at the fine, strong threads. they'll hold me here, right? the answer flashes into my mind without any thought: of course they will. i made it well. as conscious thought catches up, i realise i must have some kind of instinctive trust in myself. and this gives me courage.
then i think further up the rope, to the tree and the knot securing it there. will they hold? i go through the actions of the knot in my memory, testing it out. i think of how i learned those knots, and times i've used them before. i think of the tree that i've known so long, how the apples taste, always slightly different each year, it seems. some minutes go by in a dazed swirl of thoughts and memories, until i realise that the soft-pain-fear feeling has gone.
i had thought it away. distracted it. reburied it.

but i came down this well, and the soft-pain-fear was what i met, so i should go on.
i climb down further, looping my feet around the rope. and soon it comes again: panic, defenceless, small, left alone, sad. i don't think this time. i know i have to keep climbing down.
the waves keep coming. sometimes the thoughts jump in and take me away, but always i come back, and keep climbing down.

down, until my feet meet the firm rungs of a ladder. why is there a ladder only half-way down the well?! why was there no ladder before? while my mind twists itself around the new information, my feet settle themselves down, and accept my weight, gladly letting my tired arms-shoulders-back have a rest. the weight through my feet sends a kind of calm through my body, and the panic-alone-pain begins to feel less threatening. the feeling seems to be circling round my body now, a light buzzing just under and just above the skin. it makes me feel bigger, more whole, less defenceless, and less afraid. it makes me feel fuller, and so not so crushed at being alone. and the sadness seems to become a kind of glow.

i continue down the ladder, moving slower, my whole body more at ease now, until, at some point, there is solid ground beneath my feet. i don't know how, but it's dry. i sit down and rest. the darkness holds me in place, presses gently on my edges so that they don't fall out. the quietness pulls my ears far into the space above me, as if i stretch much further than before, beams reaching to, or from, my head. i fall asleep for a little while.

air

Today, i'm the air,
clear and fresh,
empty to your eyes,
but full of particles
that you can't see,
but perhaps that you feel
through my light caress
of your face, your arms, your legs,
as i brush the hairs on your skin,
your outermost edge.

Perhaps i look empty to you,
but consider:
you're sitting, standing
at the bottom of an ocean of me,
held down there only by
the unseen tug of gravity,
and, unseen, my little particles and i
refract the light
that bleeds from the sun,
allowing you those blue hues
that you love,
that close your world in from above.

water

Today, i'm the ocean,
ebbs and flows,
against the shore
of what you know,
but reaching much further away
than your eyes can take,
much deeper than those ripples
and waves that break on the edge
of your little boat,
with unimaginable things
moving in the dark depths
where light can't penetrate.

a thousand lovers

( note: to be read in a broad, yorkshire (northern english) accent )

i've loved you all, she said.
with some of you, i've been to bed;
with others, we barely touched at all,
but those were sometimes more intense,
the way you did enthrall me.
we touched in ways beyond the sense.

i've loved you all, she said:
the days and nights we spent;
or others, just coffee and a stroll,
but oh, how i remember when,
that thing you said, i'll never forget,
and the way you tilted back your head,
that look you'd sometimes give me when,
and how you'd stand, and sit, and then.

i've loved you all, she said.
a thousand lovers strewn across
a life of curiosity,
of learning how you think-feel-see
the world in ways i'd never have known,
if you hadn't come along and shown
the contents of your heart and head,
and all that lies between.

you asked me questions so direct
they shocked me into seeing clear
what was before so out of reach.
you jumped right off your chair that time,
angry, where i couldn't be,
at things that i'd let happen to me,
and finally, i got it.
you taught me how to meditate,
and you, i love your logic.
you taught me how to fantasize,
explore what lies beyond closed eyes.
you taught me vulnerability,
with your insecure, sheer brilliance:
you taught me to unravel a text,
it's layers of significance.

from you, i learned history,
of sufis and prophets: your family.
you showed me the power of tradition,
which you couldn't pass-over so lightly.
you showed me what it is to sense
with such penetrating empathy.
and you, i love your openness
to explore, continually.
in you, i loved your unbound, enthusiastic energy.
and you, i loved how much of you
was hidden from me.
you taught me how to skate and play
creatively with the streets.
you taught me how to dominate you
oh so lustfully.

i've loved you all, she said.
i've been in love so many times,
filled me with fascination,
letting your life brush against mine,
standing, tip-toed on the edge,
leaning as close as i could get,
sparked with inspiration.

i've loved you all, she said.
the days and nights we spent.
something touched between us:
we didn't have to go to bed,
although, sometimes we did.
maybe i wasn't there so long.
maybe you weren't either.

i don't know who i am today,
apart from every one of you.
i don't know who'll be coming next,
but i know i'll give them oh so much,
like i always do.
i'll give them everything of me,
and, i guess, by logical extent: every one of you.
so at least you can relax and know
that they will love you too.

waiting place

this is a place where you can wait.
put down your phone, just put it away.
put out your smoke, you don't need it today.
this is a place where you can wait.
you don't know what for,
of course you don't.
you haven't stopped in weeks or months.
you haven't looked up, you've tumbled and spun,
you know what i mean, that stumbling run from
point to point blank space, always moving on
quick shift to the next face, walking like a car chase,
stop for a minute:
this is a place where you can wait.

this is the time that it takes.
a moment so long you could hold it in your hand,
take it to the river and dream as you stand there,
counting the ripples and shifts in the air.
this is the time that it takes.
you don't know how long,
of course you don't.
this isn't gonna be an instantaneous fix for you,
a quick-step, shuffle-up, shake it and mix it new
no, not this time.
this is the time that it takes.

this is a place where you can wait.
you can stay here, breathe here, face up to your own fear,
you've no fucking clue what's coming round the corner,
you don't know what to do,
there's a brewing storm here,
chaos, unknown, where should you turn?
you've so many questions, you're so confused,
you're lost and it's making you so ashamed,
but this is a time when you will change.
this is a place where you can wait.
stay in this place and it's unclear shapes.
you have to get lost to find your way.

this is the time that it takes.
a moment so fine it could crumble and break
if you take it by the hand,
so handle it with care,
you could take it anywhere,
stop and stare,
count the moving shifts in the air,
listen to the layers of sense unfold,
listen to your heart, its tales untold.
give it some time, the time that it takes.
don't be afraid to stay in this place.
this chaos is your only safe.

this is a place where you can wait.
this is the time that it takes.

neither and both: boyed_girl, girled_boy

i was born into a pattern:
a perfect order
of girl-boy-girl-boy,
all two years apart,
patterns of colours, clothes, talk, and toys,
a neat system of clits and cocks,
spread out between my siblings and i.

/ tell me, do you see my clit? do you see my cock? /

i grew into patterns
of fights, football, bikes and trees,
of primary school boy-gangs and girl-gangs,
of all-year-round shorts and t-shirts,
bare feet on the grass and stones,
and stony silence when there was anger
and violence in the kitchen, on the stairs,
and closing inside to find small spaces of safety,
where there was quiet.

/ tell me, do you hear my quiet? /

i grew into patterns
of girl-boy-girl-boy,
now here, now there,
now short-long hair,
now boy-talk about girls
and menstrual blood and masturbation,
with six-pack competitions and
making fun of each other,
proving our place;
now girl-talk about boys
and bras, shaving and lotion,
me desperately trying to work out their rules,
and taking showers together after high-school sport,
where we all kept our underwear on,
because this was England.

i grew into dancing with my hips
for the constant male gaze,
into skating and breakdance in baggy pants,
taking on the male gaze,
into jumps and splits in a growing maze
of inside-outside, this side, that side,
not sure where i belong,
trying to decide,
and a tendency to drift
into corners and distance
when i wasn't sure.

/ tell me, do you see my gaze? /

i grew into other peoples' patterns,
their rules, their desires, my second guesses,
falling
into their ways
of girl-boy-girl-boy:
now 'masculine' and proud of it,
but not too much, not too butch,
stay soft around the edges;
now 'feminine': just try it on,
this side that's been neglected.
so despite trying to dare, trying not to care,
falling
from one person to another,
never landing in between,
shifting out of myself
to fit something safe,
falling into social patterns
that keep the genders clean.
you see, the idea of rejection or disapproval
still made those small parts of me afraid.

/ but tell me, is falling safe? /

i grew into falling,
until i couldn't stand
the twists and splits in my only me,
couldn't think or feel or breathe:
lost in other people's space.

i grew into my clit-cock-muscles-tits,
my butch-fem, sub-dom,
to and from the other side,
where there is no other, no side,
no pride, no shame,
just a human, being, moving, breathing,
with words on my lips and unsaid,
with short-long hair on my head,
with hair in my pits and on my legs,
with the muscles i always wanted,
arms packed, abs tight,
not trying to be nice,
with my deeper, relaxed voice,
not trying to be liked,
with a wide stance, leaning back as i talk,
and a definite swagger, eyes high as i walk,
without any bra confusing my chest,
with men's underwear and shower gel -
which after all is just a smell -
and with clothing picked from both sides
of your precious gender divide.

/ and you can say: these acts are just surface,
just a redefining of femininity.
and i can say: no; that's not what i mean. /

i grew out of your patterns,
a silent blaze of fuck your rules, i don't want to play.
this girl-boy split doesn't fit my skin,
doesn't fit the subtlety of a human, being,
who isn't a computer code, a set of binaries,
of ones and zeros, zero, one, zero, one, out to infinity. please.
the one is the zero, is neither, and both.
the patterns are see-though and solid, are split and whole.
i know, it might be unsettling for you,
but just drop this he-she shit: you can call me my name.

i'll keep growing, into a human: being, doing, dreaming,
with my own desires, my own calm,
my ideas, perception, imagination,
my own power on my own fucking feet.

/ i tell you, i see your patterns, but don't put them on me. /

voices, circling

so you're here again.
you seem to be here all the time these days,
hovering just out of sight
with your perfect presence,
drawing me out of whatever present moment
i find myself in.
you're here and i wish i could dive into you,
soak into your skin, submerge myself
in your thoughts, your movements,
your words, your pauses, your world.
i wish you'd fall into me,
that i could you suck you in,
drown us both
in a flood of wonder.
-
i don't want any of this,
get out of my head.
i wish i could just exist on my own,
without the nose-dive, arms out, tail high, full flight
into someone else's life.
-
but in the old parts of me that you cover up,
there's a roaring, thunderous gush
of free-floating nothingness,
a deafening, crushing no place in the world to hold onto,
where all my feelings count for shit,
all my ideas cease to exist,
where i'm left alone and small,
curled into a terrified ball,
lest my insides spill outside
and slip through gaps in the air,
and there's no knowing what someone
might do with them there.
-
i want to sink into that loud silence,
to float
on the nothingness,
find myself
new
in every moment,
never holding on,
made only through each act, each word, each touch,
made of endless space and possibility.
and you can't give that to me.
i don't want to need you and your love.
i don't want to dive, to drown,
and then have to explode out later,
when it's suddenly too much to bear.
-
but you're here again.
you seem to be here all the time these days.

Free time

It's a part of the day in which nothing is required.
Nothing needs to be done, nothing is urgent, no one is waiting.
You don't have to be anywhere.
There is no plan, no agenda.
It's free time.
It's quiet.

Somehow the air is even quiet: thick, heavy, still.
The seconds from the clock move loudly through it,
rupturing it with an awkward clunk, over and over,
splitting it for a brief moment before it snaps shut again.
Weighted, expectant spaces hang between the clunks.
It starts to seem as if the spaces between are the loud parts:
the thick, full silence pressing against the ear drums,
closing in, until the tick of the clock bounces it away;
a moment of relief, and then again the silence-pressure.

You screw up your nose, mouth and eyes slightly:
a flinch, a squint, trying to keep the quiet-noise out,
pulling the ear drums back inside,
tilting the head sideways,
trying to find a free slice of air.
Free time.

The heavy, closed air sinks down between all the objects around,
sitting in the gaps, glueing the whole scene together.
Objects, still, no movement.
A drip forms on the mouth of the tap, slowly,
grows, slowly, hangs, too heavy to stay,
falls onto the metal sink: thung/snap.
Silence.

You're sitting still, rigid, but the eyes dart between objects,
fast, searching, checking,
as if they might find a clue there for what should happen now:
what you should do,
some kind of purpose.
Body tense, alert, ready to act.
Eyes checking objects:
coffee machine, handle sticking straight out,
the handle you hook from left to right, firmly,
push at the end, cup underneath, check the water, switch the button.
You don't want coffee.
Washing machine door, slightly ajar, where hands reach in and grab wet clothes,
tumble them out into arms that carry, that hang, that fold.
You already did the washing.
Tap, drip, water.
You're not thirsty. There's nothing to clean.
Cups and plates on the table, teaspoon, wrapper, keys, bottle top,
hints of breakfast earlier, of coming home later.
Vaguely messy, but no point in moving them.
Sideboard, papers that need sorting, but not now.
Fruit bowl, nearly empty. You should buy more. You're not hungry.
Laptop, emails. You've already checked.

Lips pressed together, dissatisfied, frustrated.
Thoughts unformed but cycling in a loop:
this time is not productive,
it needs a purpose,
something you should do,
something you're supposed to achieve,
something you're supposed to want.
You don't know what that is.
There's too much pressure.
This time is not productive,
it needs a purpose, etc.
Heavy silence.

Everywhere the suggestion of activity sits roughly
against the actual stillness,
an uncomfortable friction.
It crawls over your skin, a prickling sensation that notices everything around,
and tries to block it out at the same time.
Eyes checking, ears monitoring, skin crawling,
belly tense, concrete, pushing up into your throat,
no space inside, ready to move.
Quiet.
Unquiet.

So, what are you afraid of?

A friend is explaining to me what she's really afraid of, underneath: the thing that lurks below all the other things and creeps behind your ears when all is quiet. Her deep fear, she tells me, is of becoming insane. This woman is extremely, extremely intelligent, and dearly loves thinking, talking, discussing, arguing, interrogating ideas. It terrifies her to imagine losing her mind. But she also seems fascinated by this realisation. She seems somehow to delight in what she's saying, and as she describes losing all grip on reality she seems to tremble with excitement.

We're in a cafe in Cambridge: the Costa on Sussex Street, where she and her best friend used to have coffee nearly every morning and I often drifted along, not exactly invited, not exactly unwelcome, trying to be part of their conversations. We're sitting halfway down the long side by the window, not in the back corner like usual. Pale cafe latte in tall glass facing black americano in white cup, mine. It's spring, 2009. I remember the conversation that day so clearly, because I had absolutely nothing to say.

I had no idea what she was talking about. I had never thought about fear. I didn't understand her fascinated trembling. My seat started to become somehow uncomfortable, as if something in my legs would really rather get up and leave. My thumbs and second fingers began secretly pressing against each other, as if exactly this pressure was keeping her words in their correct order, as if without it they would become a chaotic mess, their meaning tumbling out from inside the letters. My lips were pressing together too, and my tongue pushed against the back of my throat, closing it off. I put coffee inside to try to loosen the whole thing, but nothing seemed to change. The other people in the cafe were all talking and laughing and the noise was pushing my shoulders together and hacking at my temples. She was still talking, about how for many people this deep fear is of death, but not for her... and what about me, she was asking now: what are you afraid of?

My mind was completely blank. I supposed I probably wasn't afraid of anything. Part of me leaned back in the chair in some kind of satisfied smugness: an almost imperceptible raising of one eyebrow and a mildly amused disdain of fear, as if it was something I was above, didn't bother with. Another part knew this was just a front, and crouched inside the smugness in a tense ball with wide and slightly panicked eyes. I couldn't at all imagine what she meant by fear. What was she talking about? Had I completely missed out on something? Was something happening that I had no idea about? Perhaps there was something entirely unknown lurking around inside of me. My skin started to prickle. Something started slowly twisting into a knot inside my stomach. I scrambled around frantically for things I could say that might at least sound like interesting fears, just to keep the conversation running, but everything was blank. I had no idea what she meant by fear.

The conversation opened up a little crack in the walls of the operating system: a glitch, a bug, a malfunction. SYSTEM FAILURE. It was a complex, expert, highly sophisticated system. Normally it ran perfectly smoothly. It could cope with all manner of situations. I wasn't even supposed to know about the system; that was a crucial part of its operational success. It was supposed to be invisible to conscious thought. But suddenly it had become slightly visible. The system, you see, was designed to block out all direct experience of fear. Not just the deep fears my friend was describing, but all those daily ones that trundle along with us, little packages stored up from the past, seeping into so many daily situations. I may not have known what fear is actually like, but I was terrified by it. It was not on my list of desired experiences, and the system had developed over the years to block it out, deploying a range of strategies that clicked automatically into gear to avoid it at all costs.

In the last few years I've started deliberately inducing system failure. I've been unpicking the system, dismantling it, deconstructing it. And it turns out there was fear everywhere. A whole tide of it, mostly based around fears of intimacy, of rejection, of being abandoned, of other people's anger, of feeling too much of other people's emotions and not being able to separate from them. Those fears turned out to be so deep that they were driving, well, most of my personality and behaviour: the system. It's been a stubborn little fucker to break down. It seems to have multiple back-up options, so that just when it seems as though one part has been kicked out, another, deeper layer pops up. Of course the trick is to identify its different parts, and find ways to do something else instead of them, which of course means going into those fears and allowing them just to sit there, until they stop being so threatening and everything seems okay. Sounds simple, right? Welcome to the rest of my life's work!






So, what are you afraid of?

running

I used to hate it, that kind of longer distance running at a slower speed that so many people do now. My body seemed heavy, slow, dragging. I couldn't see how it could be enjoyable, going on and on and on at a steady pace. I didn't get it.

I was into running fast, in bursts. I played hockey and football, and that's what those sports are made of. Now fast in this direction, after the ball, into that space, chasing that player. Now slow, jogging, walking, standing. Now fast again. Ten metres, twenty metres, five metres, thirty metres: short distances. In the sports I played, this running was about noticing the outside: anticipating what will happen next, sensing people and space and how they are moving together, judging where you need to move next. And it was about changing and adapting: your team is attacking and you need to leg it, full gas up the wing to get there in time, and then switch, suddenly cutting in sideways, darting behind that defender to make yourself free; or you just lost the ball, and have to bring all your glorious running momentum to a brutal stop, let go of the shame of being beaten, and gather up your frustration into tracking the other direction to try to get it back again.
Intensity on / off / on / switch / stop.

This is where I learnt what it means to dig deep, as sport-people call it: to feel completely exhausted and empty, and yet to throw your body again forward, to drive on, to find the speed, the power from somewhere deeper. It means switching a part of your head off: the part that's trying to convince you you're too tired, you can't manage, it's too much. You have to shift it so that all the focus is purely on managing to do what you need to do: just get there. I could do this over and over again, pushing, pushing, recovering in between the bursts and then finding the energy to do another one. There was always some more left to find. I love this cycle. It's at the same time exhausting, energising, exciting and immensely satisfying.

But it was also something else, all of this pushing and bursting. It brought me into a feeling of urgency, emergency. It tapped into the mode of fighting against some deadly threat, as if survival would depend on it: hunted.

I didn't know how to fit this into running long distance. The kind of intensity I drew on in this urgent, survival mode, I couldn't keep for a longer time. So I would go on a long run that was actually just made up of fast sections alternating with slow ones, or I would do a thousand variations on sprint or speed training, intervals, running fast bursts of different lengths. If it wasn't running, it was circuit training or training in the gym. I was forever scheming up new fitness or running drills, bringing the intensity up to full, testing, pushing. I can get very excited about this kind of training. I really do enjoy it.

And still there was always this undercurrent of a hunted animal. It was as though I needed to push myself into this state, finding a point where I couldn't go on and then forcing myself over it, fighting against something. It felt a bit like war. There was a lot of pressure and anxiety inside, which I had no idea how to name, let alone deal with, and which I needed to release it somehow. It was a pretty good strategy. It helped me relax. But it didn't really change anything.

These days, after a lot of work on dealing with those feelings in other ways, I have less of the fight-or-flight thing pumping through my system, and there is less of a need to run. But it's a bit like a drug that I have to be careful with. Sometimes I find myself slipping in the wrong direction, training more again, and getting pulled back into the urgent-hunted feeling afterwards, and not even noticing until the next day. So yeah, if you see me running, maybe just make me stop for a chat.

Rose

I hadn't thought about the heaviness of soil before. It seemed that a big flower pot full of it was more awkward than I had made allowance for when planning to transport a rose to my mother's house. You could tuck it under one arm best, with both hands clasped underneath. I had it in a thick paper bag with cord handles, from a clothes shop, and just a few of the newly-sprouted leaves poked out of the top so that the passers-by on my walk to the train station took a furtive sideways look with an almost imperceptible raising of the head to get a better angle on whatever could be in there.

In a way, I wanted them to realise it was a plant inside. I do sometimes revel in being a little bit unconventional, and carrying a plant pot through the streets was therefore quite appealing. But then, I do also get a bit held back by self-consciousness; I could never be post-conventional. So I suppose I also wanted the plant to be seen because if there wasn't an unusual object inside the bag, then I was carrying it in what was almost certainly a socially abnormal way for no apparent reason. I was making absolutely no use of the handles. In fact, I also carry in this fashion when a bag is heavy on account of being full of books from the University Library, but then the bag is usually made of clear plastic to make sure that we don't try and steal any, which circumvents the visibility problem.

I had set off a little early in order to be able to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee on the station's platform before getting on the train. I'm not sure why the platform was part of the coffee equation rather than my seat on the train, but the contrast between crisp-air-on-cheeks and hot-coffee-on-lips when I did drink seemed to congratulate me on the choice. The other people on my bench were early too, and so we all sat together in silence for about ten minutes, during which time the rush of people crossing in front of us to and from trains seemed like a pressure wave pushing us back into a little corner of intimacy. It seemed a bit like we were having a very personal conversation as we looked out at the people intently from our bench with our hot drinks. They all had the opposite idea about their drinks. They all held them in front of them as they marched ahead, leaning slightly forwards from the waist. I began to suspect the drinks were actually pulling them forwards, what with the way they clutched onto them so tightly, and how they seemed so very serious about their train-catching task. What a disaster it would be if they were to drop it. Undoubtedly they would stand entirely still and look at all the trains in total bemusement. Perhaps then they would notice the bench and decide it would be nice to have a little sit down.

As I put down the rose bag on the third train of my cross-country route, the bag broke. I folded it and placed it on the table top as a mat for the pot so as not to spread the soil everywhere. Now everyone was able to admire the rose, and when finally I arrived, I carried it out in front of me to my mother who was waiting on the platform.

shingle street

The tiny hamlet of Shingle Street was evacuated early in WWII. The sea is five fathoms deep very close to the edge of east Suffolk's shingle desert here. It would have been a great landing place. In fact, rumour had it did make a good landing place in the summer of 1940; a brief and defeated landing where the sea was set ablaze and thousands of burnt German bodies were secretly carted off. Evacuation plans had been made before here too, a hundred and fifty years earlier, when a line of thick-walled gun towers had appeared up and down our east and south coasts. New buildings for new guns joined these Martello towers in WWII, and this time with some further innovations. At the conveniently empty Shingle Street, Barnes Wallis tested his bouncing bomb so successfully that there is now a gap in the line of houses where the Lifeboat Inn used to be. I decided to take a visit.

I'm in no rush to get there. Taking in new Suffolk scenery from the car seems already enough of a treat after weeks in Cambridge, but mostly I want to pretend I'm becoming a Suffolk local by getting there without a map, which I suspect will result in my getting lost. So a rush would be pointless. I follow the signs to Hollesley, the village just before Shingle Street, and Bawdsey, the village after, since Shingle Street is too small to be on any signpost. On the way, a Nissen hut assures me I'm entering the land of WWII defence detritus, but then things start to become confusing.



As I near Hollesley, the signs seem to give options only to different parts of Hollesley Bay prison. I try to follow my nose towards the sea, but keep ending up confronted with 'no entry' commands. Still there is not a peep of Shingle Street. Kafka's Castle floats past my imagination and I wonder if I will make it. But this whole area was strung with road-blocks marking out the off-limits Defence Area in the war. The boundedness of the prison fits right in! I greet the signs with relish, and pull up next to the prison in awe at its size and barbed wire.



Hollesley suddenly releases me and the winding, enclosed, tree-lined roads give way to an expanse of flat land stretching to a strip of yellow ochre and a sail gliding past in the distance. A pillbox peeps out from its camouflage at the side of the road.



At Shingle Street now, I find the single row of houses, fronts to the sea, backs to a narrow road and fields. There is a gap! In fact there are two gaps. Neither of them seem to say very much about their origins. But this shingle seems to stretch for miles, empty except for sea cabbage, and at the end of the row I think I can pick out the hulk of a Martello tower. I want to walk, to the tower and into the emptiness, and the bouncing bomb and Lifeboat Inn slip away.



The Martello is in the grounds of someone's house. A black labrador sitting beneath it silently watches me skirt the fence that keeps me out, and round the other side, a red, curvy children's slide at its base tells me that if I want to play games with imagining myself into an invasion scare, this is not the place. Past it though, I can see three more, each half a mile apart along the gently curving shore. Four towers, all within sight! I hadn't realised they would be quite so close. At the second tower, there seems to be a pillbox perched on top. Spikes jut out from its roof.



Fifty feet away, another pillbox is sunk into the side of a bank, at the start of a procession of anti-tank cubes towards the sea.



The next Martello has a swooping glass addition to its roof, some scaffolding up one side and a jeep outside. What an incredible place to have made a home.
Finally I'm bearing down upon the last tower, and things start to come to a climax. Already my muttered incantation numerating my finds has been fueling my excitement. Two Martellos, two pillboxes... two Martellos, three pillboxes, one line of anti-tank cubes...
The patch of coast where sits the last tower is called East Lane, Bawdsey, and here I find the sea lapping through the openings of a pillbox, a huge concrete gun battery, a tall observation tower and another pillbox, all within a stone's throw of one another. I have been walking in these deserted expansive surroundings under a hot sun and a strong wind for some time now, and all my attention is on my military mission. Behavioural inhibitions have disappeared, and scampering up to, creeping round, peering into, tramping past and making gleeful exclamations at these buildings has become my new normal.



Five pillboxes, four Martellos, one line of anti-tank cubes, one observation post, and one gun battery. This has been a good day.

down and up

In a narrow street in Cambridge there is a hole in the tarmac in the shape of an elongated heart. Around the corner, when the light fades from the sky the sundial high up on the church wall tells the time of the orange lampposts' night. Sometimes I look down and sometimes up.

Recently I have been using my old inline rollerblades to get from A to a range of other letters, and so now the pavement has a new meaning. Now I feel the down. The pavement has more texture than it did when I was just shoe soles and bicycle wheels.

It is incredibly smooth and I weave between the walking people without ever needing air to come between my wheels and the ground, only elements of the figure eight. And then it is slightly less glass-like, it is the sandstone paving stones, and the sound comes out in a strange wavering tone that sounds like ghosts are underneath. But then there are older paving stones with the deep cracks between, and if the weight is too far forwards you will trip, so you must sink back a little. You will never flow here, and the precision of where the next pushing step must fall absorbs everything. At the special paving stones made of little bobbles that tell the pedestrians where they should line up to cross the road, if you hold your wheels in a very straight line for a while you can slip exactly between the bumps that otherwise would judder and jar through your legs and right up your back. Cobbled streets are obviously out of bounds. Then there is the road. Sometimes the road is so rough that the wheels cannot move with any pace and need constant, vigorous encouragement, even though your tremor-ridden legs ache for the glassy surface to come back.

Sometimes I look at my feet and sometimes at the sky. Now I feel with my feet. I want to feel the sky.

Run

Mother moved house. She moved when I wasn't there, but I've seen it now. We had Christmas there last year and that was the point at which it became a family house. We all helped to keep the fire lit, and the complex procedure of Christmas dinner was kept in check by a thorough list detailing the time-before-take-off of each person's part.
Mother's house has hills and woods now. I tried running through them last time I was there. At first there was a stream making enough noise to keep the footfall on leaves into a delicate but slightly frantic pattern. But then there were only woods and fields and all the focus settled on the ups and downs of the hill path so that the head felt it was ploughing through the softly muddy ground. I let the feet tumble down and down till we reached the road. The carving had already been done there. But then there were the lorries passing from behind with their invisible drivers, passing at such regular intermittence that in the quiet spells you could feel in your skin the next one growing in the distance behind until it was big enough to take its place in the air it would push past you.
The next day I ran in the other direction. I ran alongside a canal, and although it didn't have the rush of the stream, its quiet, steady companionship was more than enough. Sometimes the land at the side rose up or fell away, and sometimes a bridge wanted everyone to cross to the other side, but the path and the water stayed at the same level the whole time so that the feet and the eyes could go their separate ways. At times they were miles apart. At a certain point there was a tunnel. It wasn't that anything about the path changed. It was just that the land closed overhead so that the water on the ground glistened black and the thin splashes they made shot back from the roof to accentuate the tentativity of the feet. Once I was through the tunnel there didn't seem to be any point in continuing further so, a little more confidently this time, I plunged back into the darkness and ran home.