Why Does It Matter?

Nobby expressed fear for the future.  He was usually so calm.  He told me of a dream he’d had.  It was a quiet sunny day and he was standing at the top of a hill.  He could see his comrades from his Commando Unit.  An officer approached him and told Nobby that he must leave me and join them.  He walled down the hill towards them and then he woke up.

I had the freakiest delusions. There was one in which I’d be sitting in a lecture and I’d feel as if my limbs were about to drop off – one by one. Then there was this other one which involved being on the underside of the world and about to fall off – I had to cling to the floor.

i went to a blog
of someone i know fairly well
and i wasn’t on their list
feel like tearing my own throat out.

I took 90 zopiclone today and I am still here. Am I invincible?

Borderline…

MY History

You know little about me.  I embarked upon my career as a mentalist when I was but a bonny little lass.  I was always a ‘bit weird’.  My mother says I always had a ‘best friend’ but would be jealous when they were friends with others.  Borderline traits anyone?  Fear of abandonment?  I’d better not show this to any passing psychiatrists or it would be diagnonsense changes at dawn.  Well, let them try it.  Bring it on.

Oh, and Madonna, was there something you were trying to tell us….(Get a Crack Team of Shrinks out there Immediately.)

CHORUS:
Borderline … feels like I’m goin’ to lose my mind
You just keep on pushin’ my love over the borderline
Borderline … feels like I’m goin’ to lose my mind
You just keep on pushin’ my love over the borderline (borderline)
Keep on pushin’ me, baby
Don’t you know you drive me crazy
You just keep on pushin’ my love over the borderline.

Tales from the Asylum : Beginning at the End

Me In the Third Person – Part One of a Series

Loss of control was an almost desirable condition.  The lack of self-determination imposed upon her by the psychiatric ward was accompanied by a sense of isolation that was only mitigated by the presence of Aurora.  They walked from madness to reality.  She had succumbed to their demands.  She had given up all hope of a cure.  She was the queen, tall as a nodding sunflower amonst daisies.

She was pure again.  All sins forgiven and forgotten.  She arranged her belongings in rows.  This was, they assured her, psychological well-being.  She immersed herself in the ritualistic nature of life on the ward.  Her vision was exernally focused and her internal life suppressed.  She was a good girl now, meek as a small white mouse nestled in somebody’s hand.  Easily manipulated.

This was her psychological rehabilitation.  She had escaped and now they were in the process of recapturing her.  Slowly, surely, they were reeling her in.

Her obsessive-compulsive rituals, interspersed with all too brief snatches of sleep.  They were a series of small defence mechanisms, shielding her from  the world.

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Someone Just Like Me

When I enter Alice James’s house I feel like I have left the world behind.  Alice herself is all big eyes and pale skin but although she is severely malnourished anorexia is a secondary condition.  Her primary diagnosis is agoraphobia.  She cannot leave the house.  Unlike many agoraphobic she has help.  Her family and friends do what they can but, as Alice says, they have lives too.’

‘I can’t expect them to act as slaves to me.  There’s a limit to what they can do.  There’s a limit to what anyone can do.’

‘I feel as though I’ve resigned from the world.  This is my world now and I don’t dare venture beyond these four walls.

It is a bleak and lonely existence and I see myself in it.

She rarely leaves the house and even then she cannot do it alone.  When she does leave the house alone she takes taxis.  ‘Buses and trains terrify me.  All those people.’

I am not far from that myself.  I am afraid for my own future.

Tomorrow You Go Off to War

You are off to the war tomorrow
You do not seem unduly concerned
Me, I see the drama in everything
If we didn’t seek conflict
We’d never have survived
If we didn’t seek elation
We’d never have arrived
There’d be no Shakespeare
No Sophocles, Aristotle or Homer
No missiles pointing at the sky

But I do not say these things to you
I keep them to myself
For tomorrow you are off to war

Skating down the river
Arm in arm, feeding
Off one another’s warmth
Carving patterns in the ice
‘We must cherish every sensation’
I say as I hear the icicles
Crackling deep inside me
I see a bright red scarf
Draped across the snow
It crosses my mind briefly
That soon that might just be you

But I do not say these things to you
I keep them to myself
For tomorrow you are off to war.

Dancing across a polished floor
The Waltz, the Tango, the Foxtrot
Gracefully encircling other couples
Like so many chess pieces
We cling to one another
So tightly, treasuring every step
And I find myself wondering
If he’d be like this
Performing his elegant manoeuvres in the sky
While great cities burn beneath him

But these thoughts remain unspoken
We are having fun
And tomorrow you go off to war

Dining in some dark corner
Of some sophisticated restaurant
Conserving our words, lost
In some private world
And all around other couples dine
A smattering of miniature worlds
‘Is he going? Is he going too?’
‘Yes,’ you whisper back
And I wonder how many will return

But I cannot say anything
It is getting late
And tomorrow you are off to war

Sunrise sees us in your bedroom
We smoke expensive French cigarettes
We stare up at the ceiling
And count the cracks in the plaster
Then we rise, dress, kiss
Visions of last night
Invade my mind
And I stare at him
Hating him for a moment
Wishing him dead

But I bite down on my lip and say nothing
He might die, after all
For today he is off to war

Peace in Our Skies

I bought a black dress from Topshop – size 12. (their sizes are a bit weird). Long, flowing, layered. As soon as I got home Ginger the Cat jumped into my lap and I now have ginger fur all over my lovely new dress. I got around to registering to vote so I won’t be one of the disenfranchised on May 6.

No drugs from Hong Kong, no zopiclone, because of the flight ban. Nature, it seems, is more powerful than any corporation, government or world statesman. It is asserting itself forcefully, dramatically and loudly. My brother, his partner and their new baby daughter live near Birmingham airport so they are enjoying this brief respite from the usually incessant engine noise. Here, in Cambridgeshire, on the airbases, the Americans are also grounded so there is peace in our skies too.

On the Edge of the Shore

the promenade on the edge of the shore
painting the glaring lights of the all night restaurants
pyramids cakes were mountains to climb
that blueberry cheesecake was her voodoo
the rain sizzles in the gutter where old men sleep

Words of remembrance. Feelings banished
a higher threshold of feeling intimacy
Sleep naked, deep valleys, I remember
the ten commandments, folding inside me
caress my forehead for I will return on
The day of resurrection

Wedged in sideways, all slimey
the pale face, a diamond facade
vulgar and garish they may well be
But this is my shrine, the world whitened
after the final blow. I harbour no grudge

I am a crystal paperweight but I will
Always know more than you ever will
smug, self-contained most unbecoming
paw print in the snow, in the salty water
defend the tree from which I was hewn
For she was my mother.

Tiptoeing Across A Minefield

It has been suggested that I go back into therapy.

But there is always danger in peering into the past. It is like tiptoeing across a minefield, seeking out traumatic memories, leaping over the cracks in the landscape. It is like a room, pure and pristine but if you look too carefully with a harsh and unforgiving eye you would see the cobwebs in the corners, the layer of dust on the bureau, the cat hairs littering the carpet. Lift your head, sniff the air and that scent of apple blossom inevitably degenerates into the sickly-sweet stench of decay.

Demonic Possession

Am I possessed? There is a voice in my head saying, ‘You are of no use to anyone. End it now and then you won’t be a burden to decent people. Finish it. Avoid further pain. You’re not supposed to be here. You don’t belong here. An angel made a clerical error.’ There is a sharp, physical pain lodged in my chest, a large heavy stone weighing me down. Some demon has taken up residence inside me. Do I need a psychiatrist or an exorcist? My own mind is torturing me. And I am terrified, paralysed by uncertainty. The world looks like a cold, dark, hostile place. And no one can help me. I am isolated. And there is a word that keeps inserting itself into my thoughts. That word is ‘abomination’.