They Live Here

They live here.  In my head.  Disembodied voices.  And nothing can stop them.  Nothing works any more.  Nothing blocks them out.  The defence shield has dissolved.

Purchased a book for Nobby by Lord Baden  Powell, entitled ‘Roving to Success’.  He said it helped him through some of the most difficult times in his life.  I gather it is a kind of self help manuel.  I could do with one of those.  Or maybe I’ve damaged myself beyond repair.  Anything to stem the tide.

I am afraid that Nobby and I have become too mutually dependent.  I find myself wondering if he is as afraid of losing me as I am afraid of losing him.   I don’t think I can live in a world in which he does not exist. He is frail and his hands are shaking.  He tries to hide it from me but I can still see.  Kathy, his neighbour, an Irish woman in her fifties took me aside and said, ‘Have you noticed how frail Nobby is becoming?’  Noticed?  I’ve noticed little else.  ‘You need to prepare for…’  she stumbled over her words so I put her out of her misery, ‘….his departure from the planet.  Well, if he goes then I’m accompanying him.’

‘No, no,’ she clasped both my hands in hers.  ‘He wouldn’t want that.’

And I knew she was right.

Irreproachable Afternoon

On this irreproachable afternoon
Sunlight brings sleep
Eyelashes rest on cheek bones
and for a moment I do not weep
Though the china doll still lies
Broken on the floor.

Sensation suspended
A moment of muted
Awareness passes
In which I forget
that I too have fallen,
shrivelling up ceaselessly

After half a century,
pendulous and swaying
While she springs
from humble beginnings
Fresh, pink, sandblasted.
Like something newborn