Next Of Kin
Entry by: jaguar
17th September 2015
Closest
Thing to comfort I have ever known. The warmth of your body like a beacon flashing high above the gnarled rocks, the hand-off, the fear. You and your deep chest harbouring hope that you might be my sanctuary, my safe place. When I looked in the mirror of your eyes and saw you knew me, recognised all that I was and might suddenly become. Yet you did not judge.
Is there no way back to you? I have only just realised what I threw away, what was in the wrapping of the thing I thought myself finished with, consumed. I have realised I’m an idiot but someone somewhere still thinks I am your next of kin. They are trying to reach me, to tell me something about you I don’t want to hear. As long as I don’t connect with them I can believe you’re still out there, somehow reachable again.
Living
Because we’re all Kings of our own rubbish tips, throwing ourselves away on hard won minutes to grasp the shiny things that build the pile that raises us higher above the green, the earth, our souls. So now we look down wanting to reclaim that sense of hands in soil, of scooping clean water, of feeling engaged when it rains or blows. We look down and see that trash has buried what we want most and the minutes are all scorched and used, shed ,like skin cells. Suddenly there’s no one beside me, way up here, they have drowned in their flimsy boats, stabbed themselves on fences, trying to climb on to my pile of gleaming trash.
Relative
I was no worse than the rest. I did no one appalling thing to one victim. I turned my head away, I averted my eyes, I refused to sense the truth in what I saw. But so did they, all those faceless, heartless others. I am not the worst of them. I could never be the best, they slip away so soon, nothing sorted for themselves. Or could I?
Today I am going to walk down the path I can see emerging. I am going to call the number that distantly asks to speak to me urgently. I am going to collect the more useful items from my trash pile – the cartoned drinks, salt, rice, tinned goods. I will hand them to those that survive through the stabbing wire. I will find out if my loss is permanent.
Thing to comfort I have ever known. The warmth of your body like a beacon flashing high above the gnarled rocks, the hand-off, the fear. You and your deep chest harbouring hope that you might be my sanctuary, my safe place. When I looked in the mirror of your eyes and saw you knew me, recognised all that I was and might suddenly become. Yet you did not judge.
Is there no way back to you? I have only just realised what I threw away, what was in the wrapping of the thing I thought myself finished with, consumed. I have realised I’m an idiot but someone somewhere still thinks I am your next of kin. They are trying to reach me, to tell me something about you I don’t want to hear. As long as I don’t connect with them I can believe you’re still out there, somehow reachable again.
Living
Because we’re all Kings of our own rubbish tips, throwing ourselves away on hard won minutes to grasp the shiny things that build the pile that raises us higher above the green, the earth, our souls. So now we look down wanting to reclaim that sense of hands in soil, of scooping clean water, of feeling engaged when it rains or blows. We look down and see that trash has buried what we want most and the minutes are all scorched and used, shed ,like skin cells. Suddenly there’s no one beside me, way up here, they have drowned in their flimsy boats, stabbed themselves on fences, trying to climb on to my pile of gleaming trash.
Relative
I was no worse than the rest. I did no one appalling thing to one victim. I turned my head away, I averted my eyes, I refused to sense the truth in what I saw. But so did they, all those faceless, heartless others. I am not the worst of them. I could never be the best, they slip away so soon, nothing sorted for themselves. Or could I?
Today I am going to walk down the path I can see emerging. I am going to call the number that distantly asks to speak to me urgently. I am going to collect the more useful items from my trash pile – the cartoned drinks, salt, rice, tinned goods. I will hand them to those that survive through the stabbing wire. I will find out if my loss is permanent.
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