Free

I think I can remember

though it seems so long ago

like a story I once imagined

a dream that blurs the edges of you and me.

I remember when all was still waters, green pastures

when my soul sang and needed no restoration

when all before me was ready prepared.

A deluxe ready meal from heaven.

I remember you beside me

as certain of your presence

as I was certain of your goodness

your continued goodness; always.

I think I can remember

though it seems so long ago

like a story I once imagined

before the curtain closed and darkness fell,

And I came to the end of me,

to the end of the world entire,

when all the goodness was gone

and all was upside down and darkness.

And thirst.

Horrible thirst.

That held me down and used me up

when all I could whisper was one thing

just one thing.

Where are you?

And all I heard was silence.

You were gone,

and I was going too, melting and hardening

my heart turned to wax inside me

disappearing inside me,

it ran out of me

down my face

down my arms

out and down.

Pooling beneath me, empty now,

then, hardening in the wrong places

hemming me in

freezing me where I stood.

Alone.

Totally alone.

Forsaken, to use a word you’d know.

And still thirsty.

And mad.

So mad.

Unheard and paralysed, now abandoned?

Where are you? I said again

but instead of a plea, it was a challenge.

Where are you?

Where are you?

Where are you?

I shouted, raising my voice,

A final time in angry desperation.

Then I heard four words

Just four words.

Tell me, and drink.

I was silent, my voice dried up

my eyes watching for a trick.

Tell me, and drink.

So I spoke,

and there was no filter, no pre approved language

I spoke and it poured from me

And onto him.

My toes began to twitch,

My legs moved inside their waxy prison.

It cracked and I felt a beat

It came from inside me

The beat of a heart that was not lost but found

Somehow.

Still I spoke, the words kept pouring

and with each fear, each pain, each tear

My thirst lessened, the darkness rolled away.

My soul began to bloom

Like a garden in spring that sneaks up when your back is turned.

This can’t be me, I think

The pain, not gone, but used

Instead of a dark cave

I find myself at the edge of a new world.

The cave at my back

I start out across this new landscape.

Past waterfalls, through valleys

And up, onto the ridges.

I turn and look,

The cave is not gone, but smaller

A geographical feature but only

One part of this great, big world.

Where are you? I whisper

Looking down from the mountaintop

A hand on my shoulder, scarred and worn,

I turn and see

Your feet, your face, your mouth, your eyes

Looking at me, only at me.

I drink you in, rest my head on your chest

Fall to my knees and cry and laugh and smile.

My thirst is gone.

For you are here.

Holding my soul in nail scarred hands.

Always, to the very end of the age.

Gillian Fox 2/4/2019

Keys

Keys

 

Assess the danger

a shorter walk past the trees

or the longer, safer route?

The main road, well lit

passing traffic

but

passing traffic.

A threat, or salvation, or nothing at all, just

more of the same, doors locked at the lights.

Good.

Exactly like their Dad taught them.

 

They say not to walk alone

but I’m on the late shift

drive then

but I can’t afford the lessons

never mind a car.

I have my keys though.

The magic weapon

plunge them into the weak spots.

Groin

eyes

nose.

He can press over two hundred

he could have a knife

he can be on you before you can see him

 

but it’s ok

I have my keys.

 

I have a rape alarm too

it sounds like every other city noise

the ones we ignore

the background

that symphony of modern life that sends babies to sleep

and reminds me in my restless state

that I am not the only one awake.

It went off accidentally in the library once,

people just kept working, lightly laughing after I wrestled

the pin back in beside the journals.

 

I love to walk,

I’d run too, through the park the setting sun

dappling my skin through the trees

leaving the gates sweaty and breathless

casting my eyes upwards to search for Venus.

But I can’t run alone, not now, not there

not since that twilight moment by the canal.

There were three and there was me

maybe none of them had sisters

girlfriends

wives

or Mothers

maybe they were newly sprung from arrogance

and fear there, on that canal path

or maybe not.

 

I did not have my keys.

This was my mistake.

But it is so hard to run with keys,

encumbered

when all I want is to be free.

 

To run in the park

to walk in the dark

to take a shortcut after a late shift

when the rain is pooling in my less than sturdy shoes

to not clutch my keys in my tight fist and pray to go

unnoticed.

 

I thought for a moment the story had changed

but the me too became lost in politics

her story became his

the people disappeared and we became sides.

Divided.

 

I’m a threat to masculinity

I’m damaging my husband and my son with my feminist narrative.

I’m a dangerous extremist

but I just wanted to run.

To walk in the dark.

To live free.

 

Now together we paint freedom

we hope for more

and we create it minute by minute

hour by hour

day by day.

 

We turn keys in doorways and leave the doors wide open

we discover secret ballrooms

walled gardens

and starlit parks.

We give our keys away

making room for more

 

for him

 

and for her.

 

 

 

Gillian Fox – March 2019

 

 

 

We speak in silence

We speak in silence

The wall is up before me,

so close I can touch my nose against it.

It wobbles, swaying like an insubstantial mist.

I move closer, pushing my head into it,

no, not insubstantial, thick like oil, dense and heavy like all I do not say.

“Are you alright?” I hear the question repeated.

I nod.

I live, I breathe, I squeeze hands and smile.

I can still smile.

The roof protects me from the rain.

I have blankets and penguins and Netflix and love.

So much love.

But my eyes throb, heavy with the expectation of strength.

In my weakness

In my weakness

my weakness, my frailty, my throbbing eyes.

He is strong?

Or is he gone? Long gone like all I thought I knew.

My fingernails are gone, bitten off in failed attempts to calm my racing heart.

It thuds within me, racing, lurching, is it trying to outrun me?

Did it leave me that day in Sainsbury’s car park?

Or did it leave me before then?

Is it decaying in the lost corner of the porch, where I forgot to pick it up,

when it took me over an hour to pick up myself.

Did I leave it there?

Amidst the scooters and walking boots, the discarded joy of life.

“Are you alright?”

All of me screams No.

I am wrecked, my soul is ruined, life is too big, too violent, too much.

I remain silent, desperate to talk, unable to speak through the wall of oil.

I speak in silence, wordlessly hoping for a translator,

for anyone who speaks the silent language.

You knock at the door, as I cower beneath blankets of fleece and isolation.

You bring tea and penguins.

You bring bread and warm hands.

You bring me a lost package, bloodied but beating.

You cradle it gently in your hands, my lost heart.

You had kept it safe for me.

We speak in silence.

A language of hands held and tears wiped.

Of big skies and muddy boots.

We speak in silence and write symphonies of hope,

descants of delight,

underscored by understanding.

We speak in silence.

And my heart beats on, a flicker in the dark.

Gillian Fox December 2018