Gone

“You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you’re going to live. Now.”

Joan Baez

I wonder what I would do if I could choose how to spend my last few hours?  What would any of us choose? 

Grab a cab and head to the wilds of the Jersey coast, feel the sea breeze in your hair… a sandwich and bottle of wine at a beach bar alone… drink, chill, watch the surfers, feel the spray on your skin as the tide races in… no worries, no fears, no plan, no pain… collected hours later as arranged before the sun sets…

Just a short while after she spent three hours doing what she loved best, her home help found she had peacefully died in her wheelchair, the sea salt still in her hair…

Achingly sad…

This has to be one of the most tear-inducing sites I’ve ever seen…

 http://turbulence.org/Works/saddest/

Plodding On

countryside

gradually more hilly

obstinately uncraggy 

A gentle descent

into Warm Springs 

It sounded like such a nice place

to pass away

Catching Up

Life gets faster

Running so quickly

I can’t see where it went

Winter at Camber Sands

Winter at Camber Sands

Originally uploaded by Cantilena.

Melancholy

Caroline dragged the heavy wool blanket further towards her chin, noticing the slight scratch of the material.  What time was it?  It was dark, despite the curtains being open.  The sash cord had broken when she opened the window too enthusiastically a few weeks ago.  Now it was stuck, half open, the wind having blown last Sunday’s newspaper into separate leaves all over the floor.  The window rattled, irritating her.  Caroline pushed the black hair away from her eyes and peered at the luminous green numbers on the video recorder.  2:07 am.  Good.  That meant it was still last night and not tomorrow yet; she could legitimately have another glass of wine.  She sighed, noticing the Merlot stain on the arm of the saggy, cream chair.   

The television was on in the kitchen.  She liked leaving something on in every room.  It didn’t make her feel less lonely, quite the opposite.  It compounded her knowledge that there was life going on around her; she just didn’t want to be a part of it.  The wine bottle was empty so she filled up the wine glass with whiskey.  Back in the sitting room, she pressed the ‘play and repeat’ buttons on the CD player.  Tom Waits.  How many times had she listened to this CD?  She rested the glass on top of the red wine stain, twisting the platinum wedding ring around on her finger.  She supposed she should stop wearing it.  It had become too loose anyway over the last few weeks.  She hadn’t noticed losing weight.  Wearing her pyjamas with an oversized fleece, she couldn’t remember when she had last got dressed.    ‘Ice Cream Man’ was far too cheery but lasted just a few minutes before it slid into a tinkling, simple tune that reminded her of her old jewellery box, the perfect but hard ballerina who turned without expression until the music stopped.   

Caroline let the music wash over her, closing her eyes and ignoring her hideously chipped aubergine nail varnish as she hung grimly onto the glass.  She had let her grey hairs show for the first time in years too.  She loathed whiskey but gulped it down. 

The honky tonk piano sneaked into her dream.  She was in ballet class, alone except for the old lady who used to knit in between playing the music on the rickety upright that echoed tunelessly around the draughty church hall.   

The sky was glowing indigo when Caroline next opened her eyes.  As she hadn’t technically been to bed, it seemed reasonable to have another drink.  She watched the sky change colour, unable to tell when it had finished getting light, no definable start to the day.  Caroline considered going into the garden to sit with the pale moon, still hanging in the sky.  The stripped wood of the floor felt forgiving through her socks as she got up to go to bed.  The television mumbled on in the kitchen.

Homemade Happiness

Hard-wearing but colourful

skin stretched over slender frame 

Long string tangled

it flies ever higher 

Soaring, wheeling, diving

Inevitably a crash.

Dirty and broken 

Something so easy, so free

will always depend on the weather. 

Unrequited

I think of you the moment I awake

despite my pact that I would not relent.

My mind misleads, pretends I smell your scent

which makes my stomach churn, all senses ache.

Your plain dark looks, a drug I can’t forsake

gives bittersweet and silky smooth descent

into a decadent, luxurious torment.

I hate the way you linger at my hips

once you’re devoured.  Not just a greedy fling,

I can’t give up my aphrodisiac.

Ashamed when caught, your taste stays on my lips

but diet books have taught me one sad thing:

‘chocolate cannot ever love you back’. 

Ticking Away

Ticking Away

Crumbling church, perched high above the village

guards heartfelt thoughts on lichen-rich headstones.

Dark stubbled boundaries, sheep in grey bloomers

match steely sky; late, pale moon hanging high.

Woodpecker’s staccato percussion breaks

the stillness of this silent symphony.

Footpaths lead through green-hued rainbow fields,

entice from real but stilted clockwork life.

An unrecognisable silhouette

hears nothing. Punctuated by gunshot.

Warm breath coming faster, I check my watch.

This timelessness cannot last forever.

Drifting

I’m sitting here.  Not doing anything else, particularly, just sitting.  Just in that sort of mood when nothing makes me happy; in fact, nothing makes me anything.  I walked the dog thinking it would lift me out of this drifting state; that I would be able to focus, think clearly about everything.  But I can’t.  So, I’m just sitting here, waiting for something to happen.  Anything.  The perfume of wild, wilting flowers mixes exotically with the tobacco smell of the strong coffee in the tired mug next to me.  It’s so quiet, the distant hum of traffic reminding me of the world going on without me… the smell of a barbecue compounds this.  I imagine the family I can’t see or hear, laughing, eating before the children are tired.  But I am alone.  I need a sign.  I never see any fish in this river.  If I see one now, I know that things will be ok – better than ok, perhaps.  Are you supposed to be more positive about signs?  I watch the fluorescent green weeds weave in the current, thriving despite their lack of oxygen, hearing the shallow water whisper over the stones.  I’ve been reading these hippy books, how you can tell what’s going on in your life by recognising the ‘signposts’ and quite like the idea… it’s more open to ambiguity than horoscopes at least.  Easier to make what you see fit what you want to believe.  I feel misplaced in my own world, waiting for outside forces to convey what I’m thinking, feeling… make it seem real to me. 

The evening sun begins to disappear.  The asthmatic sigh of a hot air balloon draws my attention to the floating Christmas bauble; a special treat for someone as I sit here alone, envying them.  Is this my sign?