Tuesday 30 November 2010

Snow Angels

You say: "Be quiet"
Your hand hovers here, 3 centimetres above my mouth
and I kick you deftly, the glass angle of your jaw.
Something ecstatic,
your wings flutter.
"Are we having sex?"
"Right now?"
"Yes, right now"
"No -"

Friday 26 November 2010

Work

In the morning, there's futile work.

"Work isn't noble by default" my babka says.

She spits on the pan to see if it's hot, or hot enough. I watch her saliva as it splutters, cooks, vanishes.

"Most work is shit"

We move this pile of rocks from one place to another. Both places seem arbitrary.

"It's a rockery" says the probation worker.

Nobody responds.

" - For the children?" her voice rising, exasperated.

The children are dying. Would I want to die here? Does the presence, now, of a begrudgingly assembled rockery make this prospect seem more, or less appealing?

Yesterday we pulled stuff from the river, a section of the river earmarked as a future nature reserve. The boy next to me talks too much. He's worried about prison. (I don't remember his name) He's worried about prison because you can't update your Facebook page from there. Other people might take advantage of your absence.

"I don't really use it" I say, checking inside a decomposing leather glove for the remains of a hand. He pulls some face at me.

"Cunt" I say, quite loudly, stuffing the glove into the pocket of my waterproof trousers.

"Tourette's - sorry"

I smile at him, weakly.

Wednesday 17 November 2010

Bored



The forest floor is littered with hundreds of these bright, unreal looking Fly Agaric. It's really beautiful - like some fucked up fairy tea-party. I kick one over, pick it up and sniff it speculatively.

"Put that down" he says, frowning.

"Shouldn't we like - eat some?" I'm saying. I'm trying to sound seductive and enticing. My nose is running - a lot. I wipe it on my glove.

"No, we shouldn't" he says.

(There are no rabbits to dance for here, the hunters shot them all)

I follow him up the bank. My legs are getting fucked up - the brambles are tearing at them through my trousers and the trees keep pushing me over. I'm still holding the mushroom. When we get to the top I stand really close to him. Too close.

"We could just nibble the edge, it probably wouldn't have any effect?"

He's sighing now, says: "Just put it down".

Walks briskly there, towards the sun, maybe the car.

I watch his back until the trees close in, lick the surface of the mushroom tentatively - once, twice, three times. It tastes of something old - forests, ancestors, decay - something.

(Hush)

The sound of my breath - through my mouth and a sharp crack of gunfire.

I run unsteady in the direction of his disappearance, clutching where the wire wrapped tight three times around my waist cuts into my flesh a little with each movement.