Elements

"If I ever get out of here
Thought of giving it all away
To a registered charity
All I need is a pint a day
If I ever get out of here"

My family, have changed more than I
I've changed them
I saw them today, we were together
They all get on with me better than each other
When I'm myself
When the monster has gone
Relief, permeates the heat haze, palpably
Like today the day baked, then ended in hail
It was kind of weird

So me and my family
And so much easier to love me
Now the obscene shit that poured from my mouth
Has run it's course
Now you're better
They say
They say they must have got it right
But they are wrong
Those people abused me, while they stood by
Took their side
The only reason I'm kind today
Is because I managed to drag myself away
Managed to drag my broken twisted body away

How to be Invisible, Kate Bush

I found a book on how to be invisible
Take a pinch of keyhole
And fold yourself up
You cut along the dotted lines
You think inside out
You're invisible

Eye of Braille
Hem of anorak
Stem of wallflower
Hair of doormat

I found a book on how to be invisible
On the edge of the labyrinth
Under a veil you must never lift
Pages you must never turn
In the labyrinth
You stand in front of a million doors
And each one holds a million more
Corridors that lead to the world
Of the invisible
Corridors that twist and turn
Corridors that blister and burn

Eye of Braille
Hem of anorak
Stem of wallflower
Hair of doormat
Is that the wind from the desert song?
Is that an autumn leaf falling?
Or is that you walking home?

Is that the wind from the desert song?
Is that an autumn leaf falling?
Or is that you walking home?
Is that a storm in the swimming pool?

You take a pinch of keyhole
And fold yourself up
You cut along the dotted lines
You think inside out
You jump round three times
You jump into the mirror
You're invisible

Dropping a coin into the well of the ineffable. I make a wish. Again, again. Some lost souls burn the candle with me tonight, as some lost girl hides out, watching, from a distance. So much to tell you and yet I hold back, waiting for something, a light through the crack. A cruel beauty in the gap. Heightened emotion, deadened, heightened, and so it begins again. Time was when I felt more, not too long ago. Sobriety and sanity can get so sterile. Waiting for the touchpaper. To go up. One last push, distance closes and the girl, observing, finds a way out.

Today the air was clear, with those trails in the sky where you don't know if they are jets, or just thin stretched out clouds. I went down to the cathedral where I was Christened, the cathedral where my dad remarried. I looked at the light coming through the thick stained glass; colours so rich and deep, they made my heart beat deeper. And when I stood up from the bench I felt the blood pound down in my throat, my head... made me reel and catch my breath. Like a little taste of life, of death, all in one go. Maybe like the feeling you would get, when you're getting ready to go..... I had to stand still for a good minute, and my eyes were filled with the huge rich tapestry on the recessed wall, a gracious body, an aura, blood and nails. I thought of the pain and the passion, of the final hours, of the mortality, and of how I don't believe the message was of sacrifice, but simply of forgiveness.

Later I drove to meet my mother and her oldest friend, come up from London, an actress - such a voice..... voice like the upper class ones, but she has no money. My Mum went to find the car, and her friend told me stories from their childhood - stuff I never knew. We talked of Wuthering Heights - how it is the book that most gets you in adolescence; how she was writing from the heath, from somewhere primal, from her young womanhood - writing straight out of the hills, and the unconscious. Such an untamed energy; speaking from inexperience, from the only experience of youth - passion. We couldn't understand the people that didn't like it - maybe they come to it too late - as adults - maybe they know too much. It's the kind of book that makes you want to swallow the scenery whole, makes you feel something, makes your heart pound, makes you want to fall in love, go wild, go mad; to break out of this sterile trap, and yell, scream - live, scream and love.

And today reminded me of something I read when I used to go and study all the late nights in the college library, whilst my friends were getting drunk, and waiting for me - remembering how I always had to turn another page - but how I'd make it to them eventually. It was the poet Derek Walcott - he started his best collection with a quote:

"What makes the artist is the circumstance that in his youth he was more deeply moved by the sight of works of art than by that of the things which they portray."

14:55

Every time I see them in the outside world
They flinch

They should do
After what they did to me

The clouds burst
And let the summer of the hook
Me barefoot, smoking in the yard
and soaking
It's been a while