#a notepage scribble

[notepagescribbles]

When I say "stop it"

I mean that I'm tired of dragging our corpse up the basement steps for the umpteenth dissection

I don't want to measure millimetre fissures between the knuckle bones against blunt force trauma patterns

When I have spent the last few days staring at the imprint of a fist against the door

I mean that your nails don't stop growing when you die,

So I have wasted all the wood filler on the claw marks along the basements steps

I mean that when I pull the limp heart from the ribcage yet again, the vena cava drips brown blood onto my new leather boots

And I am tired of plugging in the ECG machine to listen to another bout of static

If change means a sudden revival

I think I would be kinder to just let the dead lie still.

[fuckblast]

The lovely little blackberry bramble in progress and the notepage full of scribbles when I realized I poured too much red for it

[notepagescribbles]

Mama, Papa, I'm sorry. Let me try again. I'll do it right this time. Papa, I know you're disappointed. I know it, I know it, you don't have to keep hiding it from me. Papa, I know I'm your baby girl. I know I let you down anyway. I know I came out a cracked and broken thing. Mama, I know you worry. I know the shape of my nose is wrong, the look of my skin. I know there is something rotten and smoldering inside me. Let me try again. Let me crawl inside your ribcage and lie there a while. Let me be born again. I won't screw it up again this time. I'll be louder this time. I'll smile more. Mama, I'm sorry I'm not what you wanted me to be. I'm sorry I don't do things right. I don't know why I'm like this. I don't know why I'm like this. I'll do better. I'll do it right this time. Mama, do you think I'm pretty? Papa, I'm sorry l spent the day inside. I'll do it again. Let me try again. I'll be the daughter you longed for next year.

[notepagescribbles]

#7

It starts as a acid thumping against my tongue

Fishing wire

The gentle squeeze and violent tug

My fingertip warped white distortion snow.

Vomit on the carpet.

Tap, tap, tap, tap and he is closer still

Shivers on my spine like ice

Taste minty cold

I wait and wait and he screams like a banshee; on queue

Phantom of the opera

Vinegar pie

And I slice down and cut through my finger with sharp clear fishing wire.

Fizzzzz of the bubbles and the phone rings and I can hear him wailing fron the other end.

Closer and closer still.

The blood drips down slowly like diamond melt and I lick it up with my tongue like bitter rain

She's still, and I'm lying there smiling, watching,

Digging into the softness and hollowing her out with my claws.

Wait, wait, wait and it explodes like dynamite,

Debris bitter on the tongue.

Cloys the throat.

Night tick like white ceiling, check

Fishing wire.

Bitter. Acid.

Chalky residue in my mouth.

And I disolve and disolve and disolve.

[notepagescribbles]

When the milk stains on your last will and testament dry,

Seal it with water and not a kiss.

Pour the paper-mâché tax reports into the flower pots

Fold the birth certificate into an oragami heart and tuck it into my sister's birthday card.

Swipe a credit card over the churches donation box when I light your evensong candle.

I am checking synonyms for your Euology to kettle steam and birdsong.

I am not grieving. I am not sallowed. I am sick with something familiar and inevitable for a person who used to sit in gardens that I once sat in.

I am making a note in the margins that i forgive you for making my mother cry.

[notepagescribbles]

I NEED [THIS] TO CHANGE

I NEED [THIS] TO CHANGE

I NEED [THIS] TO CHANGE

AND IF IT DOESN'T

I WILL BEND MY CALLOUSED FINGERS

AROUND THESE POLYMER MOUTHS AND WINDOWS

AND SQUEEZE

UNTIL THE PRESSURE ON MY CHEST

GIVES ONE LAST HEAVE

AND EXPLODES

[notepagescribbles]

They're making another earth, you know. Someone somewhere decided he was tired of this one, so they're sending toy truck rocketships filled with dirt out into deep space. And they want me to go too. Gonna leave a big crater here, I think. But I guess they say two is better than one.

Anyway, we don't get to choose who comes with and I guess you're staying behind. And you're going to be even further away.

For you love, I'll take a photo of the stars on my rocketship back home

[notepagescribbles]

My god is called In Perpetuity

Her skin is like an unripe clementine

Tough under the nails

Peels away in small chunks

Flesh beneath nail

Buried pit

I make these tiles my prayer mat

I name the bathroom walls an aspe

My father is my deity,

It is him I pray to.

My mother is my prophet,

It is her who tells me I will not be forgiven.

Shiver on the bathroom floor

You are an original sin

You must pray to be purified

Repent (and mean it)

Amen, amen, amen

All In Perpetuity

There are eyes in the walls

There are eyes in the corners

You cannot see them

You are the only one who can't.

They are watching you

Watching, watching, watching

Prove to them that you are holy

(They know your truth)

Prove to them that you are holy

The world is dull and grey

Find your penance

Between the bleeding skin against your index finger and thumb

Everyone else bleeds white.

You are the only one who doesn't.

Kneel at Chapel.

Count your ribs

Pinch your stomach.

Give us this day

Our daily bread

This is my body

Which is for you

Do this is in remembrance of me.

I will be holy

I am devout to you only

I am the only one who is

I carve my sanctity

Out of my stomach

And offer it to you

At pulpit

The eyes burn into my neck

Still more, still more, still more

You shall not live on bread alone,

But on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

[notepagescribbles]

I want to grow up.

I need to grow up.

I'm an adult now, but I'm still a little girl

And everyone else has this figured out

And I'm watching from the corner

Clutching my water bottle like a lifeline

I need to grow up

I need to be able to stand in a space without the breath catching in my throat

To be confidently in the right place

At the right time and know exactly what for

I need to grow up

And stop watching everyone around me grow up before me

And leaving me softly behind

I want to grow up

And I want my mum to kiss me on the head

And say "I knew you would make it"

And somehow she'd be right.

[notepagescribbles]

My lover is broad. Sturdy. I cannot reach around her; I have to stretch the tips of my pinkie and my thumb to cover part of her chest. We find compromise in halfway.

She sings beautifully. I sing badly. Together, we make an imperfect melody; I tap a tune along her spine and she sings it back to me. I lean into her and away from her again; I know her by touch, by rote, I can bend my fingers like algebra and run them up and down her arm. I squint and try and read her love letters in dark rooms. I slow down when she asks me to speed up. Too much hesitation, and then much too hasty. Dissonant words, a quarter-rest between love and you.

I ask her; Can you hear me? Do you understand what I want to say? Even though I don't always fit the gaps right. Forget the rules; let's just be what sounds best in quiet rooms. Give each other time to fill the space. And she doesn't reply; she can't. But, I think she understands. 'Cos she sings me back an echo of myself; clumsy and elegant and human, and there's beauty somewhere in there I'm sure.

My lover is broad. Sturdy. I cannot reach around her; I have to stretch the tips of my pinkie and my thumb to cover part of her chest. She sings beautifully. I play badly. But I miss her when she's not around; and in her silence, she echoes the same.

[notepagescribbles]

I feel like a little kid, exchanging notes through a crack in the wall. Do you like me? Do you like me? Do you like me? You can't see me through the wooden slats. Would you like me if you could? Could you bare my face? My name? My eyes? Could you stand for my awkward stuttering and silence? My soul, my essence, the tangled copper wire stuffed inside of me spilling out like a tsunami, cloying and buzzing - but only on this side of the wall. Do you like me? I love you. Do you like me? I miss you. Do you like me? I like you like a kid. That pure love you get when your favourite colour matches someone else's. Let's hold hands through the crack. Tell me about your day. I'm sorry. I'm proud. Am I doing this right? Did I really make you laugh, or are you just pretending? Could you ever like something like me? Please don't look through the wall.

[notepagescribbles]

I'm the only one I know who keeps running out-

-of words, keep finding myself in these spaces where I can't-

-speak. Sometimes it's that I have things to say; so much to say, words and ideas and concepts; blurring like colours, intertwining like compounds; piling and meshing into and over and around each other, so many-

-people look at me, and I open my mouth. It lodges. And an inaudible exhale, air past my lips-

-they move on, disappointed or confused or... something. And I want to tell them sorry, this just happens to me sometimes, I don't know wh-

-Other times, I simply do not have the words. I do not have the words. I do not have the words. I do not-

-ll I know. There are replies, simple replies I could choose from. Yes, and no, and thank you, and please, and I don't know annd that's alright and maybe and what do yOUcccccan't just NOT of course course cccourrrr44444 mean to do that no worrieELL YOU COULD ALWAYits not about1 s4pp0s3iiif youDON'T INSERT YOURSEto hea that COULDAts A shaMedidntdidntddintditnMaybeNOT reeeeee5555554447889000865432788-

-like I have the dictionary in my head in fridge magnets. And they keep pouring down my kitchen sink, slipping down the drain and grinding against the garbage disposal and I can't-

-only one I know. And I can do small talk! I can be polite! I know how; I know I know how. But sometimes, it seems to grind and stutter against my throat like methanol, and I can't seem to force-

-and it breaks against doorframes and counters and desks-

-the space breaks. I find them again, maybe because I had to IHADTOBEFORE and I answer TIRED and I'm happy MOVEON and I wonder if anyone noticed anyway WOULDYOU and my mouth tastes like nothing NOTHING , and acid, and fridge magnet plastic. A SHORT SPACE IN A VACCUM NAMED THE ABSCENCE OF COLOUR. They think I'm stand-offish and awkward.

I am stand-offish and awkward.

I read too much. I know too many words. I collect them, pin them like moths against my bloodied walls, gossamer paper leaf wings that stutter and fray in the breeze. I put my hand up in class, the only one that understands the words; lexilogica, insouciant, alexythmia, laconism, dissonance, aphasia, accismus, interlocutor-

-and I push out my ideas, and I STOP-

I'm the only one I know who keeps running out of words

[notepagescribbles]

You're a 2D painting on my wall. You smile at me like a shadow. I can see the colour of your hair against my wall, but when I turn to look the projector is gone. The room is quiet. Just you turning and smiling, eyes shut, tongue sticking slightly through your perfectly white teeth. I reach up and touch your hand. The sizing doesn't match up right. I touch wallpaper. The image flickers as you turn. I watch you through the night. A moth lands on my finger. It looks like me. I think you'll laugh if it say that. I decide not to anyway. I wonder if I imagined the projection on my wall. I wonder if you ever see a brightly lit shadow on your wall that looks like me. I know you don't. You smile again. There's a bow on your hair. Your eyes are still shut, tongue sticking slightly through your perfectly white teeth. I reach for your hand, and think better of it. The wallpaper is rough. My room is a mess. You'd wish someone else was watching if you knew. You'd wish I couldn't see you at all.

[notepagescribbles]

My dad trips over my sister's corpse at dinner. My sister and I exchange glances over the top of her pallid, unmoving face. The corpse is on the coffee table.

My sister squeezes her partner's hand.

The corpse is pretty. My sister is prettier. Her eyes are still shining. The corpse is starting to smell. My sister won't ask for then to put away, not right now. I ask her with my eyes but she shakes her head at me, and I bite my lip in fustration.

It isn't as if I have not tripped over my sisters corpse before myself, after all.

At least I am not looking at it like my mother is, as if it might splutter back into life with deep gasping breaths. As if it is not still and cold and dead.

I half expect my father to snap could we please remove that thing from the table. He must smell it too. The odour is seeping through the walls.

It's not what he means of course. He wants my sister to climb back inside the corpse. But the corpse is dead and my sister is not. The awful puppetry in the vision makes me gag. The rigor mortis in the hands sets in. We can use her fingers to grasp the set of cards as we play whist.

The air is thick with death. Nobody says so. I throw down the 5 of hearts and lose the hand. The tea on the table is getting cold. Everyone is smiling. I wonder if there will be doors slammed tonight and if it will be better or worse if there isn't. 

I see my sister's eyes flick to her corpse on the table. Our eyes catch again.

I bite my toungue over the stench of decay and say nothing.

[notepagescribbles]

#10

Space is cold.

Our knees touch on the bus.

Because space is a vaccum, there are no particles to vibrate. Even if you somehow managed to light a candle in space, without any oxygen to burn, the area around it would be cold, because there would be no particles to heat.

This is the same reason you can't hear or create sound in space.

I don't know who moves away first. The bus is cold. Your knee was warm against mine.

The boundary between the end of Earth and the start of Space is an imaginary line 100 kilometres up. This means the highest particle on earth is about 100 kilometres up. It doesn't stop abruptly. The particles peater out, getting further and further away from each other as the atmosphere gets thinner. You can't breathe at this point. One particle up there is the very highest, even if by 0.0001 of a nanometer. This particle would be the scientifically loneliest naturally occuring particle in the world.

My room is dark and quiet. It's better that way. I turn on the TV but everything sounds like garbled static. Nobody answers. I wasn't talking to begin with. There's comfort in silence.

Scientists think that every atom in every galaxy in every universe comes from the Big Bang. That means you came from the Big Bang and so does she and so does every person and animal and plant around you. Everything is a regurgitation of the same matter blending in and out of itself, pushing and pulling at itself, tasting itself and walking on itself and creating itself into something new again and again and again.

Because of the Big Bang, the universe is expanding. This means everything ever created is pushing away from each other, exponentially, all the time. If we were to travel to the edge of the universe now, it would take longer than it would yesterday, or last week or last year or 100 millenia ago. The longer we wait to go, the harder it will be. Now, the edge of the observable universe is about 270,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away. If you drive at a steady 65 miles per hour, it will take you 480,000,000,000,000,000 — that’s 4.8 × 10¹⁷ — years to get there, or 35 million times the current age of the universe.

I have a penpal on Mars. I write to her everyday. She doesn't always reply. I can't always make out the Martian runes on the paper, but they look nice. I'd like to meet her, but I don't think I could withstand the gravity. I know that she drinks water like I do. There's water on Mars.

The rocket carrying our mail flies 225 million kilometres each day either way in nanoseconds. We talk at the speed of light. We could talk faster if I found my words more quickly. I wonder if she minds. I wonder if the letters on the page just look like shapes to her. I hope she think they look nice. I send her a picture of autumn leaves, and she sends me a picture of a picnic in a dust storm. We've solved light travel in an apocalypse. I'll never see her face, but sometimes I hear her, soft garbling I don't understand between the static on TV.

I nudge you at the bus stop. "Look at the stars." You can see the big dipper. In thousands of years, it won't look like a wheelbarrow anymore. There are clouds building over the grocery store. We get on a jam-packed bus to the edge of the universe holding hands. Space is a vaccum. I can't tell you what I'm trying to say, because there are no particles to vibrate with my words. I smile instead. I give you my gloves.

Space is cold and black and infinite. I watch Saturn shining through the window.

I left the TV on at home.

Tell me, can you hear it?

[notepagescribbles]

#9

Family Barbecue

We're sitting, knees almost touching at the kitchen table.

I'm internally cursing that this is the one time he wants to sit here instead if watching sports

He tells me about his achievements at golf, at work.

And I nod and smile politely.

Mm.

Family Barbecue

My dad made it all,

Sausages and chicken,

Coucous and potato salad.

Herby and juicy and soft with a skin.

You like it? He says.

Mm.

Family Barbecue

My mum is upstairs (not hungry.

Cant decide if this is good or bad).

My sibling is away (happier.

Cant decide if this is good or bad either.)

So just me and my dad at the kitchen table.

My voice grates as it comes up with a simple, funny little reply.

Mm.

Family Barbecue

The walls shake (the house smells of corn)

My dad screams Don't Fucking Turn It Off

At my mother, and I sit blankly upstairs.

My mum is not a good cook.

She's not allowed to help with the Barbecue.

Mm.

Family Barbecue

My mother is upstairs, watching YouTube

And I am downstairs, nodding politely.

Bloody sausages are nestled like entrails in my salad.

Blood drips down the side of my mouth.

I wipe it off with a napkin.

It tastes good.

Mm.

Family Barbecue

And I stand up too quickly

And offer to help put things away in the fridge.

My mum loves me. My dad loves me.

My dad takes a spoon from the potatoes.

I have to ask to be excused.

Mm.

Family barbecue

The house smells like smoke beforehand

Echoing shouts down the street as the meat sizzles and the walls shake

Smelling of corn.

Nobody had been hurt.

Fresh dinner. Family Barbecue alone at the kitchen table. Mm. Mm.

Before I leave I must say

Thank you for the meal.