Train

I have sailed through oceans, to the west and south of the world, through Africa and self harm, through a year without sleep, a year numb, a year high, a year drunk and too many years sore. I have painted pictures in infinite tones of grey and perhaps with sporadic blue.

I have climbed mountains, fallen and left scarred both literally and beyond the eye. I have floated in a sinking ship, been rescued at the brink and grew back small feathery wings.

I have learned to paint in neon and eat and wash properly. I have learned control and how to read, discovered philosophy and science. I do yoga and write things that people like sometimes. I am optimistic.

Like a solider I walk to buy pens or envelopes or to have tea because I am strong yet easily deflated. I can occupy myself without a television. I can watch stars without crying and the news without taking a blade to my skin.
I am surviving.

Blooming upright and toward the sun.
You come along, as I float in the air you wave leaves underneath me making me float higher. When I let the string go and the helium filled balloons soar, dodging airplanes and birds, you jump, like a rocket to the rescue and when I’m sad you produce a massive bucket to catch my tears that, like an African, you balance on your head.

Our bodies blend like watercolours, our skin touches like silk. From my scars, butterflies flutter.

And you leave. On a train, not for any sufficient amount of time but a few days and the train departs. My body is hollow, my organ placed neatly along the tracks. I step backward and backward again, into the crowded world of wolves and high heeled shoes, of make-up and cigarette smoke.

Alone, I am convinced that your existence is only in my head, that this double bed is home to me and my desperate imagination and the night is darker, the streets, wider and things just seem colder, without depth. A world of 2-D plastic trees and cardboard buildings.

And you return. I become drunk on your scent.
I have been broken and I have fixed myself and you come and you make me and you break me. My bottom lips trembles and my jaw aches. My fingers are strained and my tongue clamped. Your love saves me and makes me feel sick, your love electrocutes me and deludes me. Your Love is love and life and death and the infinite. The everything,

And it hurts, it really fucking hurts.