Beautiful Failures/Poetry for No-one

Black humps, rising on either side of the train tracks, pinned us into a dull tunnel. I think the person to my right fell after about fifteen minutes - I heard a sharp thump, but no vocal expression, so I didn't know if it was a man or a woman. The night, for the most part, carried the effect of a person pressing their hands over my eyes, and pushed the same unnerving properties. Although we walked on either side of the track, I was careful to lift my feet extra high, walking in an exaggerated lope.

I felt that, if I strained my eyes, I could discern two shapes cut from the black, across the tracks to my right. There was certainly someone behind me, soft crunches accompanying my own. But none of us talked. We were all just trying to find somewhere safe. And, as was always likely to happen during these hours, amidst the rhythmic padding I found myself thinking of her last letter.

I tried hard not to dwell on this, and in many ways they were useless thoughts, but useless thoughts have wings. In this way, through the still rushed the little folded figure in the basement. I remembered how I had washed the spray on the walls first, keen to obliterate its disgusting presence, and then bandaged her wrists. I had carried her up the stairs, laid her across the sofa, and knelt clenching a cold hand in this same dark; as if everything was cast in degrees of shade now, and we nourished it and pulled it close like a warm blanket.

My left foot sunk into a boggy patch and I wrenched it clear. Behind me, my follower sniffled - it was a woman. I allowed myself to think of the letter, folded neatly on the table. I allowed myself to; do I not try to think the worst days are over?

I can't remember it all. I wished I had kept it. Little, spindly letters - 

- anyway, I had to do it. I had to -

- it's no great surprise, we were both made in another place- 

I think this line, most of all, has stayed with me. I was always pulling; I was always pulling her away from that other place. Yet she was right: she came from somewhere else, somewhere far away from me, and as much as I tried, that thick wall ultimately separated us.

- if I said you don't have to carry anything -

- it's because it believe it -

- you don't have to carry anything -

- for you, there is always something worth returning to -

Intrinsically, then yes, I believe that. Even if it is wrong. When I glanced up, as if to tip these things to the back of my skull, I thought that beyond the dark net, the sky was crossed with a maze of black wires. I have often thought this, in the intervening years, and to me it explains a lot. But none of us talk anymore. We don't talk, and I don't run this by anyone. If there is something worth returning to now, it's not in a physical sense.

A grunt split the night and the padding around me ceased. Black grains dissolved and hardened in my vision, and I could sense, and begin to distinguish, a slumped shape in the middle of the tracks. I went first - I went first, because I did not trust these people around me to be calm. Still, their shapes flurried around as I knelt beside the figure. It was a man, prostrate on the cool metal lines. He shivered and hacked a splutter of black juice. A soft wind brushed us and I rubbed his head. Then I leaned in, and with the bulb of my forefinger, gently lifted an eyelid. I had to do it. I had to. I fought a surge of sadness as I took in the rolling, jet-black eyes. My fingertip was still pressed against his leathery skin as a spade came down against his head.

I stepped back as a second object, possibly a length of wood, clattered down, and I wished I were still able to talk to her about this. The woman beside me sniffed again.

*

'It's such an exposing thing, you're giving part of yourself away.'

Who said that? Did I say that to someone afterwards? What a lot of bullshit I talk. Anyhow, I did it, after about two months; two months of weighing the pros and cons and wondering if, anyway, was there not some kind of slippery karma still hanging over me in this respect? More hippy bollocks, but whatever, this is all I know.

I can't say my heart was thumping, because that's terrible, that's abysmal writing, but there, it's done. I was clammy and wired, I'd had two cups of coffee in preparation at the end of a nine hour shift and all it had achieved was to make me twitchy and verbally speedy. I also felt a little bit like a predator. Who does such things in this day and age? Have we not hacked this part away with online sites?

I knocked on the door quite a bit harder than I'd intended to, and she opened quite quickly, quickly enough that my balled fist was still in the air. (When I was relating this afterwards, my friend said 'it looks like you were about to punch her in the face.') She asked if I wanted to come through and sit down, but because I'd been furiously prepping my little speech seconds beforehand, I declined and asked if I could speak to her there and then. Cool as a cucumber.

I can't stomach relating my stuttered spiel, or the fact that afterwards, I then had to speak to her for another half and hour, which I - for some reason - hadn't taken into account the possibility of; subjecting her to half an hour of the most desperate, mindless, coffee-spawned drivel. But that was that, done, and over the next couple of weeks we established a loop of texting (this was not ideal for me, as I have not a clue, and felt about sixteen years old again). It was amiable and funny though, and I felt optimistic. I clearly must have been optimistic, because for some reason (shakes fist at heavens) after two weeks I decided to introduce poetry into the proceedings.

I kind of worded it in a funny way - a thing to be nice, or at worst amusing, and certainly not heavy. Either way, I emailed the poem off, and that was the last contact we had.

Balls.

*

The two men left the pulpy mass and returned to their side of the tracks. I understood why it had to be done, but even after all this time, I was still unable to separate the two. The wind had picked up, and it whistled in my ears as we stumbled along again. Where does separation begin and end, anyway? Before, if the day was grey and flaky, I could close the curtain. These little punches carried less weight. But her letter said I didn't have to carry anything.

The next time I pulled myself back to the present, I could make out no movement to my right. As hard as I peered into the thick shadows, there was no sign of the two men. If they had fallen, I hadn't noticed. Perhaps their effusive beating had been too great, perhaps there had been some kind of splashback, and their own eyes were jet-black now as they lay rotting on the withered grass. There was nothing to separate here, anyway. We hadn't talked. Only the sniffing woman remained behind me as the dark groped at us.

The wind felt as if it were slapping me by the time I perceived the outline of a small cabin just to our left. The humped rises fell away around it, and as I scrabbled up I could see a large expanse of field beyond, unfolding like a great black sea. It looked like it might be a safe place, and regardless, it would have to do. There wasn't really anything to find anyway. There never was.

As I stumbled round to the cabin door, feeling along the wet walls, I saw the woman had stepped above me. For a moment she stood on the rise, her back to me, looking at the view.

*

I think I sent a second 'final' text about five days after the poem fiasco - ostensibly to apologise, but again it was met with a wall of silence. If it ever sees the light of day again, I'll call it The Poem that makes people Never Talk To You Again.

After spending several days in a chronic hump guiltily listening to Coldplay (fuck), I texted a friend to tell him of my important rule discovery - two weeks of texting, then poetry, is a no.

I was sitting reading by lamplight when the reply came.

- I think poetry is a tough angle. Something about it makes people wary; like there must be something off about you for you to read it, that you must be part of some damaged Illuminati - rhyming in the shadows... and that someone who recites the stuff is a complete write-off. - 

I hadn't really thought about it like that. Well, I kind of had, but perhaps in not such an  extreme way. Fair enough. So, we came from different places. We were both made in another place. It's okay. What's the worry of a little awkwardness versus a bit of experience, a bit of growth and nourishment? I had to do it. I had to.There's a bit of grind-time to get over the disappointment, but that's no problem, that's what music's for. 'Don't bring it up next time you see her,' someone said. Maybe I'll print off fifty copies and hurl them at her.

It was late at night when I received a final text from my friend. I was drinking coffee and had progressed onto bluegrass, which means (hopefully) my senses must have been returning. But here I am doing the same thing, no? Lumping these expressions into categories.

- Keep pushing that poetry boat out to sea though man, when that sucker makes harbour then that's the port for you -

*

Inside the cabin I found, amongst other things, a candle, matches, and a blanket. The slip of light made my eyes water, but the most pressing concern was the smudge of black on her cheek. She sat in silence as I wrapped a tear of fabric around my hands and washed it off. I had to do it. I focused on the contact, however slim, silent and tense it was. I focused on it, I remembered my letter, and I remembered that if these were failures, then there was beauty in them too. Afterwards I buried the grubby twists outside, and when I returned she was curled up on the floor in one of the blankets.

I settled into a chair and pulled a blanket close to my neck, the candle bouncing soft light around me. As I fell asleep, I pushed away the past, and tried to make this place a place worth returning to.

In the morning my eyes burned as I opened them. I felt a swell of shock at the sight of wan light leaking through the window. Her face was already pressed against the glass, and I joined her. I felt her hand clasp my arm in excitement. In the wide grey-blue sky, I could still see the maze of wires, clear as ever, but in the dull glow they looked like skewered paths; things that might happen.

*