AIMEE TACON

the waiting room is cold
and I am empty

on the worn couch, resting against the clinical wall
I sit next to a blue man

his eyes match my shirt
he stares straight ahead
to two glistening pools that shift

he searches their reflection for a memory
a girl called Hope
with eyes that smile
and lashes that kiss apple-d cheeks

we sit, and we lie, and we both know
he will not find her
she is no ghost and she is not made of tears
she is real and she is flesh and

her lids are as heavy as the door that swings shut behind me

this new room is made of shadows
and this new woman is made of sheets

I mourn the old hollow ache
because I am suddenly full, so full
I am being filled with cotton, stuffed and seamed
a mutant toy bear screaming “Get Well Soon”

the room tightens as I expand
spilling cards and words and polite small talk

I take up everything and
beneath the weight of my good health
she is a pale flower

I hold it out to him now
a bouquet of sorries
that will wither against polished wood
fallen petals, rotting sweet
piled on a porch built for two

he tells me he’s fixing the house for her
a method of distraction
ready for when she comes home
he can’t look too long, though

it belongs to her, he says
the house is full of her

and I see it
a pale house full of pale rooms
and enough pale space to drown a blue man whole
I watch the tidal wave wash him out before me
and we watch the blue blood drain slowly
seated beside each other
quiet on the couch against the wall in the waiting room

my car is hot
my face is sticky
the elevator is loud
the questions are louder

my heart races, faster
running, pounding, reaching forward
blind on the high of my breathing
the absence of breathing
I am not breathing
I have stopped breathing
I cannot breathe
at all
I can’t
and they’re not
they’re not gone yet, or they are
and I want to but
I cannot say goodbye breathing
I have learned this much

I cannot say goodbye breathing

that is not how you speak to the dead.

I hoard words
gather them up, uneven – watch them spill over
dribble as they want down my chin

possessive, I am – jealous and cheap
an angry guardian
keeper of what is mine to give

but you own the words I whisper to no one
growing drunk on your image, drawn in the dark
a colourised memory, you live on the ceiling,

no, you hover over the page:

just a thought, just a thought

“a riddle,” she whispers, and hands it to you
pressed into the hollow of your palm
a folded-up sunset

you hear it before you see it, and even then – you’re not sure you do
the light press of a kiss behind your ear

close your eyes to see clearly
words cut stark against the glare:

but it leaves the way it came, snatched and creased and whisked away
the absence pierces hot, stings sharp beyond reckoning, but
you suppose it belonged to her anyway

when is a dream no longer a dream?

when it wears your face

when it follows me after I wake
a half-formed thought

a memory

the most familiar stranger

I knew you second – I remembered you first

I called you Nostalgia

I took your face in my hands
only to find them wrapped around my own neck –

because through it all, you were me, fully

you are,
fully
me

course eyes, paper lids
sanding smooth, your numbing gas
eats my chest, slow, dull

fuelled by a wailing
though I can’t locate the source
within, without, or –

woven. that’s right, you
retrieved your tooth from her mouth
to make bone for the

needle, needy, need
your need, it’s exhausting when
I need to breathe, and

I still want you, oh –
sorry, an accident, it
won’t happen again

back to the grain from
your sand, it’s in my car still,
rough to touch, but it’s

nice. nice – to be touched
I’m doing it again, how
embarrassing, I’ll

make room for your fear
I need to sleep anyway
but I’m – I’m still. here.

beneath my woman-shaped coat lives a girl
you met her, once – you laid beside her on the floor
she’d been sleeping, but you woke her, and she’s not rested since.

she’s an angry girl, the one who lives in my coat
she resents you, I think, for speaking hope into existence
she’s made of pride, and cries justice! like a child.

to a child, kindness is unnecessary
politeness is obtuse
to youth, the most unforgivable thing you can be is a liar
and, oh, my love, how you have lied.

dishonesty stains your lips, a sticky sweet wine best cleaned with kisses
an acquired taste, addictive and sour
but my girl (you know, the one who lives in my coat) – she doesn’t like the flavour.

when you left, I had thought she might return to her slumber
go back inside, and wait for the next –

but you took my coat. my woman-shaped coat?
you took it with you, and now I have nothing to wear.

her shoulders are bare, and I have nothing to wrap her in
she has no place of her own, and that little girl grows colder by the day
her messy laugh has been splintered, hollow and shivering,

quieter, quieter,

a lullaby:

“her eyes are open, but she is not awake
she sees it pass, but does not move to take
a hold of the threads, unwoven, unbound,
she cannot grow a new coat, by body or ground.

a girl made of sand and a girl made of soil
a boy made of water and a boy made of oil
a screaming so loud, a wailing so deep
for wool and for dye, the child slaughters sheep.”

words come easy, I
never struggle to speak but
conversation is

cold, empty, hollow
angry and mean is the mask
pressing against my

face me, I want to
scream at you, make you listen
you won’t hear me, you’re

gone are your words and
wishes, blown to the wind, lost
you thought you were in

love isn’t something
people feel for me, I’m an
idea, I’m cold to

touch me, I’m aching
your absence is felt keener
than any kiss from

you aren’t mine, I don’t
belong, should you leave me I
could not stand it, stop

And then I thought – to fall in love is to stagger
to trip my way across a lonely beach
squinting, as thought I might find your windy beauty there,
that when I held my hat to my head, with all my might,
warding off the sharp sting of your smile –
there is a version of your eyes that live in the sky.

Am I waiting for a kiss or a bite?
Could our blood come together, salt of the sea,
cold as the whip of the storm
to take me, drown me, swallow me whole.

I realised I had not written since I wrote about you.

Salivating, these
deer in silk dress stained with me,
I’m overflowing –

I’m so sorry, I
keep spilling everywhere,
fingers and thumbs, rot –

and decay is sweet,
like scent of jacaranda,
and that could be me –

but I’ve more flowers
than branches, and they’re falling,
too loud, purple sea.

And one day, happiness will find you.

You will try to articulate it (you will cry every time).

It will curl up in your chest, like it never left,

and it will hold your hand like you held mine.

I have been thinking (like usual) about love,
why we are so obsessed with it.

Why we keep coming back to it,
when it is proven mediocre again and again.

I have never wanted something so much on the basis of so little.

Growing up, I was taught that the human race are endlessly unsatisfied.
Restless, poisoned by original sin, searching, longing, pleading – for God.

But it’s that very poison, they told me, that is the curse. That poison that makes gods of us. The desire to rule, to conquer, to be adored.

And I think that’s the difference.

I think it’s in my nature.

I don’t want a partner to love – I want a god to worship.

There’s a religion in it, a fervour,
and I want them to worship me back.

Isn’t that it? What we write and sing and scream about? The obsession, the fever, the body as a temple?

Maybe it’s quiet, like a prayer.
A church, a refuge, a place of peace.

Maybe it’s a dream?

Maybe it’s nothing at all.