Cake

Cake.

and you.

<>

We sit in the your car in the Coles car park. It is too late and I am too tired. We are ages away from where we belong. The streetlights fuzz and bleed into black in this dark and wet. The rain runs rivers down your windscreen while you tell me a little piece of everything. games you played on people and regret. you do arsehole very well but it’s not who you are. characters on tv you like for all the wrong reasons. you want to be them for all those wrong reasons.

“ but how can it be wrong if that is who I am? ”

you do not need my answer. I only need to listen.

we do this. over and over. I sit beside you. hour and hour. there is no revelation no ceremony. and you. unravel. quietly in the dark. unravel. what you are made of.

you cut me a bigger piece.

surely you must question yourself like I do. why mention anything? who really wants to know? you do not need to know. there are things I could say but they are not for you to hear.

I hold a shiver in my jacket pinned tight against my chest. and you. you drive.

“ do you have to be anywhere tonight? ”

not for a while. st.kilda prahran toorak. over macrobertson’s bridge. over the river. it is fat. awful with things I cannot see. we lose ourselves in the northern suburbs. richmond hawthorn kew. traffic lights train lines traffic lights and a freeway. but nothing matters here at night. we cruise hour and hour through unfamiliar suburbs. the city. my city. her stockings have laddered all the way from burnley to belgave. my little nest. my city is missing. heidelberg doncaster ringwood. somewhere in the tracks we left behind. we do this. over and over. I listen. listen and listen until the rain stops and we have swirled back to where my house has found me. I finished everything on my plate. it was deliciously unnecessary.

odd and awkward.

“goodbye”

the overgrown garden swallows me dark at the gate. I stoop under sodden boughs that swipe at me. my pores suck at the moist air and I smell that smell of puddles, earth, mint and metal. rain. I am thirsty. only for the fresh rain plumping on these leaves.

and you. I never even offered you a piece.

and I.

“ you say something. ”

I am very careful with what I give you. it is mine after all.

when I take myself out of my everyday environment. my imagination comes up with all sorts of ways of thinking. and explaining my life to me. I am removed. set back. I can look at myself from above at last. I see everything for what it is. or so I think. out there I began to think about how different things would be if things were different.

out there. we are nowhere at night. the bush sits still at last. drips thud into the sodden earth from the gums above. we sit with wet bums on a damp log before the crackle of our fire. the mitchell sweeps by furiously in the dark. gulping up the river banks. in the firelight you teach me about fear.

“ what do you think is out there? ”

I go over this. over and over.

wolves monsters murderers.

I have never seen such things and yet in my mind I can see them. lurking in the shadows. snarling. circling. waiting. to rip me to shreds and leave me to rot half eaten in this nameless gully. you teach me. there is nothing. nothing beyond the light to fear. you teach me. I am not afraid of this dark. only of what I cannot see.

I go over this. over and over. and yet. some things are easier if I can’t see. I can tell you what wanders around behind my eyes but only if I can’t see you. only then. it annoys you. that I don’t say a thing. I think about. all the things I could say. I can’t. how could I tell you?

I think of writing to you. I do have things to say. to you. little things. pieces of elwood beach in winter. a piece of meredith street and maybe michael the finder. or me. not out loud. only here on paper. this way. if I tell you something I know it won’t come back to slap me in the face. I know I won’t blush having told you. if I do. you can’t see it. I know. if I tell you. I won’t have to explain myself. there is no guilt or shame. sometimes guilt sometimes shame. but not to be seen in my face. writing is a poker face. another me. I know my mouth does not have this to say.

I will cut you a tiny piece of everything.

in order of appearance.

appearance of order in. and I. this is what I am made of. these. finally. I drip through. and you. you want meaning. and I. unravel. this way and that.
rewind.
stop.
play.
the phone rings. echoes through these architraves and high ceilings. rings on and on. and out. this night could never be nice. it would never be good. it would never be right. too late. too dark. two children. michael the finder. and his associate. together they could find everything mother lost. keys in the cushions. a shoe. an earring. an overdue video. two children. run into midnight. home soon to this house on the hill.

too late. too dark. two children. what did they find together? thumping and thrashing in the tangled sheets. they walked in to lights on. door open. and a small quiet question about their mother. two children tiptoe. eyes wide. tiptoe backwards along floorboards that sink and whine beneath them. down the staircase quiet and confused about things they have not imagined.

things never happened. this never happened. they lost this. forever. this night. never a word. the wrong seedy end of the day.
night.
this nightmare. anger pushing heart beating head spinning tears blood hot and sticky running fast. towel bathroom escape. how she felt hot with hate.

pause.

writing is a poker face and I don’t give away a thing. I grew scales on my skin in this house. if you were not a page right now. but a voice on the telephone. or a person before me. I would not have any of this to say. and you want meaning.

play. never a word of it. strangers anew. an absence. she waits the while away. waits for the slow dark dawn. for a time when she will patch this up and sell it off. stop.

“ what do you mean? ”

I forget you want meaning or just some sense? second serving. another little piece. and you want meaning. I don’t have a meaning as such. what is your meaning of this?
play.
she stood barefoot on the backyard bricks. inhaling cool jasmine and fragments.
of. something. she’ll. never. remember.
she smells a little girl running. summer is coming. a circle. a cycle. over and over. how simple and yet.

she dreams of tracks through the bush. through bracken fern along riverbanks and over red rocky deserts. tracks she runs. at ninety percent. ninety-five percent. sometimes chased by a man. sometimes men. sometimes captured. sometimes she just runs. stop.

and you want meaning?

fast forward. play. frankston hospital. four am. i-c-u.

things. faces time voices drop. fall. and fall. and fall and spill. something has fallen and cannot get up.

wrecked in my chest and falling. flaying its arms about. wrecked in my chest. I feel the laminex rushing towards me. I can taste it on my lip and yet I plunge deeper. the earth was meant to catch me. to keep me. to hold me. but I fall. sinking through. on and on. it is fine now. safe now. there is nobody here and nothing.

these years with him have done me over.

we have shipwrecked in runaway bay. before I could think. I jumped. cool into this soothing swallow of the sea. fuel cans and gas generators did this. and him. fat black smoke globbing into the blue sky and where is he now?

I drag myself to shore. I look at him through ragged hair. on that shore far away. I don’t have the strength to dive back in. to find a way. I will wait for the tide to go out. but it comes to me. it sings to me. all the little things. the corner of his mouth where his lips gently peel from each other. and the tide sweeps us away.

and you want things to make sense. nothing makes sense.

“ four am? ”

I watch as my mother lifts her mother’s head to brush the life back into it. our most vulnerable hour. our coldest hour. it is loud with that chilling hospital muteness. and then all at once machines bleep and bodies flurry between beds. it is so loud and yet she does not hear a thing. she draws breath. and it is all.
gone.
eighty six this year.
she tried everything to give
her life meaning. yoga for pregnant mums.
striving to find a new jude. she wanted to be an artist.
inspired by rod. the seedy gallery owner down hosier lane. rod.
adorned with facial hair. a crumpled black linen suit and cowboy boots.
she hated her husband. learned french for beginners. ran away to italy for an art
appreciation tour. in the hope of finding something that matters. could not see for looking.
gone.
she taught us everything we know. a visionary.

“ unattainable dreams make the most of us. 100 percent is useless. there’s nowhere else to go. ”

needles and purple tissue paper skin. moist skin. hot skin. the wet smell of warm metal sits in the filth of my mouth. living room come waiting room. something she said about her hair and the boy. he has brought a book to her bedside. michael the finder. he draws the lines. of her falling face. over and over.
how poetic of her. not to say a thing.
gone.
he walks the old aisle of her eye and genuflects before god. exactly how she taught him. he wanders through her musty archways. he smells that church smell of burned candles and age. st anthony finds him there crying and carries the small boy home.
stop.
fast forward.

I am not here.

play.
another tiny piece of this.

too late. too dark. they fought. they thought. we could never be lonely. a great big house. dark and vast. I am not here but I wander through to a glowing end. and someone with something to speak. tonight a boy at the piano. michael the finder. seventeen.

“ it is not safe here but I know where to hide. ”

hopes or imagines a figure in the doorway. listening. a beginning and yet. I walk away. back down the long hall. I am not here. never was. we do this. over and over. we wander through polite rubbish. for days and years. we stubborn ourselves to death.

“ if you’re not here then go away. ”

the metronome pretends everything is perfect paced. clear.

tick. tick. tick.

he plays three chords on the piano. over and over.

we tick. tick. tick

stop.

play. a beginning.

michael the finder gives me his dark gritting eyes. he says.

“ you can’t change it don’t try. ”

I try.

what is the finder’s fee?

I only. splash. a thudding realisation. a brother. I want to meet. and yet. he had only come home to say he had left. and now he was leaving again. I want to rip out of this skin and roll in someone else. a dog rolls in shit to disguise his own scent. but I know I’ll scrub hard to wash it off. someday we will pull the plug. replace the water. someday we will sail for bluer waters. a beginning and yet.
stop.
we are done.

We are done.

Everything.

>

We sit in the your car in the Coles car park. It is too late and I am too tired. We are ages away from where we belong. The streetlights fuzz and bleed into black in this dark and wet. The rain runs rivers down your windscreen while you tell me a little piece of everything.