Wolf

We had been separated for two years. It was around two, perhaps eighteen months. Either way I was in her apartment, sitting in the middle of the floor. She laid across the sofa, draped in colourful sheets. I had removed my socks as they had started to come off with my boots and I had wanted my actions to seem purposeful from the offset. I hoped she would see this as an interesting quirk, perhaps something that signified change, but even I knew it was pathetic. She looked at me with a mixture of intent and pity. I stared at the floor. The silence was excruciating. My mind was racing but words were not forming.

“I saw a wolf” I paused for a moment, unsure if this was the path to follow. “I saw a wolf, when I was walking home the other night. He looked like a wolf. He was white and grey and proud. He looked at me, he looked at me straight on and he mimicked my movements.”

I looked up. She was looking at me. I could see that she had no ring on her finger, It was poking out slightly from under the covers. I could see a t-shirt strewn over the end of the sofa. It was too large to be hers.

“I mean, I think I saw it. I’m almost certain.”

She stood up and smiled and walked towards the kitchen. Through the door I could see half of her putting a kettle onto the hob. After a moment she hovered in the doorway.

“This wolf, as I walked towards him, he mimicked my movements. He looked more purposeful though, he looked like he could strike, but you know, obviously I couldn’t tell what he was thinking”

“Obviously”

I tried to seek playfulness in her voice but it seemed harsher than I remembered.

“I walked towards it, it was in a garden, underneath one of the old boarding houses, next to the pub in the dale. I wanted to see how it would pan out, you know, if I walked towards it, I mean, I couldn’t avoid it, it was on my way home.”

She walked back into the kitchen and took the pot off the boil. She poured out two cups and presented one to me. I sipped it. It was black with a shot of cream. I sipped it and rested back onto my elbows.

She looked at me as I sipped the coffee. I did not say anything else. I began to think about the snow outside. I could hear it crashing against the window. My boots were beside me, the snow had melted from them slightly and there was a small pool of water around the soles. I had bought the boots in the Summer, to prepare for the cold winter. I felt a certain satisfaction in this.

“Go on”

I spun back towards her

“The wolf. Go on.”

“Okay, the wolf, yes, I mean, I was almost at the point where we had to meet. But it was cold, my hands were frozen. I put my head down and walked as fast as I could. Faster than I should. The lights were orange and the road was empty, I tried to look back when I was a few paces forward but I couldn’t see the garden. It had big hedges each side, I could see the edge of the driveway but that was it. I try to think back now, you know, to the garden. If there were some paw-prints in the snow or something, but for the life of me I can’t remember.”

She sat beside me on the floor, dragging the cover down from the sofa. She gave me a corner to cover my feet. I wrapped it around them, pulling them together for warmth. I felt more comfortable now and I laid down on my back.

“The next day, all I could think about was that wolf. I would be going through the day and carrying on conversations but the whole time I was thinking of that wolf. We even joked about it, you know, maybe it was my spirit wolf and all that”

She laughed a little and lent back against the edge of the sofa.

“But then I thought, that day and thinking about the wolf. It’s the most I’ve thought about anything in as long as I dare to remember.”

She looked at me now. A different look.

“What did you come here for?”

I thought.

“I wouldn’t want to say. Just in case I was wrong.”

I walked home and it was light. There were birds singing. The birds carried on singing, but they knew, just as well as I did, that the wolf would be at my door when I returned.

White Christmas

I saw a white Christmas this year
For the first time since my birth

On Christmas day we sat, and we were pleasant
My father reminded us as it was a day of Christ

He has read the greats and travelled India
I would like to discuss the old Russians

But they are meaningless to him now
He has God

I would like to discuss the great Russians
But it would not do either of us any good.

At Christmas he was unhappy, but he is happy now.
He would like to discuss God but I am not of the age or mindset to accept this

It was a white Christmas
And I am an adult now, for what it is worth.

Cheap

What of you bony hips,
Does you cry for your dignity, I know of men
But to claim for one,
Who could tell?
Who on earth could tell?

Do you better yourself, what is your comparison?
There is a family, shopping, in sync,
Calling for the perfect,
Perfect.

Hair, swept and manicured, furrowed brow
Of hard work, not thought
And never a worry beyond the payment plans.

Test your passes, don’t fall in love.
Stay strong and challenge
But you fight.

Do you know?
Does she know?

After all, that’s all it is, isn’t it?
It’s cheap
It’s cheap.

It’s cheap and you are poor.

On the steps

I am back here
on the steps,

It is Autumn.

Not my town, no abode, no contact
Alone on the steps, as they pass
Features blur.

You could pick them out if you wished,
but I see no need.

I do not wish to meet these people, merely observe,
It seems lazy
And clichéd
To wonder where they are going, what they are doing, what they are thinking, how they continue, how they do not give in, how their families are, how they fuck, If they make love, how they met their significant other, if they are happy in the way they love their lives, if they are happy with the world around them, if they are the world around them,
If it becomes them,
If we are linked,
If we are attatched,
When they disappear from view.

Perhaps their sobs were smothered as children,
Perhaps that’s why they do not spill,
On the pavement
As I watch
From the steps.

It's hard being a man, living in a garbage pail...

Grief (First Draft)

The lights clicked off, one by one by one. She ghosted through the hall without a sound. It was a walk she had made many times before, she could beat the lights now, or even make the walk in the dark if needs be. Once she reached the office, she slipped inside. The room was presented in cold grey stucco. On one side was a thin table. It had thin legs, a thin top and was also grey. There was a chair beside the desk, red, and another in the corner. The chair in the corner looked slightly cheaper than the chair in behind the desk, and was a little smaller. During the day she would often sit on the chair in the corner, but if she had the opportunity she would sit in the larger chair behind the desk.

She stood with her back pressed against the door for a moment. She did not sigh. After a moment or two she moved away from the door and approached the desk. At one side, hidden slightly from view, were several fleece jumpers. These were emblazoned with the company logo. She unfolded and spread these across the floor in the small area of floor between the desk and the wall, away from the door. Slowly, she laid out across the fleeces. Under the desk was a small book of poetry. The inside cover contained a hand written dedication. Each night she would open the book at the page with the dedication. She had not read the poems in side, there seemed little that these poems could convey which this opening page could not achieve. The writing was fairly elaborate, yet subtle. The f’s and g’s swirled majestically, sitting beside the other calm and understated characters. When she had first examined this page, little over a month ago, she had thought of the meanings behind the handwriting. It occurred to her that perhaps there was a strange synchronicity in the handwriting. He could often dart around with the most extreme and soaring majesty, then settle back into a life of weakness. The weakness was an odd phenomena. Since she had known him he had been a strong man, in behaviour and convictions. This had enveloped almost all characteristics of his personality, governing his friendships, work, pleasure and indeed his lovers. The weakness of his later months had always seemed, perhaps, a certain fate. Before a man like he could pass, a second sense ad perspective on life was needed. An acceptance if you will.

Over time the words themselves, and now even the handwriting had affected her less and less and now failed to inspire any feeling from her. It seemed more like a ritual.

After a few minutes the lights clicked off. The sensors were based on motion. Sometimes if she stirred in her sleep they would trigger and a flash of fluorescent light would wake her, but this happened less and less recently. It almost seemed like most things were clockwork. The sensors would not be triggered. She would sleep and awake at such a time, she could glide through the halls and into the toilets until the others arrived.

That night as she slept, she dreamt of a ballroom. He was healthy and they were dancing. There was no music. Just the sound of her dress brushing the sparkling tiles.

Start

An indigo sky pulsed over the waves. A screen of thin grey film over the windscreen due to the smoke slowly bleeding from the crumpled front hugging the trunk of a great oak. Its embrace encapsulated the warmth running through her chest, the splitting pain and warm sensation of what had passed seemed beleaguered to a sense of cutting scandal. The only section of the automobile still in tact and working order flipped down on cue to reveal a smile split centrally by a single trickle of dark claret.