Four Years Ago Today

Four years ago today,

your heart stopped and mine broke.

Something about an artery,

but I just think your heart was at capacity.

So they patched you up and fixed you for me.

Four years ago today,

when I realised you’d almost died,

I stopped looking up and started looking inside.

But inside myself I got a little bit lost,

driftwood flung around and tossed about by a tide.

For a while, an intermission.

But your mission has always been to make me strong.

That was your plan, I know, all along.

Four years ago today,

The last four years were just a prediction,

that “minor” affliction,

the scars that you bear

are hallmarks of the strength I hope I can share.

Though I may not show it always,

there are days when if thanking god was my thing,

I’d hypothetically do it.

Four years ago today,

I wished I could run up that hill and go

through it instead of you,

go through something hard

but you made sure I never had to.

Four years ago today,

I lost my faith in invincible,

and in principle I suppose that’s good.

I guess I should stop being that driftwood.

or throw it on the fire, watch it burn

as I try to turn into a grown up.

Four years ago today,

you came back to life,

and now that’s what I need to do.

I breathe and I eat and I sleep and I work,

but it hurts even to blink.

And I think that’s why someone decided

to save you: I need you, although it’s so hard to re-play,

I’m so glad that you lived

four years ago today. 

Daniel

Tail between legs.
Head in a shell,
Skull in the sand.
Prickly spine,
Your pain is mine.

Spray in the face,
Claws out,
Fangs bared,
Standing-on-end hair,
I am still there.

Find your way home.
Follow the cats' lights.
Over the bumps.
Past the sheep dogs.
See your way through the fog.

Know my name.
Know my number.
Whatever it is.
Whenever you phone,
You're not alone.

Dear Mum

The clouds look so harmless, so meaningless
But when they're there, and the sun can't shine through,
I feel you a little bit less.
Dear Mum...
I hope you watched me today,
I tried to let nothing get in the way of my unexpected ambition.
Seeing my dreams come to fruition, though, is nothing compared
to having you here to be able tell you about it.
I am unlearning morse code, it's like going blind,
I have to adjust, change, roll with the times and get used to it.
I feel like you and I are without a conduit.
I went to send you a message,
but is a message still sent if you're not there?
I feel scared, the phone is a reminder
of when you'd tell me to be just a little bit kinder.
Listen, remember, regret.
Repeat.
Look at the photographs, cry, weep, repeat.
The touch points of my life are still in place, milestones still not met
but the memory of your smiling face
stops me like a fox in the road,
scavenging on tatty Polaroids to feed
something that everyone says I should be soon throwing away.
I'm not ready yet to do all that.
Your fingerprints on a glass are the only things I can make last.

Garden

So a garden is new.

It’s so living and everything.

And I have to say thank you.

I have to do all the things

that my feet put in front of the other.

But I’ve lost my mother,

my confidant, my drinking buddy, my friend.

People keep saying this isn’t the end.

But it is, isn’t it? How can it not be?

The funeral, the priest and the ashes.

She’s never going to stroke my eyelashes as she sings me

to sleep again.

I’ve lost my best friend.

Her hands were the same as mine

but cold. She never got to grow old.

Her hair was as golden as ever

and people remember her as something

I never will. She was no ordinary mother.

They say she looked peaceful

but I disagree;

if she’d known this was coming, she would have fought,

put into practice all the things that she taught me.

Fight back. Withstand. Have pride.

Do not keep everything inside.
Ironic.

I look at my shaking hands and remember.

Like shovels. Northern, meant for cold weather.

I’ve never endured a storm like this.

A TV drama with an evil twist at the end.

She would have loved that and recorded it.

That horrid little bastard, travelling upwards.

I wish I could just dissolve it.

Dismantle the thing and absolve the pain that it left behind.

Questions squirm their way out of answers,

flashes of in-car, sun-glittered glances.

Like flashbacks but not as glamourous. I see her face,

In every empty space.

There is so much I’d like to tell her.

Like how we loved her and how much I miss her.

And how despite the distance being there, I still kept hold.

She always said she was getting old.

But she wasn’t; she won't.

But don't doubt:
She was still the most beautiful girl in the room.

The most beautiful bride in the car.

The most wonderful mother there was.

The most dazzling glint in a star. 

MUM

You are the sunshine.

And whenever it comes out I will

stop myself from screaming and shouting

because you didn’t like that.

You always smiled.

You always seemed happy.

And from the moment you held me

you were a constellation for me.

Not just one star, but a collection.

A reflection of you, me, us and stars.

We still don’t know how lucky we are to have known you.

A blast of joy when I saw those numbers

on my phone – you always made me feel less alone.

You were a Catherine Wheel.

Spinning and beautiful and everyone stopped for a minute.

Please let that moment stop with me in it.

Ma, Mum, Little Blackie, Hells Bells, Helen.

Maybe I will never see you again
and if so, I have few regrets.

Maybe that’s as good as it gets.