Milk/MRI
I tell the doctor I am dizzy and they lay me down on the plastic
Turn my head to one side
Then the other
Push me until I am dangling over the side with my neck limp
Staring at their shoes upside down
He sits me up and brings a hammer to my knees
Then tells me to push as hard against his fist as I can
I strip myself to nothing and stuff all my things in the little locker they gave me
I put the sunflowers I bought you for Valentine’s Day in there, too.
Being here reminds me of those two weeks when I was 16 and I thought I was going to die
How the ultrasound technicians kept telling me how young I was
How hard I cried when they did the biopsy
Even though that’s over now
It’s hard to take the memory away: staring at my face in the mirror, thinking it hollow and purple
Hours spent in waiting rooms with the elderly
Strangers touching my breast with cold gloved hands.
I always feel sad when they lay me down on the bed and tell me not to move
They cover my eyes and plug my ears
Put a pillow beneath my knees
But I can still feel the machine shake
They give me a button to hold in my sweating, clamped-shut hand
To press if I get scared
Mum told me to count backwards from one thousand
I imagine you seeing me in here
A sick, gowned body or like I’m only 10,
Covered with a blanket and waiting for a cup of jelly to make it all worth it
Peppa Pig on the TV, no sound,
Waking up from the anaesthetic in a wheelchair without my parents, unsure when they were told to leave the room
It's so loud and I am terrified
Still, like an animal pretending to be dead
But I can’t find the will to push my finger down and press it
I fall asleep in a room full of cameras
As they watch and try to find the spot where the energy is leaking out
Glue in my hair and wires hooked into me everywhere
A tube in my nose to pick up the moments in the night
When I struggle for breath
Awaking to the girl across the hall
Telling the nurse she’s cold
In a voice that sounds like she is crying
I can’t turn my head or move my face
Without something dislodging:
Unattached from where they plugged me in
The tests show nothing and the doctors say things like:
Vestibular
Neuralgia
Tinnitus
Neuritis
I don’t know what that means.
The words remind me of hysteria
Women trying to break out of the walls of their skull
Sitting there motionless while they speak I tunnel inwards and feel all expression go from my face
Remembering when I was a child and my mum did all the talking for me
Staring at the instructions on the wall for sharps disposal
And the tiny words on the cupboard doors: gloves, collection jars, spare needles Made from the handheld label printers I used to play with in my parents’ office when I went with them to work
I used to be scared of needles
And would grip Mum’s hand desperately whenever I got put to sleep
But now I fantasise about one being slowly submerged into the skin
Where my brow meets the bridge of my nose
And in the gums above my top molars
Injecting something cool
Or so warm I can't feel the throbbing in my bones anymore
Like when I put my head back in the bath
And let the water lap over me
Until I can’t feel the difference in temperature
Between the liquid and my insides
And wonder if I have melted down
Into soft residue on the porcelain
I daydream about pulling out my teeth
Like a child hungry for pocket money
Tying them to the door handle and slamming it shut to force out the roots
So I can look in the holes they leave
And find what has been eating me
The thing the scans and antibiotics and fingers in my mouth can’t find
There’s a moment after you undress me
Where I frantically rifle through my bedside drawer, trying not to rattle the bottles of painkillers
When the sick escapes into plain sight
And I can’t pretend anymore that it's not in the room with us
No matter how much I can smile and joke and fuck
So long as I am lying down.
Sometimes I feel that if I am anything
It is the milk left over
Liquid squeezed between shaking fingers
And the dry, unwanted mass of my body
Sitting curled in the palm of your hand
Moss (Poem for a Friend)
In the moments after you leave, I inspect myself in the mirror:
The downward turn of my smile
The origami fold of my spine
And the places where my skin concaves, the valleys between my bones
I look like a girl again.
You appear in as many of my dreams as I remember
so that nowadays when I sleep your presence washes over me
and I always wake with a vague feeling that I have left you behind somewhere
Walking together through a train station,
holding hands so as not to lose each other in the crowd.
I wake in the night and find you still closely knit to me:
Your cheek to my sternum, something between a sigh and a word
which I would love to decipher
hummed into my skin
I wait for your hands to pass over my shoulder
and push away what covers the surface
Until it’s only me
sitting cross-legged opposite you
And yet I press my elbows together and grip at either side of my neck
I cross my arms over my body
What a strange and gentle thing,
To be kissed by someone you grew up with.
It’s like I knew you in the memory of another life
And I find myself now possessed by an impatient curiosity
about the parts of you still concealed
the places I know I can’t yet touch
your eyes looking up at something I can’t see
I stroke your arm and you shiver
Touch me back
and I am electrified
Like an animal
frozen in the light but for the obvious beating of its heart.
You told me once, with sincere disbelief
that my hands were so warm
You asked me why
But I don’t know where the warmth in me comes from.
It’s funny,
Feeling everything come to the surface
like green moss crawling
out from beneath strained fingers
And suddenly you fill a space I had kept guarded
So easily – like its sole purpose was to house you.
I have become a collection of letters
with no name
But all of which are addressed to you
And I feel now
that I am always looking through your eyes
I would let you wash me clean
I’d let you untie the ribbon
I love it when you kiss my fingers
In everything I listen to, I search for a sound you would like
or that could make you understand
How dearly I want you
to look at me and feel the way I do
When I stroke your hair, kiss your ear and press the tip of my nose against your cheek
And quietly realise as soon as the thought appears,
I would be there as soon as you ask for me
More than that I wish you knew
That I am afraid to be looked at
without my shell
But I will unravel the first layer for you
So you can see what lies beneath.