THINKING

martha/19/wales //

[marthalobrien]

Questions for a Dead Man

I’m not one for postcards,  but we weren’t ones for poetry. How do I write to you? Using terms we never used? Speaking ‘til throats are black and blue with lies lacing bitter truths.

Would you know me, if you saw me? Could you see me in a crowd? Will you stare, will you stop- your static face and navy top.

It lingers in the radio silence, two questions I’m afraid to ask. Are we strangers yet? And if not, when?

[marthalobrien]

Under a pink sky

The water in the paddling pool turns cold. Mugs of coca-cola on the grass, a skipping rope and cards.  Mum grabs a jacket, Dad has a blanket around his knees and says, get your own, then laughs, hugs you close. The edge of a chill rears its head while cold lemonade slides smoothly down, slow, between waves of laughter. Calls for more crisps, ice for the cider. You lean back in your seat, sleepy from  the sweetest evening, a book rested in your lap. 

The evening will end. You know that. You know it, but don’t feel it at all.

[marthalobrien]

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Breezeblocks // Alt J (Acoustic Cover)

[marthalobrien]

I’ll get lost

At seventeen I swore I’d never change, this promise broken time and again- the longer my hair falls out of my head  and the more I move and grow and ebb and flow, can’t I be something a little more static?  Snap me back like a piece of elastic. Pierced ears are something more than a framed photo of defiance because I won’t let these holes close up but sometimes I wonder if you’ve just moved to another part of the country. Would you recognise me, if you saw me?

[marthalobrien]

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Suzanne - Leonard Cohen (Cover) 

[marthalobrien]

Meanwhile

The next book is opened and the dots joined and meanwhile I sip my tea.  Fingers trace patterns in a fogged window; teeth marks in chocolate that tastes like yesterday. Meanwhile a fire crackles and a jumper warms and a light shines while rain soaks and ice freezes and meanwhile, someone else is little.  Someone else is breaking open at the edges I stand on the edge of everything in my head  and at the same time I’m wrapped up tight, meanwhile your favourite song plays just as you pull up into the drive.

Stay a little. Let the battery die.

[marthalobrien]

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Take Me I’m Yours // Squeeze (Cover)

[marthalobrien]

You can still do what you want

You’re missing the past, so patch it together- stitch your photographs onto your jumper, wear your heart upon your sleeve.  And if you’re missing us, we’ll wave from the window, show you our souls, we’re still yours.  Call us up on the phone before you fill your mouth with humble pie,  filling yourself up with new tastes that somehow taste the same.  Don’t eat too quickly. You’ll be sat by the fire some feeling in the pit of your stomach, you’ll think, is this nostalgia? or is it just indigestion? 

[marthalobrien]

Silence

The sounds that circle my head are cluttered.  Somehow still always frightening, the way they flash and scream like thunder, storm like winter, surge like warfare fighting to be heard above each other, the voices that circle relentlessly, cold and lingering. Trumpet full-blast, bassline vibrating, floorboards shaking, ears popping amongst this scream of fears, engines whirring, earthquakes and  volcanoes and eruptions ever-deafening- except here. Except now. With you, the volume’s turned down. 

[marthalobrien]

Wednesday Nights

Softer than cotton, standing on the toilet seat laughing as I touch your bald head.  Hot, prickled by the razor’s touch, you rub your stubbled cheek on my tiny face,  I squeal - missing baby teeth on show.  Lifted down and warmed up, pyjamas on and teeth brushed, a bedtime story and guesses at what will happen next.  Tucked in and lights off, I am blind to your eyes, their tiredness, the nights after you’ve worked through the day, ready to come home and drink lemonade or hot chocolate, made in the pan, sipping sweetness and sleeping without worry.  The night shift is always on, between fixing machines and bedtime prayers at little feet.  Warmer than summer. Smooth as velvet. Softer than cotton.

[marthalobrien]

Last Winter

Last Winter. Coldest when its bitter letters stuttered on the lips of the sender.  Someone told us that love was the only thing that’d ever be enough. The first and the last thing to feel.  I remember its moans that never came from wind the snow that never arrived the frost that hurt my fingertips, resting feet in someone else’s shoes. The winter that we only just made it through by the skin of our teeth, slid in through the doors- I’m recalling this all wrong. Last winter was a storm that didn’t end  and unravelled around us, a perverse blanket that was never asked for.  We never asked last winter to come.

[marthalobrien]

Redecorate

I’ll sleep tomorrow, or the next day, maybe.  Give me a call when the time’s done ticking- ring me up when our food is done.  I’m clawing away at whatever’s left,  the edges of the wallpaper stay stuck  to the paste I dared stick my hand in- I’m stuck here too.  Somewhere in between the foundation and the decoration is me, somewhere else, glued, layers weighing me down. I’m lying awake, with a headache, laughing, because there’s nothing else to do.

[marthalobrien]

Last Week

Told me your fingers go cold at the tips, something about blood, blood spilled perhaps. It certainly sends a shiver down somewhere, maybe the alley behind the flats,  maybe just my spine.  I linger at the back of queues with my passport hidden  without baby steps to make my decisions, wisps of smoke falling out of my ears, grabbing onto cold hands, frozen memory. Told me there’s a gap, somewhere,  where the blood won’t pump.  Something about memory  something I said, perhaps.

[marthalobrien]

The Babies

Look at us; the babies. There’s a photo standing on your bedside table and it’s us, smiling, the grins of girls who grabbed on tight to ideas that floated above us like balloon strings. We sit and sip coffee, still fresh faced and new but not like in that photo, there was never a hint of how we would laugh and moan and smile and the silences that would fall in the gaps we left. The smiles shine from the photo frame  and sing a different tune.  We laugh at the babies who look at us, awestruck, the babies who we want to love.

[marthalobrien]

Velvet Streets

These velvet streets will miss us when we’re gone from their view. The fog that fills up behind us comes from nowhere; my vision is clearer than ever. You count on one hand and can’t make seven mathematics means nothing off the paper. It’s quite probable we mean nothing, too. I stare at the ceiling and forget about the dishes I wonder if I ever thought about the dishes.  I’ve always been somewhere else but, God, I love these velvet streets. and these velvet streets will miss us when we count further than they can.

[marthalobrien]

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What Makes You Think You’re The One // Fleetwood Mac (Cover)

[marthalobrien]

Earth and Sea and Sky TV

I cannot get a grip on the ladder that dangles in front of me. Somewhere else there’s somewhere different and I’m hardly here already- my feet are slamming and my brain’s tip-toeing Trying hard to feel it but I’m up here floating and my words do no justice  to how my boat is sailing upstream and I’m a girl overboard.  Among sofas and laptops and sunglasses and tan. On pavements and lamp-lights and coffee and dance  all I can see are stars  but they do nothing to light the way.