#twylabrown

[thomastalliscreativewriting-blog]

Grief, a monologue, by Twyla Brown

JAMIE:

You could never imagine that feeling I can’t describe. It’s always the way isn’t it… blindingly high, or, just having had the world’s most frantic panic attack…  you know the ones, where you see spots in front of your eyes and it’s like you snorted a sherbet fountain or some shit like that because everything’s popping in the bridge of your nose. See. It’s super easy to describe that one, like, hell, I’m no poet… it’s kinda common sense innit?

(beat)

and then there’s this one… (pause)

It’s weird what we perceive as bad news isn’t it? And how do we know it is actually bad news? Like, Is it defined as bad news, and then worse news or is there just good and bad news? It’s like, being referred to a therapist, and then being diagnosed with depression I guess.. what constitutes the bad news? Surely the therapist is good news, right?

My bad news was that she was pregnant. Like, fuck. Isn’t that the worst nightmare of every parent of every teenager ever? My mum’s outward reaction was definitely cooler than her inward one. Sure, a clip around the ear and that shaming look was enough to let me know that I’d fucked up but I knew she was upset. She smoked a whole pack of fags over the course of that weekend, and she doesn’t smoke.

But hey. We were all born to be fuckups.

(beat)

My worse news was that my daughter had died… so I guess it’s arguable that the “I got my girlfriend pregnant” news was in fact good news.

(beat)

She just stood at the sink washing her hands and I didn’t know what to say because what do you say in that situation? We both just stood there and she didn’t make eye contact and I remembered everything, exactly how it was, from beginning to end. I walked home on my own, and next thing, I’m screaming at the top of my voice, ‘I HATE YOU’ and all that and then I’m retching into the toilet bowl, head against the wall and nothing comes up but that’s not the point because I may aswell be puking my guts up and the fags and all the weed didn’t make a single difference because I smoked four of them that night and this was where it got me and that’s by the by because maybe it’d all be okay and maybe I just really really needed a drink right then, or maybe I needed my mum to pick me up off the floor and hold me and make me some comfort food- or- something- and then everything would be okay except I just shouted at her about how I didn’t want her interfering with my life anymore and she ran away sobbing and shut herself in her room and suddenly I was way out of my depth and this wasn’t just something I could fix with a bottle of Jack Daniels and playing the same Fleetwood Mac song on repeat and so I threw up for real and it was fucking horrible and my eyes and my throat were sore from crying and heaving and then I fell asleep just inside the bathroom door and it was just like when I would get drunk on the weekends and I’d spend a good 40 minutes vomiting before passing out and in the morning all I would have to do was deal with the hangover with the help of a chip buttie and a lucozade and pretty soon I’d be good as new and ready a second round. I just pretended it was like that. Which is all well and good until you wake up for real and the headache’s still there and there’s still a bad taste in your mouth and you’re confused because you just don’t get why because you haven’t been drinking and then you remember and you wish you had except you are 100% without a doubt stone cold sober and things are still going to shit.

And I wished I could be drunk forever.

Essentially what I’m trying to describe doesn’t actually exist… the feeling is nothing, essentially.

(beat)

We’d had her a year… a year and four months. Sorry. (he looks up) Should I stop?

(beat)

I didn’t eat properly for the next few months.. normally threw whatever I had back up again. I can’t remember anything about the funeral… That’s bad isn’t it? I remember every second leading upto it in agonising detail… but the actual thing? May as well have never happened.. Rosa’s mum read the eulogy… must’ve been some eulogy. (he laughs for the first time)

The feeling is nothing.. I think that’s the best way I can describe it.

All my limbs were numb in the taxi home from the crematorium. I saw her face, my little girl, and then she was whisked off, away from me, gone forever. Got home. Dragged myself upstairs. Slept.

[thomastalliscreativewriting-blog]

How and why I write, by Twyla Brown

I write because someone once gave me a pen. I write because sometimes it’s easier than speaking, I write because it doesn’t have to make sense, I write because there’s always a subplot in my head, I write because I’m told literal homicide is not the way forward, I write because there are more worlds to discover, I write because I love taboo subjects, I write because sometimes it’s easier to give my turmoil to a helpless character of my own invention, I write because I love relationships, but I hate being in them, I write because I’m fascinated by human emotion, I write because metaphor is beautiful, I write because I know heartbreak, I write because there are no rules, I write because I love sociopaths, I write to apologise, I write to scare, I write to comfort, I write to confront, I write to express, I write because I know loss, I write because I remember, I write because I can be in control, I write because I anything is possible, I write because I don’t want to forget, I write to destroy, I write because I know pain, I write because then I won’t choke on my words, I write because then I can edit, I write because people need stories, I write because people can’t read minds, I write because it can all get intense, I write because there are better places, I write because I like words, I write because things that repulse me sometimes fascinate me, I write because I know love, I write because I love people, I write because I can hide things, I write because it’s up to me, I write because someone said ‘tell me all about it’, I write because I hate people, I write because I don’t understand, I write because if I don’t, who else will?

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October Rain, by Twyla Brown

October rain is all that I can hear

It beats against the glassy window pane

The silence is the only thing I fear

So while I’m lonely let me keep the rain

It’s always better when I’m here with you

It hits the hardest when I am alone

October ends, November starts a-new

I’ve spent a long year waiting by the phone

And still the rain keeps falling thick and fast

Bemused am I that life will still go on

I can’t fight feeling that you were my last

That numb realisation you are gone

I never guessed this was how it would be

No us, just separate you and separate me

[thomastalliscreativewriting-blog]

Ellis, by Twyla

He interests me, all hair and eyes and thoughtful remarks I thought, of someone so thoughtful, we should appoint you as leader but he won’t. He reads Orwell, well I’ve only read the one, he’s all prog rock and guitar and Heath Ledger well who doesn’t love Heath Ledger? I thought, of someone so pensive you’d make an excellent leader but he won’t and I know anarchy anarchy anarchy

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About his person, by Twyla Brown

A false tattoo

two pounds in change

a dictionary marked on his favourite page

(myriad, myrrh, myself, mysterious)

a crumpled poster of The Smiths

a box of matches

some fabric patches

a discount card for his local caves

a tiny barbie shoe

(from his daughter, just turned two)

half an invitation to his neighbour’s barbecue

back in 2003…

also 5 paracetamol, a dozen ibruprofen,

tic tacs and a couple nurofen

just to be safe

[thomastalliscreativewriting-blog]

False Tattoos, by Twyla Brown

I remember when you

peeled away the soft plastic

sticky side down on my forearm

I’d known you a week

a bond made over our mutual love of 

false tattoos.

There it was, perfect and complete,

shiny when the light caught it,

damp and new and flawless

like a silent baby

and then it faded

remember how we faded?

[thomastalliscreativewriting-blog]

Lonely, by Twyla Brown

Here I am

here’s that metallic taste

a long plain t-shirt and

lying on my side

inspecting my hands

no-one’s calling or talking or typing or crying or laughing or bitching or singing or watching

we’re all just here

but separate

lying on our sides with our backs to the room

inspecting our fingers and wondering

where the hell everyone is

a strip of grey light

dust

running in the distance

[thomastalliscreativewriting-blog]

Hair (a poem for Donnie), by Twyla Brown

Hands in curled hair pressed to my cheeks

I’ve cried into her curls more times than I 

can remember

sweet smelling and soft,

her hair is my comfort

the bringer of change when she shaved it all off

I remember the unrecognisable difference 

curls all gone, she ran a hand through

her flawless clippered hair as I greeted her

“Hello Sinēad”

With this change brought new change,

hair grows and so does love

and her curls were smaller

darker

then lighter

I slip my hands into them even now

and the calm is back

and it’s all okay