As hot as before, the sun returns. . The open palm of the sky stretched blue and white, with nothing to disrupt its pure colour. Standing at the back door I watched the light hunt its way towards me. I did not move. The heat will claim me whether I move or I do not. It moved towards me in silence. Desolate. It is a silence that does not sleep. Even when the veil of night hangs itself over the sky, the hunt continues. Woven into the very etchings of the palm, the heat stalks. It is desire. It is terror. The ichor seeps slowly closer, like the tide coming in and letting the salt wash up slowly over the ankle, then the calf, the knee, the thigh, all the way to the waist. With each push fighting to keep balanced.

The summer burns. Stuck between creating, preserving and destroying. And I flesh understand. I hold my hands out to the summer, I hold what it gives me, I bite the fruit you give me. I hold my hands out to the summer, and it cares not for tears, it cares not for your desire. It cares for illusions and witchcraft. It weaves its delicate words infused with primal ichor between the strands of the hair and it does not leave. When the darkness comes, it is still there, woven into your very being. It stretches its way into each surface. I hold my hands out to summer and with its burning passion it holds me; it is like nothing I have ever felt. Primal. Primordial. untamed. I feel its gleaming eyes on me when I wake. The last thing I see before the night settles outside my window are the glowing eyes of the summer staring right back at me. I know the hunt will continue. I hold my hands out to the summer, and it cares not for tears, or desire. It does not care if you eat the fruit it traces around your lips. It cares only to feel the pulse of your wrist, your neck. It cares only to know if you breathe – if you can feel each sensation it traces along your body. It cares only if you can look it in the eyes while it stalks its way ever closer to you.

One evening I lay on my floor with the last light outside the window. The first stars appeared. The cloak of darkness is a velvet blue. Shadows melted from the walls. Contorting themselves. Refusing to stay in one form. My skin hot to touch. My palms unable to find respite. I pressed my ear to the worn surface of the rug. Late summer slowly begins its long tango. And I flesh understand.

Driving through the country lanes in the midst of dusk, my father told me of the first time he stayed in the rural countryside. He said, ‘’ I thought I’d gone blind.’ Velvet darkness encompasses all. The smallest of movements causes senses to heighten. And the night it purrs. Infused with becoming. The night purrs, on the edge of anticipation. Ripe on becoming. The darkness is for the wanting, the desperate longing. For the shadows that metamorphise into tales. In the coming of the velvet night my father said to me, ‘I thought I’d gone blind’’. Last year when we stayed in the Wye Valley, I’d wake in the night to silence. A silence alive in sensation. Sensual and thick. I’d lay awake listening to it. Unaware that I was hearing sounds lapping upon themselves that we have named silence. I have never heard silence like it. It was a silence thick in the ancient being of the land. In the mornings I’d wake and look out across the hills, dressed in the thick woodlands. I’d try to imagine it under the velvet night sky. Never once did I dare look at it at night. Never once did I stare into the darkness that I knew would stare back at me, purring.

Beatrice.

The night purrs and I cannot sleep. I tantalise myself in longing. My mind wanders through my labyrinth prison, designed by the one who watches back at me in the mirror. The half moon glows honeyed outside the window. Whispers of deep clouds wander like lost trails of smoke. The half moon glows honeyed outside the window. And the night purrs, deeply—-- I mistake it for silence. I mistake it. The night purrs, a slow melody stretched luxuriously. It is gentle. Soft. Presses its cotton palms against the stomach. It runs cool fingertips along the spine. You feel it drift against your mouth. The night purrs and it tempts. Hypnos comes to hold your palm, but is only truly interested in what the lines have to say. Keeps you awake while tracing the lines, their lips opening, closing, on the verge of speech. The night purrs and Hypnos kisses your palms and you hold your fingertips out to the shadows that hold so gently. And the nights, like the doorways, are built for the lingering; the remembering.

The night purrs and Hypnos kisses my palms.

Beatrice.

At seven this morning I stood with the cool tide of the ocean washing up over my feet. The early morning haze adorned the horizon. Specks of amber still fragmented through the open palm of the sky. Half seven standing with the tide washing up over my feet. I vanish. I appear. My wet footprints dry in the morning sun. No wave is ever the same as the last. The shore holds me. I vanish. I appear. I watched the stones behind the glassy surface of the edge of the waves that rippled in stills then raptures drifting to shore. A cool breeze traced my skin. It slipped itself under my t-shirt. Held the warming skin. It was a lover’s hands wrapped around my stomach. In the rising heat of the morning, the cool breeze traces a shiver across my skin. In the rising heat the sea, open, endless. Tempts. No two waves are ever the same– whether they reach the shore then or now. Those tides speaking in stills and raptures. When I was younger, I wondered how my grandparents, parents, could sit for hours in the same place, not really doing anything, just watching, observing. Now I understand. The magnetism of it; I understand the beauty of it. In the heat, sat in one place, whether it be sun or shade ( I think the summer has a way of turning shadows into philosophers) even the most gentle of breezes can feel like a saviour. In the rising heat, a cool breeze beckons off the glass top of the waves. It holds me like a lover. It does not speak of its coming nor its going, but we both understand one of us must leave.

In the haze of the morning, I dream. Turquoise, light blue. What is more sensual than the sea– pushing herself forwards to pull herself back, pushing herself forwards to pull herself back. The rhythmic melody of her desire after all these years— the language she speaks lost to time. Pushing herself forwards to pull herself back— having watched the shifting of the land, does she still dream? The primordial desire. The sea. And still after all this time she is gentle. She rocks, pushing and pulling, at my ankles. After all these centuries of desire, she is gentle. She ripples to shore, filled with a thousand secrets. The sea, the oldest memory, rocking herself slowly in desire.

The summer comes and each time I am filled with passion and a deep longing. Maybe it is the heat, the humidity it brings. The long evenings, shorter nights. In the rising heat of these days I cannot sleep. I watch my ceiling. I wonder if there were always this many cracks. For the past two nights the sky has burned a-flame, in deep pinks and lilacs, burnt siena and terracotta. I find myself mesmerised each time– those flames, gentle dancers. What does the night hope for? Does the sun know it will rise for us once more? I wake early. Often I lie in bed doing nothing for half an hour. I have never before slept with a fan in my bedroom. I wake and it greets me now. Circulating the warm air up and down my body. Its rhythmic sound awaits me. Lulls me to sleep. There is something in its rhythm that reminds me of when I would wake in my grandmother’s house to the sound of the shower running. These sounds are completely different. There is a sparse correlation between them. But I cannot separate them.

Eleven o’clock home; listening to the moka pot on the stove. Mid day heat walking slowly across the garden (through the gate) to my grandmother’s greenhouse. Hot air greets me as I slide the door open. It is these small rituals I survive for.

In the heat the smell of the tomato plant encompasses all. It is a scent that lingers on the skin. The light reflects in mosaics off the dirty glass panels that make up the green house. I used to wonder how my grandmother could spend so much time confined in a small space with the sun glaring down onto her skin. But even then, stepping into the warm embrace of shards of light, air intoxicated by the smell of wet earth and spiralling vines, I understood then, what I still understand now, how enchanting the space of a greenhouse really is. There is a certain mysticism that lives in the greenhouse, and it is the same certain mysticism that lives within the sea. That glass top of the currents turns even the oldest of stones into ripe fruit. Under the warmth of the glass, air embellished in fragrant scents, all seems to still. Inside those glass walls, everything seems quiet. Some days when I was younger, my grandmother used to hang cotton clothes over the opening of the door, and sit in the small space of shade created. She’d go inside and I’d watch it swaying back and forth; I’d watch it, or more so, I was possessed by it ( I think this might be where my love of moving fabric really began). That small cotton dish cloth creating shade on the stone floor of the greenhouse was enchanting— its very essence intoxicated me. I could not look away. It beckons and it dances and I’d watch it from a distance, an exile from its inner world.

Though the washing on the line danced the same, in its own equally as intoxicating manner– especially when it is being hung and the shadows of hands creep through the fabric– the open door of the greenhouse shrouded in this swaying piece of fabric followed me into my dreams. I’d wake from dreams of doors covered in long pieces of fabric, almost too long, that bunched onto the ground beneath them, but still were just not long enough to touch the floor and swayed, controlled by a secret element. I’d be walking and never reach it, or I’d reach it and only find another long stretch of earth and another door awaiting me. Some dreams were open fields, long stretched and at mercy to the sun that poured down like honey. Doorways stood in strange places. Next to towering oak trees, half way through a stream, a top a hill and alone in fields, each covered with the fabric that moved like a feather falling from the sky.

For years the greenhouse stood empty, no life grew, and the panels grew slick in rain. In the winter, frost clung like lonely prayers to the unpolished surface. In spring, blossoms from the tree next door adorned it. It stood like the dead never buried. Covered in little pink and burgundy flowers it asked: after all this time, do you still need me? In summer it refracted light and made spirals on the dirty stone floor. In the early autumn heat, bats flew above it and dried leaves fell from the tree above. Winter came again and frost crept along its edges. Spring came once more and reminded it again of the lack of life growing inside; it stood like Jesus on his lonely tower watching back at me from across the gate. Summer came and the door crept opened slightly. A butterfly flew inside and I watched my grandfather carefully guide it out. The door was closed. The summer passed. Autumn came and the burning nights painted it terracotta. The winter came again, thick in fog and rain, and water dripped down its body, it wept. When will I feel life again? I watched the closed door from a distance. I did not enter. It is this unwillingness that left my hands empty mid prayer.

Spring came, embellished it in pink and burgundy. Last summer came and one day I found the door wide open. I found I still worshipped the light that found itself reflected off the glass. In the doorway I felt a thousand wounds on my palms. Even after all this time, the scent of tomato vines still perfumed the air. It was subtle. Hidden beneath the years of warming and cooling dirt.

Beatrice.

Holy Land

look —look

along the line of this earth

look- look

the saints still weep

look- I see not a Holy Land

But a land grasping for holiness

look-look at her

she is history walking past you

look- look

but do you see

look- and she shall be gone

before you remember a prayer

Beatrice n.

cover image from summer last year, running around rural churches with my film camera.

poem written in the heat of an April day, with the sea creeping ever closer.

How many more voices

Lost to the wind that blows

Land empty– but there was a time

Where life flourished— we who once

Asked the earth

What did she really want

How many more voices lost to the wind

That blows echoing across

A fertile barren land

Scars dig deep into flesh

It too once believed in salvation

How many more lost voices will the

Land have to sweep from its surface

Before they are even given the

Chance to be heard;

What if we are all poets

Condemned to whisper

Our own desires into the dirt

For it is the only thing that will

Still listen and then still promise

To hold us.

Beatrice.n.

Simone de Beauvoir.

The wild wind blows outside and the water has turned cold. It is silent, settled around me. I move a finger and I disrupt that monumental silence. I move my arm; I cause a cataclysm in that monumental silence. But the silence returns. The wild wind blows outside. Begs at the window frames. I will not let it in. The water is cold. I press the fig of my lips to the curve of my knees. One. Then the other. The wild wind blows; I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. The water is cold. I press the fig of my lips to the curve of my knees. One. Then the other. I catch a glimpse of myself in the silver tap; I am incurably selfish, so I am told. I desire no children. No marriage (perhaps more I have never seen myself getting married). Often I desire repetition and routine. Often I do not desire that— that which mutilates me in unhappiness. Often I desire freedom. I am my own captive. Setting routines for myself that mutilates me if I fail to follow it. I desire no children. No marriage. But I desire passion. art. conversation.

in my dreams I speak

No wild wind blows

It is a monumental silence

I—

the syllables pour

No wild wind blows

On that distant shore

They do not reach

They wait

I—

voyager from birth

having never learnt to swim

with no boat to steer from

these syllables stay stagnant

In dreams I speak

I am incurably selfish, so I am told. I press the fig on my lips to the curve of my knee. One. Then the other. I catch my reflection in the silver tap. Hair stuck to my neck. Shoulders. The top of my breasts. Darker than when dry. Slick to my head. My cheeks are red. The water is cold. I disrupt the monumental silence — the wild wind blows — take my wet fingertip and trace the shape of my eyes. My nose. My lips. Water drips from my eye lashes. I desire. The wild wind blows; it is full of the voices of ghosts. They drift. Lost. Unmoored. Each gust is a tale waiting to be explored. I desire and I am not afraid to say I do. We are all born covered in a woman’s blood.

and in my bedroom, the last of the light melts onto the walls. My hair drips down my back. I am incurably selfish and let it drip onto the rug. I brush the wet ends slowly, like my grandmother used to. For a moment, I am in futile hope that all of this might have been some horrid day dream— that when I am to blink, I will open my eyes to the soft red of my grandmother’s carpet beneath me and her tender hands through my hair. I close my eyes. I am incurably selfish. When I open them my hair drips onto the rug beneath me. The wild wind blows. I have only myself.

and in my bedroom, the last of the light melts onto the walls. The wild winds blows. I watch myself in the mirror. My lips. My eyes. My nose. My shoulders. My breasts. We are all birthed in a woman’s blood— how strange it was that I was once covered in my mothers blood— in my entirety. How strange it was that once I fitted into her. Now, how strange it feels to be anything at all. I watch my body. My legs. My hips. My stomach. My breast. One. Then the other. My shoulders. My neck. My lips. My nose. My eyes. The wild wind blows. I desire and I am not afraid to say I desire.

The sky turns an opal pink and the last light melts from the walls. I am too demanding and I am too passionate. I am incurably selfish, so I am told. The sky turns an opal pink and tonight I will sink my teeth into this colossal desire that barely fits into me. Tonight, while the wild wind continues to blow, I shall press the fig of my lips to the curve of my knee. One. Then the other.

Beatrice.

Roses

I knew love once

And its gone

Go

The breeze beckons

Your whispers

Go gone



My bed you once warmed it

Once you warmed it

You’ve left it cold

Cold

Place your hand here

It is cold



You’ve gone to a land

I cannot reach

But it’s a siren tempting

On the rocks that I know

One day I must steer my boat into



The rose have not grown

The dirt is fertile

The rose have not grown

The hand that once fed them

Is cold

Cold. 



Beatrice N. 

The late winter breeze speaks in myths. Metamorphosing into the gentle current of spring. It resides cold on the shore edge. The sun is sweet like pooling honey on the lips. Fields stand sunlight. The new blooming trees are fresh found ruins, gods watching down. Gold flecked leaves slowly starting to appear. I vanish. I appear. Spring gives us a taste. The winter is not ready to leave. I vanish. The evenings, now longer, reside in deep blue tones. The late winter breeze speaks in myths. I appear.

The doves visit the garden searching for the food my mother leaves for them. The magpies come too, adorned in their deep greens, ocean blues, pearlescent feathers shimmering in the morning light. The doves come and sing gently on the fence. Walking back and forth. Waiting on the pot of the fig tree, heads bent down to the roots. I, flesh, understand. I flesh, too also pray at the roots. I who am a shapeshifter. I vanish. I appear. I wish to feed the doves from my palms but instead I feed the tale from the dirt.

The late winter stillness speaks in myths. The spring is half child and half ancient. She walks with open arms. She blooms. Spring is coming and from the shore I see Venus standing waiting on the rocks.

Beatrice.

Another shadow was a horse galloping through the empty field. The first breath of spring hanging in the air. The wind, still biting, still bitter, flowing in the mane. Free is the wild heart. Tender is the wild heart. The silence encompassing the emptiness. But the sun is more gentle than the day before. The trees are a little greener than before. The ground, unfrozen. Flowers have started to bloom at the edge of the paths and the horse, free is the wild heart, knows too, all shall pass. And another was a flicker of a candle as it watched the dawn outside. It wonders, is this where I came from, is this where I was birthed? Another is a swan gliding on a moonlit lake, dancing around in the trails of its own coming, following the path it once took, chasing after the slow progression of the moon. Another is the loneliness of a city at night. Empty streets filled in a yellow glow. They wait for the sun and they wait for the moon. They are silent. They hold the passing of time. Chairs, once occupied, sit empty, or else folded up and leaning beside doorways. Pockets of missing pieces lie on the paths, etchings of time. Who have these streets held, who will they hold? Eternity isn’t promised, but with the thin stream of light birthed through the grey winter, tomorrow was promised. Another is a bird flying above the trees. Wings stretched out. It doesn’t remember a time it couldn’t fly. Another are the fig leaves bathing in the sun. I stretched my hand out towards the fig. My fingers brush it. I sit up and my palm holds the fruit. It is soft. Sun-warmed. I can hear the sea in the distance. I retract my hand. I lay back down. Eternity isn’t promised. Another is the light through the oak trees. Great rays of liquid amber seeping through the silver flecked leaves. Time stopping for a second; do you see it? One is a fan soothing cool air across the cheek on hot nights, and the skin only grows warmer. One is the palm stretched out in front of you. You cannot read the lines. Another is the home of your childhood holding you into your adulthood.

And another is the silence of a winter morning. I lay on the floor. The shadows dissipate as they appear. I watch the light on the bed covers. . Eternity isn’t promised, but with the thin stream of light birthed through the grey winter, tomorrow was promised.

Beatrice.

cover image from pinterest.

The winter has the beauty of sailors wandering lost at sea. I wake and the mornings are overcast— twice this week fog has hung low over the ground. Grey clouds hang over us, and the evenings are slowly starting to get lighter once more. It is perfumed in a prophecy and a promise to be fulfilled, it smells of salt and olives and thyme, oranges, clay— it is a prophecy and a promise I pray for each night. Spring will come and I wonder what beauty it will hold. The winter has the beauty of sailors wandering lost at sea.

The wind holds into my hair and takes it in its grasp. The sea air is cold on my face. My fingertips stay cold long after I arrive home. The sea splashes up onto my face. I walk slowly on the stones. My hair whips into my mouth. On calm days the fishing boats are out at sea. The tide is rough. I wait for the summer where it will pour over itself onto the shore. When the hues of orange and gold, greens, are reflected from the light. Summer, where a thousand jewels are thrown into the sea, waiting to be found. The sea comes up over my toes— my shoes are old and I feel the water seep into my socks. My fingertips stay cold long after I arrive home. I watch the light through the oak trees and the leaves brushing together— small silver flecked greens- and the sea are the only sounds— they become one, I could not separate them. Time stands still. The house opposite has rosemary growing up the bank and a window open and the wind tugs at the curtain which refuses to leave the room.

I took my first pottery class in three years and ate cake for the first time in a cafe in four. I cried in the bath that I made more progress in a single day than I might have last year. Found a perfume that lingers in the same smell as my grandmothers hand cream used to and wrote a poem I might be proud of. Told someone I wanted to write a play or a film or maybe actually finish a short tale or publish some poetry and they said do it. I still watch the blank wall in front of me when I try to sleep. I tell it what I told it this time last year, and what I have told it every day for as long as I can remember. I’m a fisherman catching pieces of a fish and never a whole. I call to the sailboats on the rocks, but the breeze steals my voice. I cried in the bath that I might finally be becoming. I ate a golden peach and it was strangely ripe for this time of year and it looked like the sun bitten in my hand. The coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup looked like waves and I am waiting for an Odyssey.

The winter has the beauty of sailors lost at sea.

Beatrice.

cover image from pinterest.

                                  the rocks that held me last summer. the rocks 
                                  that will hold me when summer comes again. 
                                  where this short artefact was written. It was 
                                   found again at the start of December. 

The sea at my feet. Hours later. Somewhere the floor must drop, and I do not know how deep. I have never been a good swimmer. There are a cluster of them. The sea beating over them. They are here each time. Holding onto each other. Their bodies are coated in seaweed. If I ask nicely they’ll let me reach between them and pull a perfectly preserved shell from between their lips. Aphrodite sleeps there.

from the start of summer. April.

There’s a certain mixture of hope and fear in reaching my hand so far into the sea without knowing its true depth. These rocks might hide something more between them than the offerings Aphrodite spits up for a glimpse at my fingertips. For a glimpse at fate. Do they belong here? When did these rocks emerge from the soft belly of the earth and gather themselves together and vow to hold each other for however long eternity lasts? There’s a boat out at sea. I climb onto the rocks and pull my knees to my chest. Aphrodite sleeps here. The sun beats my shoulders. He’s kissing and it will leave a mark. Do I belong here? Waiting for the rocks to learn my palms? If I hold them out long enough will the sun turn his face away or mark them also?

Am I destined to the sun or the waves? A gentle ripple in the current. I look over from my ledge and watch the waves soft. Tender.

Am I for the sun or the waves?

the rocks that held me. cradled my weight beneath them.

Beatrice.

                 Was I born with a poetry inside of me (here there is a little stain on the page, what I can only guess is a mixture of salt water and coffee), a blessing or a curse and when do I know I have gotten it all out of me (!)  and is this some cruel trick by fate to give me all these words and never a voice 
                                           -- the sea at my feet  
                                                         swallow me and my words. 

dated: June 19th.

image from June 19th. Salt in summer.

I remember that day— the mundanity of it. It was hot— hot and I remember waking and thinking perhaps the summer had come after all. That all my prayers in winter for the spring to come and pass into summer had finally been granted. It might have been the evening before or perhaps the evening off— at least some day around this that I had re watched La Collectionneuse. I remember that day, waking and the heat already on my skin. I remember waking, but dreaming of the ocean— and how many hours I have spent dreaming of the ocean. Mamma and I getting coffee and then walking across to the beach. Quiet. Still. The smell of salt- hot, and there was a smell in the air— that smell of summer, salt and skin and something milky and smoke and (perhaps not this day, but another— yet it stuck with me and for me it is now a smell I will always see as summer), someone was smoking a cigarette standing with their feet in the sea while I rubbed sun cream ( the Greek yoghurt sun cream from korres) onto my shoulders sat on a rock. It was a summer of smoke, milk and salt.

I remember that day and I remember sitting with those rocks pressing into my skin. I remember the feeling of the clothes on my skin, soft and spattered in salt and every so often I’d dip my leg between the gentle lapping of the ocean. There I wrote what is messily scribbled at the top of the page— legs up to my chest watching the water spit up onto the page. I remember the silence. Even with the voices of people in the distance, it was silent. The waves and I. We were two beings merging together and we were two lovers watching each other and we were two beings drifting in the chaos that came before. I remember spring watching a magnolia petal float in a puddle. Then summer came and I watched the sun on the sea. Fallen. Petals on my skin.

—Sea, swallow me, words and all and tell me how I taste. Sea, swallow me and spit up my poetry in the next storm and let it fall on the rocks—

pages on the rocks, hurting my eyes in the suns glow on these

pages that holds words written by someone I will never meet.

I went into the church with salt stained knees and sea swept hair, and it was late afternoon, and it was silent. Silent. Everything that day was filled in silence— and I wish I could remember it better— but I am grasping onto each moment of each day— and I am Tantalus and I am longing— and I am Tantalus and I cannot keep everything forever. I could taste salt in my mouth, milk, my skin was hot and the air smelt like candle smoke and it clung to me long after I left those walls. Those walls asked me why I wept and I said I had left my lover at the beach and do not know if their travels will be safe. I had left my lover at the beach and did not know when I would see them again (I would see them every day, even if from a distance, because I do not go a day without seeing the sea).

—it’s full of them, roaming like incense smoke—becoming and unbecoming, they are ripe and waiting, their silence, incese smoke, become I and I will become you—

walls I’ve wept within and walls that have held me

On the bench outside I ate the dried figs that had become warm in my bag on the church steps and then I walked between the houses un-shelling pistachios. My footsteps echoed around me. It was hot and the houses where shade and I’d stop and look around— silence. The sea in the distance— the church somewhere around these twisting pathways. Silence.

fig tree where I listened to the church bells

and I miss the silence and primordial passion of summer.

Beatrice.

My soul longs for a time I cannot remember, but is embedded into my name. It watched those sail boats out at sea, wondering where they might take me. I am their solitary siren on the rocks. I am their solitary siren without a voice. Is this my homeland? Is a homeland a territory— is it even land? My mother is my homeland— she is my first bed— she is my first— my mother, my first bed, sacred bed. My mother was my first bed, my mother was my first homeland and before her, was there before, if so, whoever my mother was, whether it be the sea or another, they are my first homeland, they are my first bed, but I cannot remember them— I cannot remember them! My mother is my first bed. My mother is my homeland. I am sickening, weakening in a longing to know them. It is a sickness with no end nor start, no cure or respite. I tear at bread and this is their flesh and I drink the wine and this is their blood and I look at my palms and I look at my palm— my palms, do they know?

Then one morning, there was a certain melody in the air. I was once but a voice whispered. A hundred years before this moment. One morning, my name washed itself to shore, unsure of this new land it had found itself upon. And in the sand it drew lines like the palms, drying itself, basking in the first feel of the sun rays. For the first time, it felt the solid land beneath it. For the first time it watched the sun move without the sea swallowing it. One morning my name landed on its first shore and by dusk the tide swept back in and took it back out. The feeling of something solid beneath its feet now a distant shape merging back into the indigo sky.

Night falls and still it does not sleep. Night falls and still the ache in my palms does not cease. I hold them out to the darkness— the dim light of the night knows what they say. I turn them towards me. I see them, shadowed. They are not real. I can feel them attached to me. I bring them to my ears. I cover my ears. They do not speak. But I hear the ocean. I hear it. They do not speak, but cupped to my ear they are the ocean. My lips taste like salt. New rivers form themselves on my cheeks. Night falls and still it does not sleep.

I was nothing but a name whispered lost at sea. Drifting. Covered in salt. Oh, where were you taking me? I acquainted myself with the cliffs. I made a bed of them. Some days, when the tides were gentle, I’d cling to them, before slowly releasing and letting myself be pulled back out. I was not anything but a name whispered.

I’ve created a museum of the sea. It holds memories like paintings. They are stolen, replicated, returned, forgotten, lost. It would take weeks, months, years to inspect each piece. Some look exactly the same from a distance. The salt forms in funny ways. There are lullabies made from the sea weed and from here, it looks like hair, and I’ll never forget the feel of my grandmother’s hands running through my hair, each of her breaths a new melody.

And many times the world ended for me, and still each morning I woke to the gentle push of the tide. Only one morning, I could hear the silence of sand, and I could hear the sea far away from me. Many times the world ended for me, and still each morning I woke to the gentle push of the tide. Only one morning, I woke to the feeling of rocks beneath me. I woke to a new skin wrapped around me. I woke to the pulse of my wrist. I woke to the current of the sea contained within me. I woke the sun on my cheeks. I woke and there was salt on my lips and the breeze blew the hair across my cheeks, and I woke to the rocks beneath me and the sea in front of me. I woke no longer submerged. I woke and I could step in and out of the sea with these two legs. I woke and many times the world ended for me, and still each morning I woke to the gentle push of the tide. And many times the world has ended for me, but not quite like this. None quite like rebirth.

I do not remember my birth, but my mother can remember what I looked like covered in her own blood, and my father can probably remember also. I remember a time falling and hitting my eyebrow on a rock and watching the blood fall into my palm, and watching it run around my palm, then off, and I remember watching a drop of blood fall into the tide and I remember never really crying— I cried, but my tears were silent as my nanna rushed over to me— and I watched my drop of blood take its voyage into the salt foam. I remember watching a drop of blood disappear into the ocean and becoming conscious that I had blood within me. I will never find that drop of blood in the labyrinth of the ocean. But I know it is out there– was out there, somewhere. A voyage.

And many times the world ended for me, and still each morning I woke to the gentle push of the tide. Still the tide tempts me. It is my saviour and my captor. It is my lover and my executioner. It is my lullaby and my lure. And many times the world ended for me, and still each morning I wake to the thought of where the ocean could take me. My name once landed after centuries of voyage. My name once stuck in its voyage. I was Odysseus and I was Ithaca. Waiting for an Odyssey.

Beatrice.

Cover image from Pinterest.

stealing the winter away

then those first days of summer

encompassing the spring

now the autumn has come

and I understand that the winter is soon to follow

I remember the first sign of spring

stealing the winter away

first light of dawn

one morning the spring light

wiping out the winters name

and there was so much ahead of me

there I held onto the earthy hand of spring

and let it lead me

I remember the spring never really feeling like home

a lover I knew that would never keep my palm warm forever

thinking perhaps the summer would hold me differently

and I remember the spring never really feeling like home

but telling me there was so much ahead of me

in that first light of day

stealing the light away

I thought of my grandmother who held

me in her prayers long before meeting me

and for a moment I was not anything but a hope whispered

lost in the air

that first light of day

in that first light of day

a breeze reaches me

that carries my words from the autumn before

a postcard of my nostalgia

and they crash into me

a wave to the shore

an erotic embrace

and they’re telling me of the colour of the

sky this time last year and they’re telling me

they’re telling me like I could have ever forgotten

that the sky from last year is still this sky in front of me

and for a moment I was not anything but a hope whispered

is this where a craving started

a craving to be needed

I will never have my own name

if I never marry it will be my fathers

and if i keep my mothers it will be her fathers before

in the first light of day

the autumn is silent

I’ve seen it many times before

drifting to shore

a wave covering the horizon

the autumn is silent

and I bend to pick a flower as the ground shifts itself beneath me

and I find beauty in everything

I remember the passion of spring

the heat of the smokey summer

a spring once before

creating a tomb for a fig seed

discovered between my teeth

unsure of how long it would take to grow

my first child

but watching each morning light

to see if a fresh sprout had emerged its way

from the moon soaked soil

I remember the passion of spring

once before

digging up the earth with my fingertips

trying to find the sarcophagi I once buried.

Beatrice.

cover image from pinterest

I’ve started to prepare myself for the end of summer. For the coming of autumn. For the winter I think I want, but when it comes, you bite and you hiss, you hold me so tightly, you promise to keep me, to not let me shiver at your whispers, I can’t help it, I can’t help it! July 6th and I’ve started to prepare for the winter I know will come, that I half want and half despise. The longest day has already passed. It half fascinates me and half revolts me (my birth certificate does the same). I think of the last winter and how at points I thought I could love it. The ocean still at my feet. Hands cold, tucked up inside of my coat. Silk and the savage flames. Watching the shadows on the floor. People walking past. I do not think I captured it like I wanted to. I think of winter and I think now of this summer, and why do I still feel the same? I feel so old at nineteen.

I have a re-occurring dream of someone kissing my cheek. I do not know who they are. The dream begins and ends there. I’ve had it for five nights. Will it come again tonight? I do not know who they are- what I mean is it could be a stranger, a lover, my grandmother, my mother, it could be anybody. I do not know who it is because all I see is the view in front of me and all I feel is one gentle breeze sweep around my palms and the lips pressed on my cheek. This view in front of me is one I think I know, but have not seen. Feels both new and strangely old.

I’m waiting for my hair to grow. It has grown a lot already my mother tells me. I do not think I’ll cut it again. When I cut it, short, short, she did it a lot shorter than I originally wanted, she said it would suit me, as I heard the hair cut, the scissor sharp on the ends, I thought, I’m loosing all my memory. I am made of memories. I watched them fall to the floor. I felt a tears on my lips as she sprayed my hair with water, she said it’s easier to cut when it’s damp, and I thought about all the fingertips that had brushed through my hair when I was younger, and I vowed to never cut it again. In the church the week later, I lit a candle for my grandmother and said never again.

I’m not sure what I am meant to be doing. It rained and I thought about desire. If I had to write a letter to what has already been of this summer I would say

I mourned you the moment I met you. I met you and I knew it would end. It will end sooner because I want it to last. There is still time. We still have time. I’ll still find you once you are gone. But for the time we have left, let it be sweet. Let it linger softly, the cotton on skin, the salt in the hair, the smoke in the air, the honey on the tongue. Let us be tender. Let us be sweet. Somewhere there is a fire starting and we have sparks of our own. You’re letting me mourn you. You hold me for it. You kiss me for it. We both know you’ll go eventually.

and the air is soft, and the light will be low, and it will be amber and dawn and the first leaf will fall and I’ll know you are slipping away and the air grows cool, and you won’t see my hair reach past my shoulders, someone will come back next year, they’ll say they are you, but the air will be different and the lines in my palms will not feel the same.

when the times comes i’ll whisper Adieu into my cupped hands and hope it echoed enough for you to hear.

Adieu.

July 1st. I’m mourning the loss of summer too soon.

Beatrice.

from the summer solstice. watching the sea. just past sunset. the sky amber and rose. the sea green and lilac.

WATCH. everything. films. documentary. people. learn how people act from watching. watch. everything. the ocean and the trees. sunlight. stars. the moving night. shadows on the walls. follow them. see where everything takes you. make no plans. let the smoke of the summer guide you. CAPTURE. everything and nothing. capture and let it still. on your phone. a camera. It doesn’t matter. Watch the sea and desire its melodies. watch people from a distance. create stories in your head. sit outside. drink slowly. watch. watch. promise me to watch. watching is learning. keep a notebook of observations. kiss each page before bed. kiss your palms each night. wash them in the sea. kiss them straight after. mingle yourself with the earth. let it take you. it’s cherry season. eat them. stain under your nails. it will turn blue. stain your tongue. seep the juices deep into your teeth.

papa and I went to the cinema. We came out. nearly ten. the little bar was still open. two americanos. walked past the church. from the window the spiral staircase. I’d like to sit there. watch. watch.

Be VULNERABLE. DESIRE. let me whisper you a secret, when I was eight, maybe eleven, the age doesn’t matter, maybe it does, I watched a pastor smoke a cigarette, leaning against the churches exterior wall. I thought, I’d like him to teach me to smoke my first cigarette. I’d like him to teach me to smoke my first cigarette, outside of the church. Closer to God. Closer to His belly. Closer to somewhere where I could repent afterwards. I never was really religious, but I’d watch fervently the little gold cross that my grandmother always wore around her neck. DESIRE. Everything. Nothing. Desire the sea and her melodies and try and capture the fluidity of water into words. Light incense and dance in the smoke. Dance in the shadows. They’re laughing. They’ll never know how it feels. Play your music loud in your headphones. Lift the bottom of your skirt for the sea. Lift it to walk up steps, no matter how short it is. Always lift it. Whats life without a little eroticism? Desire. Desire. Pour your words onto a page. Tell your pillow every single desire you’ve ever had. I want him to teach me how to smoke my first cigarette.

fig tree and here I listen to the church bells. two. sun hot on my cheeks. watching the light on the fig tree.

EAT. the fruits are growing for you. eat them. thick. until they fill your stomach. until they stain your lips. finish every piece. drink the juice. BITE. your lips. wear lip liner messy and dark. you’re gently kissed by nature. lips bitten. your love affair with summer. cheeks flushed. hair messy. swept by the sea. dark eyes. deep lips. tanned shoulders. Dionysus in your stomach. Burning Desire.

the beach. a haven. a heaven. tempt me. take me. waiting for an Odyssey.

for summer. all for summer.

dearly, Beatrice.

           It is midsummer. The summer solstice. Litha. It is warm. It is still fairly  
          early. There is a smell of honey in the air. The sun hot on my shoulders. My 
         cheeks. I do not know where that mellow scent of honey is coming from. I 
         wonder if any one else can smell it. The sky is a clear blue. I think I’d like to 
        see the sea but I fear everyone will go there. I think mama and I are going in 
        the evening. It is the summers solstice. Litha. I think of the darkness of winter.
       How the sun shone so cold, and now his kisses burn my back, and am I wrong 
        to rather have his kisses that burn than none at all. Kiss me. Burn me. Promise 
        to always return to me. Occasionally, there is a light breeze. The birds sing. 
        Melodic. Do they keep a calendar and know it is Litha? The summer solstice. I 
       think of winter and how I thought summer would never come, mourned it like a
       mother at a crucifixion, but now I bathe in it. I am rich in it. Kiss me, 
        summer, make me yours. Tempt me and take me. My skin is already rich in you.
        I’’m scared soon you will burn me but I will always blame myself, my love, my 
      affair. The sun flowers have bloomed. The fig tree is abundant in leaves. I stretch
       my legs in the sun and I wish to seduce the sun, if only once. I have a freckle just
       above my knee and one to the right higher up, and I want this to be where the 
       sun kisses me the most. kiss me tenderly above my knee. 
       It’s warm. The morning is still. I think I’ll rub myself thyme and rosemary, eat 
       enough spoonfuls of honey so you can smell it. Kiss me sun. Here we could 
       start our love affair. maybe our love, finish the game we’ve been playing since winter. 

three hag stones I found at the beach, at sunset, mourning what might have been.

Dearly, Beatrice.

Hoping to imprint the lace of my bra

Deep into my skin

To copy the intricate details of my underwear

Onto the curve of my legs

Hot from waking

Bed Sheets draped onto the floor

I was an artist last night in my sleep

Drawing sketches onto the cotton

Then wiping them away with the side of my cheek

Hot from hanging the two dresses and three

Skirts an old shirt onto the line

Balancing act on my toes to reach

The fine thread of the line to place the clothing

Over like my grandmother taught me all those

Summers ago

Still having to stretch my ankles high enough

To place the pegs cover the clothes

Hot from waking

Hoping to imprint the shapes of my underwear

Deep into my skin

Last summer or was it a summer before

I opened my mouth and thought

I could be the first to swallow the sun

When all I consumed was the sweet pollen of the

Bluebells growing by the fence

I closed my mouth and turned it into the grass

Showing the sun my back

Whispering of the ache in my stomach

Perhaps from the empty glass of milk

Now left to watch me on the windowsill

With pearls still in droplets around the rim

Imprints of my lips

Braiding sweet warm grass between my hair

Last summer when I hadn’t cut my hair

Last summer where I hadn’t cut my hair and

So didn’t have the lump in the back of my throat of

Girlhood promises bubbling at my tongue

Telling my grandmother while she brushed down my hair one morning

One mourning

I would never dream of cutting my hair

What would be there to intertwine the stems of flowers with

Or braid like this sweet grass while I lay with my head in her lap

Last summer when I hadn’t cut my hair

I lift my fingers to the sunlight

Gentle morning sunlight

Sunlight of my ancestors

Nothing has changed

Sunlight of my ancestors

Has everything changed

Your fingertips traced in a different story

But we lift our fingers all the same

The sun and I looking at each other

Two paintings across the gallery hall

The lace on my breast

Arching in this sun

Carved from cream paint to form this cream lace

And my face shows my desire

For the sun to not see the way

I looked to the moon last night

In our rendezvous

Like I hope the moon does not see the way

I look now into the sun

Like two paintings across the gallery halls

While the soft shadows of the clothes on the line

Wave in the soft breeze like the oceans currents

From a painting further down the hall that we will never see

Is this my destiny

Once someone asked me

How I know something is complete

I said my feelings

They didn’t like that answer

So I told them when my teeth start to feel

Dry from whispering my devotions

They liked that answer better

Allotted into their physical accounts

They only cared how I knew something was finished

Not how I created

I exist to create worlds I tell the grass stuck to my lips

I find my salvation there

Avowed collector of sentiments

Observations

Limitations

They didn’t understand any of those things

They wrote me a letter

I never wrote back if I did it would have been

My grass stained elbows

Imprinted on the paper

Is this my destiny because here

Speaking to the grass my teeth are not starting to feel dry

Soft cotton pointelle

Arms stretched above my head

That summer of solitude

Laying in the garden waiting to see if the cream

Lace of my underwear will imprint into my skin

Wanting to find it in weeks to come

Like a long forgotten treasure

A rediscovery of a new found God

I press my fingers into my flesh to

Find what was once alive

Deep into my flesh

I am the first archaeologist to

Discover a blooming flower

Hidden between lips

And I could have been the first archaeologist

To discovers the summers sun still burning

In a stomach if only that summer I had

Figured out how to swallow the sun laying out in the garden

Hoping to imprint the lace of my bra

Deep into my skin

To copy the intricate details of my underwear

Onto the curve of my legs

Nothing, nothing has held me like this bed. This temple between ceiling and floor. This bed perfectly placed within the smallest part of my bedroom. Framed in a rectangle like a nave. This is my religious painting. This bed is my religious painting. There is nothing more sacred than a bed in a bedroom. My bed covers are cream like hands clasped in prayer because my sleeping body is my prayer, and even on nights when i do not sleep, moreover I cannot sleep, and my mind wanders down treacherous paths, one tells me I am not breathing, that the room is spinning, do you know you are dying, and another tells me gently to close my eyes like I did only the night before and let myself be seduced by Hypnos, Hypnos that stranger of a lover that I have always had a complex relationship with, another tells me to lay and watch the light slowly dawn on the ceiling. My bed covers are cream like hands clasped in prayer because my sleeping body is my prayer, and even on nights when I do not sleep, moreover I cannot sleep, my bed is still the one to hold me throughout the night. My bed covers are cream like freshly made almond milk, almond milk made in the kitchen down the hallway. Cream like freshly made almond milk with vanilla added. The pulp of the almonds. An almond half bitten- observe inside- here I find my bed. Cream like almond milk. My bed covers are cream. I tell you this not because I want you to imagine yourself between my bed covers. Do not think a woman owes you the privilege of seeing between the covers of her bed. Do not think you rightfully belong between the covers of a woman's bed. My bed covers are cream. I do not tell you this because I want you between my bed sheets, and even if I invited you in, I would not owe you anything. My bed covers are cream and even if I invited you between my bed covers fully naked I still would not owe you anything. My bed covers are cream because cream is a colour that will stain if anything is ever knocked over. Not spilled. Because spilling something is almost always an accident. My bed covers are cream; I will always keep them a light colour, because cream is a colour that will stain if anything is ever knocked over.