The Call

A sign of change

It was another Friday night in the flat on the canal. It had become my second home after my catastrophic reentry from Greece and four months of boozing and working for pennies and falling from churches and nearly dying. It was warm and full of characters, not a lick of privacy, a mini commune if you will, but there was no other place I would have rather been. I had gotten used to the constant comings and goings and on the quiet days when I found myself with only one or two friends, I felt nearly lonely.

People started arriving in dribs and drabs , each one helping themselves to the kettle and to the dwindling supply of tea bags. Some came from work, or study or like the majority who were on the dole from the day drifting in and out of pubs waxing philosophically about life and trying desperately to find a point to it all. The evening got underway as usual, from tea we moved onto tins and flagons of cheap cider. We were waiting patiently for a very important person to arrive, Fergus, he was the man who brought our smoke. A quiet fella with piercing eyes and a tough yet gentle way about him. Of all the people who passed through that flat, he was the most interesting. He had a respectful day job and just did this on the side and did enjoy the company even though he wasn’t part of the ‘inner circle’. We had become a rather large clan and as happens with clans, cracks in the equilibrium were starting to show.

Within the group a few couples had formed over the years and through no fault of their own, simply growing up and changing direction and perspective they began questioning their futures together. Some had gotten together after a drunken night together, I had been victim to that. Two wasted years thinking that was what you were supposed to do. A one night stand can’t just be that or can it? The girls seemed more together, some were nurses, others studying and working and others still planning on the all illusive and difficult immigration to the paradise land of Australia. The lads seemed to be stuck in a sort of limbo, the refusal to accept jobs they deemed beneath them left them on permanent dole payments and angry discussions about how things should be.

It was about ten o’clock when we heard ranting coming from the front garden. I ran to the bedroom window and looked down to see Brendan, probably the most charismatic human being I had met up until that point in my life, arms wide singing a Neil Young tune between laughter and senseless ramblings. He had obviously made a few pit stops before his arrival and was looking worse for wear. We welcomed with the usual camaraderie and swiftly handed a pint. Brendan had dropped off the radar recently and from what we knew had some family things to sort out at home in Tipperary. Dublin then seemed as far away as London. Some of the group we had already lost to far corners of the world, Phil, who had actually witnessed the taking out of non other than one of Irelands most infamous criminals, The General, had disappeared to New Zealand. Antonella went to Australia and others joined the long line of ferry immigrants to London. Totsie, the scruffy, mousy and mouthiest of the clan had gone to New York with high hopes of becoming a barman. He bragged that he already had a job set up and that he would never set foot again in rainy old backward Ireland.

My former best friend Nathalie arrived with a couple of new acquaintances. We had had a massive falling out, typical girl stuff, random jealousy involving a guy. I hadn’t seen her in quite some time so we sombrely saluted each other then went about revelling with others. The flat was full to the brim with people and the smell of smoke and drink had thickened the air. Conversations that night were intense. The country was at the tail end of a long recession and we were all weary from it. The shine had gone off the suffering melancholy which had inspired many of us over the years to write poetry, songs and to share moments of solidarity. We now wanted a change and the anger and anxiety over our futures had begun to show its horns. Waves of laughter mixed with sharp sparring of ideas and opinions cut through the evenings atmosphere. I spent a good portion of that night talking to the smoke man, Fergus. He wasn’t either way about anything that night, just observing the spectacle and I was in need of a quiet corner to myself.

Gus arrived home around eleven and he was well oiled as usual. His thick accent, often mumbling half arsed tales and floppy hair which covered his eyes made him our groups teddy bear. Many an evening was spent laughing uncontrollably at one of his nonsensical stories. We asked him for news about Totsie, they were best mates and we expected him to have an update, it had been 4 months since he had left for New York and no one had heard anything since. Around the room there were several joints being prepared. I was working on one next to Fergus when I realised I ran out of papers. I tried to get Hillary’s attention but she was in fits of laughter over something and the music was too loud so I went across the room to Brendan. Someone started knocking on the door. It was the flat downstairs. There was a phone call for Gus. He staggered downstairs closing the door behind him, trying not to let the smoke waft out into the hall. Brendan hand me his last two skins and I finished my joint with Fergus. We started sharing before passing it around to the others.

Gus came back and closed the door. He also turned off the music and appeared to have lost 5 pints of blood. He typically pale skin had gone three shades whiter and he trembled while he mumbled something about just having received a phone call. We all stopped what we were doing and asked him what was going on. Totsie had been found dead. Beaten to a pulp outside the pub he had been working at in New York. His father was on his way to identity the body. We all sat in silence. The news just wouldn’t sink in. Gus stood and cried. The room seemed to fade in and out. It was as if a ice cold wind had come in and blown us all frozen. Someone went to put the kettle on. Gus sat down on the couch and we gathered around. He had apparently pissed a fella off that evening, the wrong fella, by drunkenly hitting on his girlfriend. He was set upon after hours, alone on the footpath with no one to defend him. We had always said his mouth would get him in trouble one day. It chilled us to think that he died like that and so far from home.

The flat that night had begun to feel claustrophobic and after the news of Totsie I started to look around the room at the faces that had become my day to day for so long. The habitual meetings, the pub crawls, the nights spent aimlessly drinking and smoking until the wee hours of the morning only to sleep in and get up and do it all again. It wasn’t just me, the others felt the same I know they did. The looks on their faces said the same thing that was going through my mind. ‘Its time’. For so long we had lived a cloistered existence, protecting one another, maintaining this safe little world. Exploration had become our enemy and we were stifled. I started remembering the dreams and ambitions I had before letting myself lull into this placated state. A writer, an artist, going back to university. Everything had been put on standby, yes by the economy, the country our circumstances, but also by fear. It was easier living this way, the clan moved together, thought together, drank together and stagnated together. The phone call that night had brought a clarity that I was not expecting.

It was about four in the morning when we all crashed and I found myself nestling in Fergus’s arms. Reflecting, we had spent nearly the entire evening together. And it was as if this ‘new’ person, different from all the rest, symbolised my break. A breath of fresh air, a light at the end of a tunnel that so many of us had created around us. I was saddened for the loss of one of us. But I thanked that moment for setting me free. That morning when I woke, the bodies strewn about the place and the stale smell of smoke and half drunk tins made my stomach turn. I wanted nothing more than an empty house. Fergus awoke and grabbed his hoodie. I walked him downstairs and it was at the door that he asked the question that would be the key to the rest of my life: “Do you fancy meeting for a coffee later?”. And the answer that would seal my fate: “Yes”.

I met him when I called a local radio station to request my favorite song. That man had a voice as smooth as fresh, warm honey, and I was a seventeen year old girl.

I was singing the song playing when he answered the phone. I guess he must have liked that, because even though he couldn't play my song we launched in on a conversation about music.

I began to make it a habit to call every chance I got, and he made it a habit to play my song whenever he could.

These conversations with this man became the highlight of my very life. How could I possibly survive without speaking to this magical man with the voice of warm honey?

I thought for sure this man would be with me forever.

We finally decided we would meet. Oh my heart was fluttering like a butterfly with brand new wings. It was finally time to sweep him off his feet!

I was never more crushed than I was when he first looked in my eyes. I could see the tears begin to well up as he asked me.

"Baby, how old are you?"

I thought I would surely die of a broken heart when he said, "You're too young, baby. I'm a thirty year old man!"

That promptly ended all thoughts of my magical man with the voice of honey running off with me.

I hold on to those memories of that short amount of time I had a man in my life that I could discuss everything with.

That song...

I'm listening now, and I would love one more chance to meet the man who was mature enough to listen to my every thought without judgement.

i cannot sleep

in this abrasive atmosphere.

lightning tunnels,

flames within my veins,

this tempest night spent

clawing at the ceiling.

cleansing harmonic rain-bath,

persistently prickling

of orphaned teardrops

pelts the pavement

reminding me of

the sound of the cathedral

tolling, wisps of sinful prayers

and your name returns home,

blaming the stars motive

and the moon's ambition.

in silvered silence,

guiding through the lace

while saintly guilt

slips on glass beads

the metallic flavor lasting

on my tongue, anxious to

prevent dawn from spilling

down muted eggshell walls.

©️ Meg. October 11. 2021

bubbling thoughts

rising steam

about to boil over

almost to the edge

but not quite~

a peaceful front

chaos in the background

possibilities are just

possible problems

unspooling a ticker tape of memories

that will soon be erased

You pour the sun, the

rain, the land itself into

a glass, wring the last

red drop, too precious

to fall aside. Hands toiled

for this moment,

migrant hands for

pennies to the pound,

deft and rapid and

sweating with the work so

the vintner can mash and

measure and blend the barrels

so they taste just so, age

just so, at 55 degrees

for a decade or more behind

the cork you pop to release

the planting, the harvest,

the past to your glass:

sip slow.

Rotting in solitude,

I was gradually tearing down

Piece by piece,

Flesh by flesh

Neglected and rejected,

to nothing I shall be subjected

I'm just a mist of a woman,

of the one who was free

I'm all that is left,

bare bones for all to see

Yet no one can see me,

No one might even try

Some have skeletons in their closet,

I'm the one in mine

I dread it when the guilt

limps off for the

numb to slink in

and put a hood over my eyes

and turn the volume down

while my bones cure into concrete

and my chest squeezes like a blood pressure machine

and my spine curves limply in a C for Can't

and my stomach hosts a resentful fire

and my skin droops and tears at itself

and my ears dam so that no words can grasp me

while a girl screams from within

and I cover her mouth.

i.

not doing my schoolwork,

not looking through records,

not answering emails,

not drinking water,

not not not

(i think i hate the color green)

ii.

she came over today,

gave me a present for

my birthday (i hate it, i hate it, i hate my)

(birthday, maybe), and she

wrapped up a book in

green wrapping paper,

folded stickers of our (used-to-be-my) favorite

comics into the front pages,

wrote a fifty dollar check

in the card. i don’t

think i’ll cash it in, or

however it’s said. i think

i hate the color green.

iii.

she’s been in my nightmares,

drunk and afraid,

angry, kills me in

all these special ways (i guess)

and saying all these

dumb dumb dumb truths

that don’t leave me when i wake,

and i get lost in the fact that you didn’t leave,

hold onto the way the blood feels like as it leaves

me, too, as you did in all the nightmares before,

and here she was, gone and going,

come and coming and came

(thought i was prepared, but)

(i guess not).

iv.

and i thought it’d be easier to be angry,

thought it’d be easier to hold my ground,

thought it’d be easier to be strong,

to be, to be, to be,

to be anything but the way i am,

or the way i was.

v.

and i hated the way my eyes watered with

unshed tears, watered with unsureties and

watered with all my weaknesses.

vi.

and my throat hasn’t opened back up,

nor have my eyes dried, nor has

my smile come back around,

nor has my world felt steady since.

vii.

she told me she’d see me soon

(can only hope it’s like last time)

(she said the same thing—months of)

(silence following) and she told me that she was late,

and she told me, she told me, she told me,

she told me so many things

that i can’t help but forget.

viii.

i think i hate the color green.

ix.

and i felt so childish, so dumb,

so cowardly, all holed up in all my doubts

and i felt so childish, so dumb,

opening the card the wrong way

and i felt so childish, so dumb,

so unsure, in the way i rushed to stand

(and didn’t know where to hold myself)

(and didn’t know how to stand upright)

and i felt so childish, so dumb,

listening to the way her voice lilted,

to the way it rose and fell,

to the way it sounded so familiar,

to the way i felt so small and so quiet

in response.

x.

and i felt so hurt, so angry, so unsure,

so dumb, such a waffling fool who doesn’t

know what she wants, and i felt so so so bad

for the way i fell right into the entertainment

of talking with her again, of saying the same things,

of hearing her tell me the same words,

of being treated the same way,

and i hated, i hated, i hated

her & myself & everyone else & my dumb,

stupid, idiotic, monstrous heart for it all.

xi.

and i’m so

tired, so tired, so tired, so

tired, and i so badly want to sleep, so

badly want to earn a bead, so badly want to

lay on the floor and just forget every silly

little

t h i n g

xii.

and i think i hate the color green.

xiii.

and in other news:

i overshared and made those uncomfortable,

i undershared and made things so awkward,

and i talked and talked and talked

and i’m so ashamed.

and i’m tired and i want to cry and

i want her to go away and never ever ever ever

come back, ever ever ever again, to just

stay gone and keep going and going and

going, and i want my nightmares to

go away, all their heavy truths and

nervous thoughts weighing down so low

on my already-shackled form.

The person who installed my divider did a wacky job. Somewhat in the middle, he joined two rows of planks atop one another with another row, in no way aligned. I suppose it did the job; the wall withstands. He also added--erratically, another six; sideways. Just in case, I'm guessing. One day, I made a mess of a homemade charcoal mask and seeing as my hands were fully caked, impressed my prints just above the second plank. Another day, I painted the first plank a seafoam/jade/teal kinda green background with royal, azure-ish leaves. A magnolia-smoketree mashup reigned in excess, a mixture of Norway maple and blackcurrant took second precedence, with hazel or Indian pennywort scattered in between. The second, I painted black then collected an assortment of caps and tubs in different sizes and filled the plank with colourful circles, both filled and empty. They aren't as evenly distributed as I would have liked, but it's not like it's for an exhibit. A few days after that, I painted the third one a scarlet-milano red, with flamingo-lace pink flowers. Some flowers appear to be anemones, others oleander or buttercups. Some look like jasmines and others like daffodils. Some like wallflowers or forget-me-nots and others like hibiscus, viewed from the top. On the fourth, I tried to paint clouds. You know just before it rains, when they're dark and heavy, gathering the last vapour needed to burst down upon us. It could've been better but for a first attempt, it's not too hideous. I'd like to give it another round, though. The fifth, which is next to the fourth, I painted cadmium. I wanted to paint a sunset. Or maybe triangles and/or lines artistically placed at varying degrees and angles. I think I also thought about doing a mehndi pattern, but it's still just yellow. The sixth plank stayed blank because I splashed the last of my paint on my denim shorts before I noticed it. I think it says much more about my character as is.