Unbelonging & Blood

Making of a Man

my father gave me an mp3 player and a bunch of cds and said:
scream yout sorrows
they cannot know your pain
channel it
take yout anger and joy and hurt
sing it out
let youre voice become hoarce
and your fingers hurt
and be clensed of the pain

i think it was an apology
sorry for how i will hurt you
i still dont know if it was a curse or a gift
but it made me

Bound in Brick

well maybe there’s a reason no one listens to my type of music
maybe there’s a reason why my family were different
maybe most people think of home as a place
maybe most people don’t feel so isolated

maybe that was my father’s issue, taken from roaming the country.
to chained to a house, trapped between walls and under roofs.
trapped by bricks. trapped by mortgages and rent.
maybe that’s why my father struggled with me.
the thing that took his freedom away
maybe that’s why he was best when handing down the traditions.
when among his people

but his people are scattered.
trapped in brick, trapped on sites, trapped in jobs, trapped by children
maybe that’s why he was best on the road, parked on the verge.
maybe that’s why he was better round the fire, cooking away.
maybe that’s why he’s angry. his friends are scattered, trapped, and dying.

maybe that’s why I’m crying now. the community scattered.
my identity a broken people, taken from our places.
maybe I too am trapped in brick. I too am bound by money.
they broke my father.
will they break me?

or am I already broken.
isolated from my people
trapped and bound by brick and law.
maybe that is the tragedy.
that I belong to a dying people.

Nature

my dog responds to me better than my mother
he always loved my father
maybe my voice takes after my father
the harshenss
the barked orders
the sorrow hiden behind raised voices and flashed teeth

i love like a monster
like a a feral animal
claws ripping voice breaking
i am a broken thing

i look in the mirror and look for my father.
he is not there
he is everywhere
i break the mirror in my mind
i cry in the reality

i say i love you in barbed words and snide comments
i can only hope those i love see that
i am a broken thing and i dont know how to love
if not by hurting you with the pieces of my heart

i hope you understand that i love you in my own broken way
that i will never chose to hurt you
i am the scorpion. it is in my nature
i am my fathers son, and i love like a broken animal

Cycles of Blood

a fathers love is a terrible thing, you can refute it, you can deny it, but the gifts are still yours, you still have the terrible love hanging over you, no matter how much you rebel.

he forgives you. a curse.

the blood shed means nothing when he tells you you can waste it.

the bite is taken out of revenge when the offender is lying thir open for the teeth, hoping that they may earn your forgiveness through letting you tear them.

you still bite and tear.

your vengance is lesser, but you cannot deny the part of you baying for blood. you cannot ignore the part of you hating yourself for doing what he wants.

he sharpend your teeth. then closed your heart from forgiveness.

the endless cycle begins, will you tire of hurting him before he tires of being hurt?

can you sate your need for revenge? can he sate his need to be hurt?

your father lets you bite him and he smiles proudly through the tears, for he was taught that love is pain.

Wood-Flesh

your hands shake often,
but when gripping the wooden handle of your fathers knife in your hands they are still;
tense,
forcing the knife through the wood.
a thought floats to the surface of your mind;
you will need to get out the whetstone earlier this year.
the thought is put to the wood and carved away,
cutting at the soft flesh of the bark and outer layers.

 

green wood,
hazel;

from a coppice you have tended to.
a seven-year cycle.

your father brought them to rote and order,
but despite things slipping your brain you keep up the work;

the traditions.

you reach for the handsaw,
judge with your eye,
making the first notch is muscle memory by now,
but the ghosts of pressure,
of calloused hands squeezing yours

 

[like how you
[he]
hold
[held]
the wood.
firm and strong.

would he carve your hands open
like the wood flowers you sell in the summer?
strip the skin and flesh from bone,
carefully peel it away,
hold the bloody mess,
make you beautiful?
treat you with care,
bandage the bloody strips of flesh into something new?

[he could never love without violence,
create without sharp steel
or tearing hands.
you tried,
to paint with soft fur and impermanent water,
but violence is in in your bones as it was in his,
the tainted blood never to be washed away]

maybe if he strips you to the bone
and is confronted by the harshness of it,
the scarred and twisted steel,
he would look away,
he would acknowledge the hurt,
the curse,
and how it hurt you.

[but you know you
[he]
are predisposed to avoid self-realization, how you
[he]
can rage at the one that caused you
[him],
but cannot look at your
[his]
bloody hands and see it is not just your
[his]
own blood]

]

 

you carve the notch,
teeth tearing through wooden flesh.
lay down the beast with its sharp tearing teeth
and pick up the elegant death.
your blind grasping lose you a prick of blood.
you forgot to close the blade when you put it down onto your lap.
a childish mistake.

[the first time you can remember steel through flesh,
a child playing with knives.
you still bear the scar on your hand,
a fathers neglect,
a lesson learnt,
the world is dangerous,
and you cannot trust those meant to protect you]

you lick the blood away with the rough of your tongue,
swallow the metal bitterness.

[you remember the summer you got nosebleeds more often than ever.
blood dripping into the water,
swirling and making patterns.
the beauty your suffering could cause.
you would stare transfixed as you bleed into the water]

you grip the handle stronger.
pretty up the torn and mangled wood.
small strokes,
smooth away the imperfections,
slivers and curls of wood cascade down your lap

[you remember nursery,
coloured curls of wood becoming bracelets]

you take the prettiest,
and put them to the side gently,
careful not to crush the curls with your calloused hands

[no. the metaphor is too easy.
to heavy handed

[still, I’m sure you can guess not all of them made it]

you will forget them,
or brush them of later,
maybe if you remember,
you will take watercolour to them
and try and make something from the by-product of the violence.
lie to yourself that it is not to, tainted]