Somewhere in demilitarised zone

Trudging somewhere in the demilitarised zone

I know this place of consequences

Familiar with the known known of quantified, passed time

Familiar with the known known of the brevity of existence

Familiar with the known known of the insignificance I share with you all

Familiar with the known known of my deepening irrelevance.

Familiar with the known unknowns of who what where how and when. The questions are unanswered until I trudge on into the quicksand or deep water.

Or fall asleep at the wheel.

Again

I am not speaking to everyone

There was

There is nothing left in my life

But you and I

Too much space

And so little time artificially divided by days

So it can be counted and costed

Need it be?

My nights pass in dreams of loss and searching

And wakeful shallows of back ache, damaged ribs, stiff legs and trips across the floor to urinate a little and often. Changing night clothes and rotating pillows soaked in sweat.

I see too much of the night

Sometimes too many shadows

I know it is just darkened day

The sun the other side of my earth

Time and opportunity don’t stop

To begin again at 6am

Good that you voyage with me.

You’ll have noticed

You gave me a book about trauma for my birthday

I am older now

Here on the edge of really old

Not just the old age ascribed to me by younger people of an age I once thought old when I was young

I am older now

My memory arcs back

An iron bridge over the raging waters

The last six minutes gone

Over sixty years between the steep banks

That carried so much down

To a dark ocean where stinging, tearing creatures of my own manufacture churn the surface.

Back across the rusting bridge THE DAY awaits

Snippets and visions have followed me forward; jig-saw pieces in my pocket fingered absentmindedly

And more often now intrude

Back across the rusting bridge THE DAY awaits

Any surrender to the temptation to focus

Will reassemble the picture

The events experienced

The events imagined

The circle of hurt

The unlooked for lives lived thereafter

There the snippets go again and I am stopped

I have no time for this

I must cook the pizzas

You set my life and the damage I have done in context for my birthday