low-res lavender field
It’s not the moment, it’s after the moment and I see myself lying on the bed in orange light with you lying across my lap, your mouth still sucking in your sleep. I’m also asleep even though I have tried, I know I have tried not to, I know how important it is, and I see myself waking, checking my phone and realising it has been at least two hours, no more, many, many more hours of just lying there with my legs out in front of me in an ordinary way, in the way that any person would lie with their legs, in a way that makes me think maybe they’re not my legs though they must be my legs because who else’s legs could they be? I’m not feeling pain, but pressure is how I describe it, is how I hear myself describe it, the words leaving my mouth in that shape, while also thinking: but am I really? Am I really, in fact, feeling anything? It’s hard to know when it seems like nothing is happening though it must be happening within my body but also elsewhere. I’m saying things like this because I have to speak to know I’m still there and because speaking feels like reality, but I can also see my face clearly, so clearly, just lying there on the bed, wanting it to happen and not wanting it to happen. I can see clearly the desperation and relief of being there on the bed in the hospital with a balloon pumped full of water opening my cervix, the desperation and relief of just waiting while things are happening within but also elsewhere, so slowly that it looks like nothing. I can hear myself saying about the pressure and I am thinking yes, okay, maybe it is happening after all, and of course it must be happening, it’s not like it can’t happen and in a way it has already happened. It has already happened and you are already here.
They keep poking their heads through the curtain. Hiya! How’s it going? And looking at me and looking at me in this way that makes me think that they know something. Yes, I hear myself say, yes, I think, I am feeling something? Poking their heads through the curtain and I’m smiling this insane smile because truly I want you to come, and I’m thinking that if I say the words that I’m supposed to say then it will happen but also not yet, another way, or maybe never, maybe we’ll stay here in blue curtains, like floating in a tank of water, with the weird light, non-light, and the sound of other people’s lives happening outside while we just float here in the blue. Hiya! How's it going?
Can you hear me?
I see myself lying on the bed with you across my lap, asleep when I shouldn’t be, it’s the last thing I should be and why can’t I just stay awake? How hard can it be? Does it say something about our bond, or about my body? Does it mean something is broken, and by something I mean me? Because I can’t and I can’t but then it is happening, actually happening when I should be sleeping and of course then, I can’t sleep.
I’m walking down the stairs, chatting about the weather, cold for this time of the year and wet, what a shame, typical though yes, walking down the stairs, not the main ones that we’ve been walking and walking for days but another secret set that they keep for this, for when it’s happening, down to a new level. It feels like we walk further than is possible, right down, it seems, down and under the building.
In the room there is a photograph of a low-res lavender field on the wall to the left of the bed opposite the bathroom where there’s a bath with jacuzzi jets, to the left, so that I’m only ever seeing it peripherally. The ball is silver. Once I sit on it I can’t get up and there’s no gush, just trickling fluid. A hook and that flicking snapping sound as it pulls against something hard and tight: a film I’ve made to contain you, too thickly to properly break which is what they want, a gush and all I can do is trickle. Your head is a plug but I’m also plugging it, sitting on the silver ball, I can’t get up, wanting you to come but also not yet or maybe another way.
I see myself asleep on the bed with you across my lap, my legs out in front of me in an ordinary way on the bed and on the theatre table, I can see them now and then, with that little silver stick rolling up from my ankle to my calf, along my thigh, hip, bottom of my ribs. Something sharp: a needle sunk into my flesh to stop the sickness, sitting on the silver ball with my hands reaching out and a needle stuck into my thigh in the room with the low-res lavender field where the windows look into a car park behind black paper and tape. We’re stuck in this room and it is a purgatory even though the purpose is to progress and there is something happening though it looks like nothing, seeing myself just lying there on the bed with my legs out in front of me in the ordinary way. I hear myself asking whether I’m going to die, and all this time I’m just lying there on the bed with you lying across my lap, your mouth still sucking in your sleep, waking and checking my phone and realising the hours and sitting forwards to place you into your cot, just lying there with my arms out and you asleep across my lap in the orange light, little bulbs looped down and up. They’re telling me to get some sleep but of course I can’t then because you don’t seem so far away and what if I miss you? As if I could miss you moving down my body slipping away and towards me, choking on air under the lights that aren’t real lights, angled down and up. The metal smell of blood, someone’s hands holding my arms, I think I can see the blood, I can see the blood, but I can’t lift my head and bent down over me are five, no at least ten faces of people I don’t know, bent down over me just lying there because I’m so tired and I know I shouldn’t sleeping, that sleeping is the last thing I should be doing. How hard is it not to sleep? Why can’t I do just this? I see myself just lying there with my arms out and you across my lap and I can’t feel you but I’m talking, my mouth is moving in response to what they’re saying and I am doing this to know I am there because speaking feels like reality. Their heads are bent over my body, someone’s hands on my arms and your head and your shoulders and your legs so pink and red and the metal smell of blood and I think I can see the blood. The blue curtain rising and you lifting up and over, landing on my chest, slipping away and towards me.
I can’t be sure, is what I want to say, I can’t be sure, seeing myself not in the moment but weeks after the moment, seeing myself waking and checking my phone and realising and sitting forwards and forwards to place you into your cot just lying there with my arms out and you asleep across my lap your mouth still sucking
Cover/in-text image: Self Portrait, courtesy of writer.