Category: aside

i met her one fateful day 
and it was to be the worst day of my life 
though i didn't know it at the time 
and then a bare twelve years later 
the idiocy repeated itself 
and i thought it was going to be better
and it wasn't oh it wasn't 
but it took me longer much longer 
to work out that one was as toxic as her mother 

two women of the worst there have ever been 
and both probably yes certainly 
as neurodiverse as myself too 
but not what they claimed the first was 
in her spymaster's cover 
of equally terrifying prognosis 
because what she was was never polar 
and never a pillar of anything close
to what one might term community at all at all 

black widows being what they both were 
and in fact still are for sure 
being women capable 
of widowing their menfolk whilst they're still alive 
and through their stratagems 
of cruel cunning always without the us 
just women who weaponise 
their every word and act 
against the fact that humans are just that 

because unforgiving is their first name 
and unforgivable their last 
where precisely both become the outcome 
of coming out as sharp and clear as any assassins  
and hateful like none in the history of humanity
and abusive as per the worst whores 
of political graft on those rafts of irish river
when the personnel that staff the offices
which back those who break into splinters

all the democratic instincts 
and all the technological fingerprints 
that could've saved us 
from the foolish hubris of the zuckerbergs 
of pornographic advert networks 
all connected and joined up
to the greater glory of the altmans of these days
where fucking with a human being's head 
is quite the right thing to do 

and so they think for sure
that daughter and mother i was writing about earlier 
that they have zero to do with THIS world 
now bleeding at both the seams 
and at the most unseemly 
of global violences
but actually these two women
as per many other humans 
have lived lives of absolute choice 

and are intimately at fault 
both and each 
for choosing an easier life such an easier one 
of material possessives 
like grammatical strictures of the most frightful 
that serve only to throttle change 
and make their beloved 
just rags and tags and sagging supports 
to be ripped into strips 

and then the intellectual regressives 
of smarmy logic and sophisticated sophistry 
which have led them quite separately 
to bottle that last moment and opportunity 
to demonstrate a real and healthy ambition
and aspiration too
for them and me and theirs 
and then us all together 
to prove that kin could be very much more 

than now it will ever be able to be 
or should indeed i say and verily repeat 
because in the "should" of all this 
we are haughtily saying how we never failed
when actually we did and forcefully have ...
and so when at the level of family 
unable to communicate savvily
how could we expect government 
to rule any better

or succeed where as individuals all these years 
we just preferred to choose and manifest our violence 
and then fuck each other up 
with purpose and intentionality 
as aggressive as the most violent criminality
because in truth 
that's been my experience 
of nuclear and extended family both:
kin as a synonym of ALL that's bad in the human experience  

and so i see it as it was 
and will now always be
and so i sense it's time to move away forever 
grateful that i am still way distant 
from a suicide my own family imposed on me
and worked so hard in order to direct me towards 
as if awarding me a solution 
that would've absolved them 
of all deep responsibility 

and which would have meant 
they would never have had to face the truth
of what still they are 
being that cruel cowardly mobbery
of people you grow up with 
thinking what they do to you
they do sincerely for you
when in reality 
they wanted you to die all along 

and so it ultimately comes to this
and for sure it does it does 
and so it ends down in the pit of time's pendulum 
hanging from figurative threads
as i tease out my next steps 
because they won't involve anyone 
from that which once 
we could have affectionately called fam
and which in no way ever meant kindness of any kind

and as the offers begin to present themselves
now i work really hard to expunge 
that which they said could not be expunged  
being the capacity that family 
and kin and sibling-hood 
and cousinly beings multiple
has to convince you they are right 
and you are wrong 
and when you feel uncomfortable 

the fault is all yours
and when they abuse and bully you 
it's you who's doing the bullying 
and you who's the abuser ...
because THAT'S the one undeniable achievement
of these two women 
throughout the mouldering tapestry of their lives 
and those family groupings which encroach on us 
never liberating ever 

and then all the cousins and uncles and fathers 
and mothers and aunts of creeping witness
being what they ALL bear witness to:
that kin-hood is a kind of jail of the very worst 
and perhaps at that 
a panopticon too
where a surveillance of the most total 
impresses on the brain born yet free 
the rusting bars of increasingly imprisoning deeds 

yes indeed it's true 
for whilst people and friends of choice 
are to be rejoiced and coveted 
and embraced and hugged 
and treasured and envied 
in ways that ennoble us to do the best of things 
family of the manner i have experienced 
is a curse of the worst and much much more
and is surely finally 

to be left irreversibly behind
when finally clearly proving 
that its equally irreversible unkindnesses 
will never revert to a forgiveness of redemption again 
nor to the spirits of generosity 
like ghostly figures capable of planing over us 
in those magical moments when i looked out
through the child's eyes
which i learnt EVERYTHING from 

with the newborn brain i was blessed with 
once upon a time 
for only then 
through the family i grew up alongside 
to discover how its innocence was to be ripped out 
like strips flaying off 
the thief's stinging back
as the blood of life still seeps and stains 
the human being i am now determined to fully recover 

wilfully leaving my past behind 
where the past is the only country 
it deserves to inhabit 
for cruel
for violent 
for abusive 
for manipulative and for bullying 
and for woman 
child and man gone intentionally wrong 

goodbye to you all 
and to you all
fare thee as well 
as you've never known in life 
how properly to deliver on 
nor how to forge or fashion 
even wryly
nor express through compassion 
never mind a truly felt passion:

yes i do i do i do
i wish you all luck 
as you continue to fuck 
with the heads of those 
who really 
by this time 
and way before
and long ago 
you should've learnt to love