FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH

I've been hurumphing around the city streets all afternoon.
The burden of being as non-committal as an old leaflet
Advertising a cheap factory-seconds booksale,
And yet feeling like a redundent member of a
Functioning society,
Failing to reach
Some true potential,
Spoiled the overcast and dank grey laneways.
I stared in the bathroom cabinet mirror,
with a head nigh split in two, and staring making it worse,
And took to pruning unruly eyebrow hairs.
I thought of that night that I performed with you
Bonnie and I dipped our long wigs in coloured paint
to splatter about the room.
I blinked,
And on opening my eyes there was a splash of
Pink paint on my eyelid in the mirror.
Remember, I made the costumes, too?
But you can't live with me anymore
Because I bore you and you can't change me.
I can't live with you either,
but I'm the sort who puts up and shuts up.
So, I have to kiss my blue door goodbye
Because somebody has to be the one to leave.
Now you're interrupting me writing this
Because I haven't performed 'cleaning'
Enough before your eyes;
I guess someone must have pissed you off,
So you're taking it out on me.
Nobody can live with anyone really,
We're not too good at sharing;
And if you're good at giving,
You end up with nothing.
And what are you alone?
My right eyebrow is half reddy blonde
So it looks shorter than the other one.
But, it is in fact shorter than the other.
Hate the eyebrows – remind me of my grandfather's.
I see them in forty or fifty years time,
Silver and white wire coiled so tightly
And grown so thick
That the world before my eyes will be ensnowed
And invisible
I'll be able to live only in my memories
I won't be dreaming of the future
And what great use I'd be to society
Because there won't be much of a future,
Except for visions of the afterlife,
Or what the hospital ward looks like.
And I'll be known as the woman
Who could plait her eyebrow hairs
Together with her ear hairs.

Onions

I've used up every tissue I can find scrunched up

On my bedroom floor; the ones under my bed,

From the fathoms of my coat pockets,

The ones from the depths of my handbag -

Smeared with lipstick.

Yet through my blocked and ever-running nose

I can still smell onion on my hands.

Backwards, it says, "Snow, I know",

Or, more pertinently, "It's 'no', I know".

Forwards,

My excuse for tears.