i can't fuck up

this post is titled 'i cant fuck up'
because "fucking up" is colossal
increasingly irreparable, you become irredeemable,
your damage becomes a mess somebody else has to wipe up,
and that's not cool.

you see, the point i'm at in life
is where my first pay cheques came in right next to the pieces of paper that
claimed payment for the costs of my existence on this earth
tuition, phone bill, books, health insurance, transport,
i started to pay my way through,
so much so i started to feel ashamed when 
the hands of my mother and father had to come bail me out again,
hands that had so far cleaned up my mess, wiped my scraped knees, 
and cuddled my 6 year old frame.
hands that tell so many stories 

you're always happy to help, but
you can't cheat the way age, stress, unhappiness
has carved its way into the lines in your face,
or how they have all carved their initials into
each mile that separates us.
you're not so happy when i don't try though,
when i don't think things through,
when i make costly mistakes i probably could've avoided.

see mom and dad, when you're mad
i don't even need to look at your faces, 
i just need to look at your hands.
your hands flailing around, 
your hands slicing the air, 
your hands poking invisible chests, 
your hands shaking shoulders that don't exist. 
your hands become fists, of frustration desperation
wrinkles that come early, lines of deliberation 
within whose spaces i colour in little moments of 
absolute question 
at the situation 
you are in, 
why am i here, lord? 
why do i have to deal with this?

but when you look around
and you realise that no one else cares, 
no one else will listen or be responsible
for a life that is not theirs, 
you wake up and shake the doubt right off,
you can't fuck up... otherwise all is lost.

so you hold your head up high and you polish my shoes, 
you iron my school uniform and you prepare my food. 
you teach me how to never be in someone else's way, 
never to be a liability or an obligation,
and to always be welcome wherever i stay.

you help me spell the word responsible, and teach me most of all, 
that the expensive life you have so carefully tried to protect for me, 
is always and has always been my own. 
there's careless and then there's carefree 
and me stuck between the two. 
trying to find the balance between having a stick up your arse 
and choosing to have nothing to do. 

i'm too aware to waste away my days, 
i'm too wide awake at night. 
i cant sleep i toss and i turn,
because i know i need to fight. 
i need to invest in my own life, 
and never forget my parents' sacrifices. 

no matter how disillusioned i get, 
please let me never forget where i come from. 

i can't fuck up, because i don't want to. 

i can take care of myself that much.

thank you mr skype

today you asked me whether you could speak to your son.
i'm not even your wife.
you're not even my husband.
but i won't get involved.

take me back, to when we would laugh as the kid
walked out the door, in search of mom
who had left to look after her ailing father.
once, twice, thrice a month.
but we're okay.
because you took care of us,
we laughed at the kid.
who thought she was so far away
that she was in australia.
his "australian mama".

fast forward it a couple of years.
the faithful husband feels like the faithful extra.
the wound deepens as the money gets stuck
like a bone in his throat,
piercing through every time he speaks.
he rasps and cuts
with words in between his teeth.

one day,
she says i don't know what to believe,
he'll sell me for money,
he'll sell me real cheap.
so back we go, scarborough fair moved from down the road,
it's a live auction,
for what cannot be bought with gold.

i remember you washing toilets,
cooking lentils over a tiny stove,
your huge frame hovering over us,
making us eat, so you could watch us grow.
polishing our shoes till our faces shone in them,
brushing my hair, so the whole world could see
my face.

then i remember you defeated. pulling that knot of silk away from your neck,
a marks and spencers man, walking in shoes,
that previously we'd have to sell our souls to afford.
you'd sit down and simultaneously, a hand would extend,
the tv zaps on,
and you move from one world onto the next.

you never picked up a brush again,
and you certainly never scared me.
you got old,
and weary. and i could not give you anymore happiness
than a stamp of that A on a piece of paper you never had.
but i had other plans.
see i wanted to see the world, beyond the two extremes i had known.
i wanted to fly away like her,
and i want to feel what some feel,
when they discover they were made for more,
than living the stationary life between the strings of newton's cradle.
i was suffocating,
under your silence,
and yet you were unable
to snap out of your trance,
between the western unions,
and the local masters,
you tried to brave the whip,
but the lashes came.
bottle to your lips,
the lashes fade.
we remained,
we remain.

today you asked me whether you could speak to your son.
it'd been so long since i heard you.
i don't wear shoes that need shining,
my hair is always in my eyes,
my heart is hurting.
but of course, you can speak to him.
please, please, just don't ever ask,
me that again.
my friend,
my light,
my strength.

'no sound but the wind'

lashes of multi-coloured light
sirens that deafen you
that separate our rational senses from colliding
into submisson.

you can't hear yourself over the sounds of those screams.
quieten all around us, please
don't lose yourself
in the need to survive here
it isn't such a cold town.
it isn't such a cold town.

i'm banking on the sunshine
while i'm getting drenched by the tears you cry
late at night
when you miss his arms.

i'm fleeing from the train that rushes right behind me,
the train that's coming to get me to send me back home.
it's a war out in our minds,
but i don't want to be separated from you.
why don't you see that behind your clenched teeth,
it's okay to show me you want to cry?

why don't you see we all need to be laid down.
we can make this home.
we can mend ourselves.

"I"ll help you carry the load,
           I'll carry you in my arms."



No sound but the wind by Editors