Going Solo: Paris -> Bayeux -> Arromanches Les Bains

Like many people of my generation, I say that I love to travel, that I'm open to absorbing other cultures and grasping any opportunity that I'm given. And it's true, although often travelling with friends allows you to fall so easily into the tourist trap. You become lazy; you're around English speaking people and so fall into bad habits from your native country. I wondered, what would happen if I went somewhere with no back-up, no safety net, no fellow tourist? So I tried it.

The Cutting Block

Words have littered a woman's flesh, unspoken.

Memories that she has not made, places she has not seen.

They tell her that those are the days she'll remember,

a way of living that takes and takes and leaves you raw and brittle.

She hates those days, keeps them in a photograph, hidden on display.

Words bring her here, to the belly of the beast which is never full.
They bring her to a cavern, hollow save for an echo of what used to be.
She wears her best skin and ignores the hushed conversation, the whip
of a careless tongue over an open wound. You are not all you could be.

Have you seen the fine china, they ask. Have you seen the cracks

in the walls and the dark shadows that follow us to the graves we dig.

There's earth on her tongue and weeds growing in her throat, and can

you keep it down, please, nobody wants to hear your politics.

Polite conversation. Lovely weather we're having, they say, but

she's drowning under the growing rapids, struggling to stay afloat.

Cut into the steak, it's better when it bleeds. The walls tell the story

of a boy who kissed the barrel of a gun, but we don't talk about that.

We don't talk about the collective; we don't talk about being stripped

to bones and a heartbeat, having given so much there's nothing left

to take. Smile, extend a hand, return gesture to sender.

She's quite the artist, they boast, saying they knew her when.

Saying she'll make it if she's meant to, fire at their fingertips

with the door closed behind her. She's rasping in the cold,

lungs weak from fighting the ice they all take in so naturally,

and she's far from home with no place to get warm.

They don't remember the script they wrote, back when they were she.

They don't remember the labour sold for more than hers is worth now,

but they'll close their eyes when it's not their place and trust in a system

which was never meant to last.

Yuletide

We went to sleep in sunlight

and woke up in the dark.

There was snow and bitter cold,

and a sorrow in our hearts.

You had to say goodbye again,

the words never passed your lips,

and we couldn't hear what wasn't said,

only wait for the scales to tip.

How do we find the ends of a thread

when half a heart is gone?

How do we pull our bootstraps up

and try to soldier on?

If unfilled dreams go to rest,

I hope you're with them now.

I hope you're finding what you lost

and are making yourself proud. 

What did you whisper in the dark?

I guess we'll never know. 

How did the sun just go to sleep,

where did this, and more, go?

A thousand questions never answered,

A thousand reasons why.

Twenty-four hours weren't enough,

Not to say goodbye.