A Comfy Kind Of Restless

Hello!

“Today’s (optional) prompt is one I got from the poet Betsy Sholl. This prompt asks you to write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.” [from: Day Twenty-One (napowrimo.net]

I knew what elements I wanted to tie in quite quickly, but I procrastinated all day before writing this – then we had a disastrous Persil Liquid incident that took an hour or so to solve, would you believe – so here I am fittering about, back dating this so it reflects that I did write something for Day 21. Sigh!

You were wild,

I sometimes wonder what life has made of you.

I know I’d never keep up now

(Barely did then!)

But you spring to mind through others’ faces, often.

I wonder if you grew into your beauty?

Alcohol and pills

Didn’t dull your hamster wheel at all.

Those hours we stole,

Curled up with our smuggled vodka

In a sticky booth

Counting my pennies for shots!

The too-close dancing.

That crooning through my letterbox in the small hours,

Rousing me from rumpled sleep;

My protective flatmates urging me to turn you loose.

That day you turned up, bloody, 

At that long-defunct-now store

I hated working in,

And got me an early pass

Because you were scaring the customers…!

There was colour in your dark,

And a nod to my more vanilla ways in your declarations

I just “wasn’t your type”.

Dancefloors and dizziness are what I see clearest

When I think back,

That, and the spill of your unwashed hair

Down a fluffy bathrobe,

Far too far past noon.

But you made a mean sausage pasta

And could always be relied upon to harbour White Clouds

Around your Blossom Hills.

With mascara, a curling iron, and whatever glad rags

Our fussy gay pal would throw at us,

We were always set for drama.

And usually found it:

Me trying to talk our way back to peace

While you growled from behind

And motioned to outside.

I grew up with Holly Hobbie aspirations,

Gathering the (now vintage) cards to my chest,

And dreaming of when I was grown and yet could wear

The Laura Ashley dresses.

Surely someone could fashion me a bonnet, too?!

And there you were, so raw and outside of my comfort zones

So full of hurt, and stories, and yet vibrant,

Jarring,

New!

I had resigned to being ‘boring’ before I met you.

We were plagued by our expectations,

A slave to the fact our brains wanted more, but our temperaments

Maybe weren’t best suited

To traditional academia.

I’ve never lived within that ‘potential’ I keep slamming up against,

Have you?

I think we clever women are hard to gauge:

And who would shackle us two, really,

and decide when our genius is spent?!

That took a loooong time to write, so I’m off to bed!  Take care and I’ll be back…

Monty X

[pic is from here]

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