Impossible Angles

I can find no quiet way to exist, no way to be open and safe, no way to know without exploding, no way to get up on the roof without falling, no way to fly. The light is clear but fleeting, the light arrives but is always threatening to leave, the wind drifting large clouds, dark in the middle, white at the edges, across the unbearable sun. And the time it takes for the light to change is the time it takes for me to change my plans, change my mind, change from quietly compliant to furiously destructive, from capable to hopelessly fallen. Not able to pick myself up. A rag doll dropped on the floor, yellow thread hair splayed, legs at impossible angles. When I took her to church the rector blessed her at the altar rail, and I was blessed, I was loved, I was included. Don't let it rain. Today could be a beginning. If the sun could reflect in the dark puddled road, could suck the water back off the tarmac, could warm the damp-coated cattle in the rutted mud of the desperate field, could I --? Could I open the door? Could I enter the day? Could I join the world?

There are small flies in the heather - they fly up as my ankles brush the new growth and the older darker damp rough stems. They fly up like summer midges only larger-winged, I disturb them as the rain water soaks into my trouser-bottoms. My hand brushes the sapling and is wet with cool rain. Can I persuade myself to go there? If I can get through the door, if I can climb up the hill, can I breathe in the February air, look a long way south, see how the broken sun picks out that yellow field, turns that line of buildings into the silhouetted back of a dinosaur?

Please stop trying to be concrete. Stop looking for an answer. Eat questions. Chew them slowly, savour them, swallow and digest. My stomach is sore. There's a pink and tender place like a bald patch with sunburn, like a sore spot on a dog's back, like eczema, like an itch, like a burning, like a scratch. I can't soothe it, can't reach it; send down the gentlest foods. Gentle gentle to calm it to reassure it, to placate it. It's a baby crying, it needs rocking, singing to, lulling with lullabies of porridge and stewed apple, soup and rice, chicken and potatoes. Too much, not enough, which is it? What do you want? Mind a parcel, stomach a sore baby, what to do? Stay in. Go out. Rest. Exercise. Eat. Fast. Think. Meditate. Try harder. Do less.