PARENTHETICAL CHARLIE KITE
W
e (and by we I mean Claire (the woman I swore (vow (we still vow, we still pledge ourselves, like honourable (‘honour you’, that’s a wedding vow (there’s that word (words hurt, she said (where did she say it? Was it in the park? (sunlight streaming through the branches by that willow (there were willows by my old school (I met Claire (first time (so many firsts, eroded (standing on the Devon cliffs (a first holiday, funded by pennies (God, we’ll need to divide (promising in front of an obsolete altar (you laughed when I said we should go to church, in case we had kids (the perennial question (how did we not talk about this? Surely we should have talked (we didn’t talk (I never talked (I don’t talk, my therapist
Left: Peter Schoolwerth. Model for “Personality Inventory”, 2018. Oil, acrylic, inkjet print, and mixed media on foamcore. 78 ½ x 68 x 19 in. (199.4 x 177.8 x 48.3 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Petzel, New York.
(therapist not psychiatrist, that’s a firm line I draw (that’s another issue I have, apparently, drawing arbitrary lines in the sand (the pebble beach, scratty (one of her conjured words (words matter, she said over a coffee in Cambridge (when did we go to Cambridge? Why did we go to Cambridge? That’s gone (sitting for the first time alone on the bed (we bought that bed second hand (the first time we went to IKEA, so proud of being able to buy joint, new furniture, but we never did (despite the years (years gone, years faded, all chucked into a pile of memories (I read an article today that said all memories are constructs (so what do we remember? Seeing Claire in school for the first time, was that real? My mother’s (I should (lots of things I should be doing, instead of standing here (how did I get here? Who are all these people? I can’t recognise (I realised a few days ago that I can’t remember my father’s (a tall man (I’m short, not like him (I don’t even look like him according to the few photos (discovered one wet weekend a few years ago, nestled beneath the coffee
table (I wonder if they bought that table together, so proud (he was (is? was? There’s a quiet horror (it was a horrible divorce, I remember that, screaming and hurled plates (I’ve a temper (another reason for Claire to leave (he left, my father, he went one day and that was the end of our relationship (we never had a good (not terrible not violent, but we never truly connected (bar a shared love (I say love, for him it was a deep burning passion while I simply enjoyed casually watching (tucked up on the old green (green was a colour between us - the colour of the countryside we lived in where he’d drag me (I wish I’d gone willingly, wish I’d walked with him knowing how little time (there’s such little time (my whole childhood with my father is nothing but a small book (like the mid-century book of tennis rules he found (I never (like so many (an endless list that stretches (my father stretching out his arms (before he was gone (my parents divorced (my father left me) when I was eleven) forever) for me as I jump over a creek) ever growing before me) things undone) found him) and
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