X Marks the Spot

Well, the deed is done. I put a cross next to the candidate’s name, dropped the ballot in the box and in doing so exercised my democratic freedom. Waiting to give my name to get my voting slip, I couldn’t help thinking ‘what a fucking joke.’ Not just because of the depressing details that I couldn’t help but notice; the fact that, at six o clock it should have been a busy voting time but there was only me and Owen in the entire building. Not just because the party Owen wanted to vote for didn’t even have a candidate standing in our ward, or because the women who took our names had a look on her face of utter despair and boredom. All these things were pretty lousy but above and beyond that, to me the whole thing just felt like one huge big ridiculous fucking farce.

What I wanted to write all over my ballot: ‘There is no such thing as democracy anymore in this country. I will not play along with your pointless charade.’

What, in reality, I did write: X (next to the Green Party candidate)

Why? For the same reason that I will not allow myself not to vote, even though I am totally disillusioned with British party politics and the utter corruption of local government. I am an idealist, a dreamer, and I just could not bring myself to spoil my vote. It seems such a negative, wasteful thing to do, even if it does reflect my line of thinking more than any positive vote could. I told myself that I was acting out of respect for the people who died trying to get me that vote. I stood in the cubicle, thinking of those women and men chained to railings, thrown in prison, dying all over the place so I could put that cross on that paper. That does, undeniably weigh heavily on my conscience and it did influence my decision. Also, I do agree with a lot of the Green Party manifesto and have voted for them many times in the past. Still, I feel like a bit of a coward for not putting what I thought. Even if only one vote counter had read what I said it would have made a point.

We are not living in a free and fair democracy. Our vote does not matter one jot. The truth is that Corporations are the real policy makers, both locally and nationally, rather than just lowly politicians, or, perish the thought, voters. If you want to make a difference then it’s probably more effective to vote with your talents, your money and your time. Some humble suggestions (aimed at myself more than anyone else): don’t shop at the out of town Tesco that’s ripping the city centre apart, even if it’s the only place that does stock the organic pink grapefruit that you love for breakfast. Make sacrifices. Simply don’t buy the local newspaper that devotes page after page to scaremongering, shitstiring and racist gossip making the streets feel unsafe and causing deep divisions in the community. Consider spending a couple of hours a week volunteering at a local project or charity that is actually something you believe in and helps bring people together for a cause other than money. Treat others with respect; maybe there isn’t such a thing as true altruism but looking out for your neighbours; saying hello, getting to know their names, offering to feed their cat when they go away is always a good start. If someone in the street falls over, help them stand up. If you bump into someone, say sorry. Support local arts events, rather than always going for big names, go to concerts of small local bands who have something to say. Visit galleries of promising regional artists, book tickets to see the amateur dramatics or youth theatre productions. If you are confident enough, join a committee. One night a month on the school governors or the local hospital might make a difference to something of massive local importance and you will find yourself with a surprising amount of power. There are loads and loads of things you can do to help local issues.

If we really want to think local on this Election Day, then we should probably commit more than just a pointless cross. For a long time I have believed that corporations are winning this battle by alienating us from our environment and our fellow human beings. I have always believed that acting locally is the way to fight a global war. It makes the problem more manageable, less overwhelming, more rewarding (in my head I think of it a bit like the GCSE bitesize course run by the BBC!) Let’s face it, if everybody, self included, was more involved in their community, we would be a lot less alienated, far less divided and therefore a step closer to solving the global problems.

A Speck in Their Eye, A Log in Our Own

A bit of a rant:

I am absolutely sick of people tutting and ahhhhhhhing when watching the news or even in the streets, at Islamic women who wear hijab, especially in this country.

First of all this issue is complex. I am sick of this oppressed Islamic women bullshit. It is a gross oversimplification to simply assume that they are wearing these clothes against their “true” will (presumably the will that they are too scared to speak because their violent narrow minded husband will beat them for it). Oh, we think, they must look around at us westerners with such jealously, with our freedom to wear ‘whatever we want'. Not quite. These kind of smug “concerned” attitudes are just as racist as any other stereotypical line of thinking. The truth is that Muslim women often wear these clothes as a personal choice, and for many different reasons: to show solidarity with other Muslims, because they feel it is a personal and meaningful religious obligation, because it gives them an increased sense of security and freedom, because they feel it is the modest polite thing to wear or, god forbid, because they like the style of dress and countless other reasons.

Yes, some women are pressured, sometimes even forced to wear Hijab. When Hijab isn’t a free choice I do have a problem with it, I believe that everybody has a right to choose what they wear in the morning, and if a woman is threatened and feels restricted because of hijab then it is surely wrong. But, before we get on our western high horse that whinnies pity, why not take a look at our own children? I see girls around town aged 12 and 13 struggling to walk in a straight line and without pain on their faces because of the pressure our culture puts on its women to get used to a life of walking in heels, even at such an early age. Although it is often argued that these ‘heels’ are there to empower us to make us feel taller and stronger, in reality often have the effect of making us weaker, more vulnerable, less free – have you ever tried running in them, or walking a long distance? If worn over a long period of time, high heels cause structural damage to a woman’s skelto muscular system, and can often cause great problems with walking in later life. Yet, the cultural pressure to wear these shoes is enormous. Going shoe shopping, the ratio of heeled to flat shoes in many shops is probably about 20:1, girls who don’t conform are often called dowdy or unfashionable, and the advertising budget for shops that stock nearly only these styles of footwear must run into the billions, often only targeting teenage girls. Sure, we don’t say, ‘wear heels or we’ll cut your feet off’ but the fashion monster we have created for our girls and women to slavishly follow is often as strong in its dictatorship as any Shiite regime. All I’m trying to say is, before you feel pity for the woman all in black, look at yourself, or at your own girlfriend, wife or daughter and think: are we really that free?

Secondly

If I have to hear the phrase ‘When in Rome….’, accompanied by a meaningful eye roll aimed in the general direction of Muslims in this country who continue to speak in their mother tongue, socialise with each other and wear traditional dress I will scream! This phrase usually comes straight from the mouths of people who have an air-conditioned house in the heart of the expat community in Spain. There, they speak not a word of Spanish, eat fried breakfasts in English themed bars, walk around their small Spanish villages half naked scaring the locals half to death with their blistering lobster skin. If they don’t actually own a property themselves like this then they would certainly aspire to, or don’t object to English people behaving like this. There is such hypocrisy in our culture. Rich English people moan about the 'immigration problem' or 'Pakis taking over' whilst simultaneously swarming across the continent wrecking local economies and communities by buying up countless properties and behaving with a blatant disregard for local values, all in the name of a good tan and unlimited sangria.

The immigrants who come to Britain on the other hand are (usually) working hard at all the shit jobs we feel are beneath us. They are cleaning our hospitals, emptying our bins, sweeping our streets, even caring for our parents in old people’s homes. They are generally living in all the lovely substandard housing this country has to offer and are keeping our economy alive. Can we really say that our own countries migration patterns are having such a good effect on the local economies? True, we don’t always live in la la liberal land where Mr and Mrs Khan arrive in the street and invite the Smiths down the road over for a chicken bhuna where they bond over Manchester united and the state of youth today. Yes, there are integration problems. But this story has two sides and lets take a look at ourselves for a change, have we as the “Smiths’” made much of an effort with our new neighbours? Have we strove to educate ourselves about their heritage, languages, customs and their genuine beliefs? Have we gone around with a cake and an offer to help them settle into the neighbourhood? And really, as hosts and natives, isn’t this traditionally, sort of like, our duty? After all, aren’t we the ones who after our six month cruise around the world said: “I loved that little village in the mountains, the locals were so welcoming, so friendly. They would have done anything for us.’ Yes, we are happy to take and value other culture’s hospitality, but when it comes to welcoming people here, we are generally renowned for being lazy, antisocial and rude.

In a nutshell: I am sick of the hypocrisy in this country. I’m not saying the Islamic community doesn’t face issues and we don’t have the right to comment, but it is so easy to see the problems in other cultures without even stopping to criticise our own. Maybe, just maybe, we should shoot the pitiful high horse, renounce this fake moral high ground and concentrate on getting our own shit sorted before we point the finger.

(Not) Killing in the Name Of....

Despite my username, I am not a Buddhist. At least, not officially. If anything I would call me more Bud-curious. I am still very much at the exploratory stage of my journey and whilst a lot of my interaction with Buddhist teaching has had a positive effect on my life, constantly challenging me to act with more compassion and wisdom on a daily level, I do not feel ready to commit to the path and take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. I especially do not feel ready to undertake the five precepts that all Buddhists must promise to keep. I take these things very seriously and if I made the commitment it would turn my tiny world, as I know it now, upside down. I thought over the next month or so I would like to occasionally do a short blog on each one of the precepts so I can start to work through what they mean to me. So today, here are my reflections on precept number one.

For those of you who don’t know, the five Buddhist precepts are:

1. I undertake the precept to refrain from taking the life (killing) of living beings.

2. I undertake the precept to refrain from stealing. (lit. "taking what is not offered")

3. I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct (adultery, rape, exploitation, etc).

4. I undertake the precept to refrain from false speech (lying).

5. I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicants which lead to heedlessness.

They don’t look like a big deal on the surface really, do they? Logical good advice just like the Ten Commandments but actually quite lenient because there are only five to keep! However, the more I think about them the more radical they are and the more a sincere commitment to stick to them, in spirit as well as in letter, would absolutely transform me as a person. Let’s examine the implications of the first precept:

I take this precept to mean I must not intentionally harm, as well as simply kill other creatures. The most significant thing this means to me is that I can no longer kill wasps or snakes or another creature that causes me annoyance or worse, danger. This to me is huge. I couldn’t get through a summer without my fly swat; such is my phobia of wasps and bees. To voluntarily take away that power I have over other creatures, to vow not to kill even if my own life was in danger breaks me out in a cold sweat. It means, in practical terms, that if a wasp lands on my arm I just have to let it be. I have to sit there and let the black and yellow evil fucker clamber all over me, stinging at will. If a spider crawls up my leg I have to be still and calm. If a snake runs over my foot I can’t attack it to protect myself. Man, this is rich panic attack territory, right here. I’d like it put on the record that I think I do at least agree with this precept, in principle at least. I think it goes without saying that a lot of harm has been done to this planet by the whole monotheistic Adam and Eve garden bullshit. Giving us hierarchical superiority over the other animals like that was always a bad idea in my book and it has been used throughout history to justify the most horrific of abuses of power. In taking the vow it’s just the practice that I know I’d really struggle with.

In terms of eating animals, in Buddhist circles opinion is really divided on this one. Some traditions eat meat, some don’t. Personally speaking if I took this precept I probably would become vegetarian. I know killing for food is different ethically than killing for other reasons, but it somehow doesn’t sit right with me to be all serious about compassion for living beings, and then tucking in to my Turkey roast on a Sunday enjoying the crackly skin of a bird that has had a shit life, a horrible death when at the end of the day it is possible to have a healthy vegetarian diet. However, and this is where the selfish part comes in, I love meat. I love its taste and texture, its flavour and smell. I just don’t know if I’m ready to turn my back on spare ribs and king prawns. Is that so bad?

Humans are obviously living beings too, and in reality are much more of a threat than any silly little spider. To me taking this precept would eliminate me from harming another human, even in self defense. Even if that person is doing harmful deeds; like hurting my family or friends. It would involve being absolutely committed to a life of non violence in a violent world. This is massive in its implications. I honestly don’t know if I would be able to stick to it.

As well as avoiding direct harm of people and animals in your own personal actions I think this precept calls implicitly for avoidance of industries and products that cause harm and destruction to people and planet. This is your basic ethical living that is very fashionable to talk about now (less so to actually do, I feel) and includes avoiding investing in or buying from companies that are involved in the arms trade, pillaging of natural world resources, exploitative labour, animal cruelty or anything that causes harm or loss of life to another living being. I try hard now to live as ethically as possible, but if I took this precept I would have to make a lot more changes from where I shop to the bank I’m with to the food I eat. I would have to think a lot more and have a lot more integrity about these kinds of issues, rather than pay lip service to them and then still buy nestle coffee because it’s on 2 for 1 in Sainsbury’s.

There’s much more that could be said about precept number 1, I have no doubt. I am sure books have been written about books on the subject. This is just meant to be a quick sketch from my point of view. If I ever do take these vows, I want to mean them, all of them, and to be clear about the implications that they will have in my life. Thinking about them is a good starting point, but I’m still a long way off from getting up there and making a public commitment to such radical changes in my life and world view. Right now, I’m at the stage of thinking the think and talking the talk. It is going to take a lot of bravery and hefty decisions before I finally get my rucksack on my back, pull my cagool on tight and set off on the rocky winding path of walking the Buddhist walk.

Don't Take Your Guns to Town, Kid

This week I have read quite a lot of blogs from the US, and obviously the Virginia Tech massacre seems to have brought the gun control issue to a head, as you would expect.

So I want to talk about guns. Not a subject I am hugely knowledgeable about, do not read the following blog for lots of statistical analysis or personal anecdotes. I have never held a gun. I have never, therefore, fired a gun. I have never had a gun fired at me. In fact, my only real experiences of guns are the fact that I have traveled in Gaza where I frequently heard gun battles, but they were usually a long way in the distance (still scary though). The only other time is spending a few minutes in an air gun shop with my brother in law (he made a few Beavis and Butthead noises to himself "cool…uh huh….awesome….") and then we moved on for a cream tea with extra strawberry jam at the nice shop at the end of the road. Hardly life in the ‘hood.

So I guess some people would think that it makes me very under-qualified to talk about the subject. I don’t agree.

I may not be knowledgeable enough to do an in depth analysis of the world gun trade, but I would just like it to be put on the record that, from my perspective, life without guns is fabulous.

I attended a state comprehensive school. It wasn’t the worst in the country but it wasn’t so far off the bottom of the league tables. It was enough having to cope with the hair pulling and verbal abuse I received at the hands of the other students. I am so glad that I was able to partake in my classes without hearing rumours along the grapevine that so and so has a gun in their bag and is waiting for you after school. I am so glad that there whilst there was undeniably a culture of violence at the comp, it never did and never has ended in a fatality.

The school was in a working class town. It wasn’t the safest place to live. People got beaten up for standing out, there were a lot of drugs and gangs. Despite that, I still managed to have a happy childhood where I was allowed to roam most of the streets, my life was not characterised by fear and danger. I feel that without the strict gun control we have in the UK this would not have been the same. I’m not saying I would have got shot. I’m just saying that with all the gun crime on top of everything else, my neurotic mother wouldn’t have let me leave the back garden and a lot of my fun childhood memories would have been stolen from me. I wouldn’t have been the only one. The lives of me and my friends would have been spent in front of computers and TV’s rather than walking through the woods behind the old pit or running through the fields on the common. I may have sometimes walked the long way home to avoid the bigger boys who shouted lewd things after me and my twelve year old girl friends, but imagine the power those bigger boys would have had with their dads stolen gun in their pocket. Guns are not just used to kill, but to cajole, to threaten, to rape. The bigger boys in my home town just had catapults and the real psychos had knives. But I’d rather take my chances with a man and a knife than a man and a gun, although neither, admittedly, is something I’d put on my wish list.

Finally, and this issue feels a lot closer to where I’m standing now: if guns were legal in the UK, I would be dead. I say this sincerely and honestly. Every depressive who has wrestled with the big one has a preferred method. A single, simple gunshot wound has always been mine. Less than a six months ago, I was so fucked up that had guns been legal I can say with certainty that I would have bought one, pulled the trigger and hey presto, exited the planet. 1 in 4 people in this country suffers from a mental illness at some point in their life. I don’t know the exact statistics relating to methods but I do know that studies have shown that in countries with guns, suicide rates tend to be higher as many more attempts are successful. I’m not saying that gunshot wounds are the only way to kill yourself, far from it, but it my own case, the method I was forced to use was much less effective and therefore there was time for me to be rescued by the paramedics and then time for me to be saved in hospital. If I had found easy access to a gun, I simply wouldn’t be here writing this now.

So, people, from where I’m standing, I say: fight to keep Britain as gun free as possible. Those in other countries who own a weapon: know that you are 41% more likely to be murdered if you have a firearm in your house, which to me would be as cold a comfort as the hard metal casing you so foolishly caress under your pillow. Let us not forget that guns are designed for one thing, and it’s not protection. Guns are made to kill. They tear apart communities, wreck lives, mame, wound and torture. I’m pleased to say that today I haven’t been one of the approximately 1000 people who died because of a gun. I hope I never will be.

Look at it this way: today I have been able to walk through my city’s streets unattended, carefree, feeling safe. For billions of people all over the world, because of the threat of the bullet there is so such feeling, no such freedom. I know you’re all going to laugh and call me a sucker idealist but for me there will never be any peace in the world until the firearms trade, both legal and illegal is dismantled. So why stop at Britain? Lets fight for the belief that the only place that people should to see guns in the whole world is stuck behind a glass cabinet, in an armory museum. Sure, it’s not a guarantee against the human violence (both headline grabbing and unreported) that dominates our planet, but it sure would be a step in the right direction.

A rare fashion post

I'm not really into clothes. Not really. In fact, I think you could reasonably put me in the bottom 1% of "people who are interested in clothes". I don't go clothes shopping, I don't dream of shoes or bags or hats. Most of my clothes are 10 years old and are usually hand me downs or presents from other people.

However, call me an overgrown adolescent, but I have a weakness for T shirts. T shirts with funny/clever or political slogans. T shirts to make you think. In your face, wear your heart on your sleeve (or tits) kind of things. Things to make people look and wonder and smile. Even, if I'm being very brave, things to piss people off.

I haven't bought any recently because we've been so short of cash for, say, the last seven years. But I stumbled across this site and I think it might be an incredibly dangerous find.

Just for starters:

This one

and

This one

and

This one

Gosh I feel dirty now. Must go an wash away all the consumer capitalist scum. Out damn spots goddamit!

Zazen under the Covers.

Yesterday was a good day in so many ways. I did a lot of great things and spoke at length to some old friends. I didn’t stop speaking until gone eleven and so by the time I came to bed I was totally wired. I like to go to bed at the same time as Owen, as the pre sleep snuggle is of the highest quality (it just cannot be beaten). However, I was finding it really hard to wind down, and was getting more and more stressed about the night ahead.

We have a “once I’m there I’m there” rule which means that no matter how frustrated I get, once I have committed to being under those covers, that is where I stay (loo breaks aside). We do this because if I don’t have this rule then when I am this stimulated I will simply sit up all night on the internet drinking huge cups of black coffee or watching subtitled films on TV for weeks and weeks on end. By the end of the period I am high as a kite and it starts to get into this dangerous territory that often ends in a right old pickle.

So, the thinking goes, if I at least am in bed, then the chances are I’ll get more sleep than if I’m not. It may sound a bit fascist, but the rule is a good one and that’s why we keep it. If I get very frustrated I can maybe take a valium midway through the night, but we think sleeping tablets are a very last resort. So last night I was tossing and turning, arranging the bed clothes every seven seconds, partaking in many frustrated attempts at masturbation; you know the story. It was just once of those nights where sleep was so tantalisingly near, with the blackness and the comfort surrounding me, yet my brain synapses were firing off at an alarming rate and my thoughts just wouldn’t stop, or slow down.

I lay there getting angrier and angrier, yet without really thinking about it my mind started to drift into some of the mind quieting meditation techniques that I’ve been learning over the past few months . Although I wasn’t sat on my little stool and that felt strange, and of course this wouldn’t be how I normally meditate, it felt like there was no harm trying.

Well, it worked a treat. I did “Zazen”, laid down, under the covers for only a few minutes and by the end of it I was so relaxed and peaceful. I felt big waves of calm wash over me, and I was soon like a different person. It was so nice just to have a technique in my armory that quietens the mind and stills the body. I watched the breath, my muscles relaxed and soon I was asleep.

In the end, I got six hours, much better than I feared I would. Now I feel great. I am ready to face another day of treadmills, phone calls and washing up.

I so often struggle with sitting. It is often so hard to focus and usually turns into a battle against all the bad habits engrained in me since birth. I sometimes look at my meditation stool and think of it as a war zone. It is nice then, be able to relax into practice and gain some real peace from it. Even if I was clutching a teddy!

Grandma

I have spent a lot of today thinking about old age. My grandma died at around about this time of year (such a dutiful granddaughter: I can’t remember the date/month/year), but I’m pretty sure it was in the spring, with the daffodils just about to die. So she has been playing on my mind for the last few days. She died in an old peoples home as the family couldn’t cope with her severe, aggressive dementia. Within eighteen months she went from being my lovely cuddly grandma to a husk of a woman. Being witness to the journey she underwent; the accelerated decaying process that left her unable to remember her own name or the name of her husband, children or, well… me… it was one of the most influential things that has happened to me. You just don’t forget shit like that. I was walking the walls of the city, and memories of her last months floated back into my conciousness: the smell of the pine air freshener that she had to breathe all day and the fish tank in the home's hallway with the moldy goldfish that swam in tiny circles. The guest’s "sign in" book that recorded our weekly visit and the tragedy of the fact that on more than one occasion there were no other names in the book to separate our Sunday signatures.

I have always hated old peoples homes. With a passion. I used to work at one, I know the shit that goes on there. People, good people who have given so much to their families and their communities are just left in high backed chairs to rot. There is no respect for the intelligence, individuality, history or needs of that person. Yes, they will get fed, even if it is the same tinned grapefruit or stewed prunes every day. Yes, they will be dressed, if they no longer can for themselves. Yes, they will get toileted once every couple of hours. Unless the staff forget, and then they have to physically sit in their own piss and shit for hours on end. In these places, there is no dignity. None. Most people in old peoples homes are not really people at all, in my experience, they are just empty shells waiting for their next 10 minute family visit, or if they have no relatives, they sit there and look forward to the day they finally stop breathing.

Now, call me silly if you will, but to me that’s no way for even one life to end. And for thousands upon thousands of these broken people to be abandoned, (not just by their families but by their communities), exploited of their hard earned life savings, neglected, drugged beyond recognition until they finally lose the will to live and croak…well….to me it is beyond dubious. This is abuse, plain and simple. Abuse of a whole generation, abuse of the most vulnerable group in our society. This is happening now, every day and it’s a fucking travesty. The friends and the relatives of people who have had to go through these systems and have seen our mums and dads, grandmas and granddads, friends and even enemies destroyed by them should be screaming about this abuse through megaphones outside polling stations and TV stations. We should be burning the places to the ground. We should be suing the corrupt owners of these establishments who bleed their residents dry. We should be going into the thick of it and helping those poor bastards who after all did much more than fight in the much toted wars; they raised us, read us stories, fed us home cooked meals, made sacrifice after sacrifice for both this country and our communities and our own families. This is the thanks they get? We should be so ashamed.

Yet I am not talking from a holier than thou perspective. My immediate family committed my grandma to one of these places. It made her worse and she died. We have that on our consciences forever. However, like many people in that situation we believed all the shit the system told us, that we couldn’t manage her at home, that she’d be better there, that she was a danger to herself and others, that she was unsafe in the community. We acted with the best of intentions. So do so many of us. But I think most of us know, I think in my heart of hearts we knew, that we acted with blood on our hands. Who hasn’t been to an old folks home and retched at the barely disguised smell of cabbage and piss? Who hasn’t noticed the woman in the corner with her dress on back to front and her teeth hanging out? And who hasn’t looked around at all the vacant expressions staring at countdown on the telly and thought; "shoot me, please, before I get to this stage"?

There is a cancer at the heart of our society. Maybe one of the reasons we’re all so obsessed with botox and anti wrinkle cream is because we know what’s waiting for us at the end of the line. It's not the thought of endless bingo nights and tepid institution food that creates the horror of the situation, it's the fact that these things are, in an old people's home, life's highlights.

News flash, people. We’re all gonna die. You won’t avoid it however hard you try. Science isn’t going to find a miracle cure, you’ll be pushing up daisies before you’ve even really had a chance to realise the implications of being alive. And when you do die you will probably be in a lot of pain and very scared. Dying well and dying bravely is one of the hardest things there is to do. Trust me on this. Wouldn’t it be nice, then, if our very last years were spent with our families, or if not with them, then in places that valued us and our wisdom, where we were treated with respect and compassion rather than as if we were nuisances at best, simple commodities at worst? Wouldn’t it be good if, even on our death beds, we were still being asked; "What can you teach us?" A dying person has access to some of life’s most potent wisdom, yet he is dosed up with morphine and goes screaming into the night surrounded by people who don’t know how to help, or have been taught, for professional reasons, not to get too involved.

My grandma died four years ago, almost to the day. I don’t know how yet but I don’t want her to have died in vain. I tried writing a play about it, one day I will try to write, or do, something else.

For today this little blog will have to do.

Body Image- (To Joan)

I loved your fat,
handfuls of it.
Breasts so big
they flattened me against
the wall in the hallway.
A scuffed knee,
a broken toy,
a sore throat;
all my worries
ran to your open arms.
Clasped to your chest:
rising and falling,
rising and falling.
Your heart beat
a tribal drum
that spoke to me
in ways your
stubby tongue
and cracked lips
could not.
Your clothes bursting
with rolls of blubber.
Wild eyes
and double chin.
No lipstick,

a faint moustache,

false teeth.

I had yet to encounter
Miss World on her
callous catwalk.
To me you were
woman,
old woman
in all her glory
and I was proud
to sit beside you
on the bus.