This day hangs heavy on me.
It will not fit me right.
I’m unbuttoned
unzipped -
this hem is ripped.
We tripped but we tried
oh we tried to walk a straight line.

I am itching –
my skin shows no mercy
take it off now,
oh god please take it off -
I grow frightened of losing my breath.

You tell me catching it could be worse…

Where did you get this glue?
It sticks to me as if it thinks
it is a second skin.
It is not part of this body.
Why does it cling so
tightly?

I am paralysed.
I am scared.
I dream I am dead.
This is the hospital where the nearly dead go.
I will be tested and I will fail.
You talk to me, you touch me.
I reply, I respond – oh god thank you, all is well.

You sigh deeply.
You rub your forehead.
Maybe one tear forms.

My ears ring with a church bell and a voice
wishes to speak to me soon.

Why are my ears closing up?
I cannot hear I cannot hear.

I am her from top to toe today -
the ivy grows.
Soon I will be waist-deep…

Could this be my last chance to tell you?

I am tethered to that bed again
and the ivy is growing fast.
Words need a mouth,
words need fingers.

The fingers were webbed together before
that tray stopped with paper and a crayon.

“Pens,” she said, “make a pathetic but possible attempt.”
“Pencils,”she said, “can be bluntly sharp and the bloody mess…”
“A crayon for you, dear -
and all the paper that you need.”

But I have gone, I have gone back into the breath of ivy.