17 August 1992
Women my age talk of the things
we did when we were
young.
(‘Younger’, we are instructed by our older sisters.)
We never thought of ourselves as
Easy women,
Yet we count our lovers on several hands.
We took what we wanted
when we needed it.
We often thought we were in love
till we started faking our orgasms, and left
talking of how the magic had died!
Our lives were reckless and witty.
Oh! how witty we were.
“I hope you don't mind if I smoke
while you eat,”
I once said to a boy kneeling underneath
a dining room table.
Yet in those days of frivolity we believed
In love and ever after.
Now we cling to our lovers with much
passion and never speak of love,
for now that we are older we know
that they must leave,
As surely as church bells peal
on a Sunday evening.

24 October 1992
I am a woman (just)
I am happy to be with
my music - my books - my friends
even my borrowed cat and garden.
At ease with myself.
I have come to terms with
my height
my weight (mostly)
my weaknesses.
I learn more and more to laugh
at myself.
I enjoy the pleasure potential
of my body - on my own
or with someone.
I try to be honest
Tell people what I want.

At a bar one night a boy
told me he was looking for someone
to go home with.
Someone, he said, as nice as you
but not as hard as you.

I didn't even flinch.
He looked disappointed.

11 December 1992
When is it?
At which moment
does one realise
that one is alone again?
It is not the moment
they say goodbye,
or the moment they slip
gently out of you,
or when they silently
leave the bed.

For me it is at the moment
much, much later
when in control
of everything
I feel a warm wetness
seep out of me.
Then I am reminded
that I am once again
utterly hollow inside.

25 January 1993
As I sit in the candlelight
listening to
and feeling
the blues,
watching the spider
on the wall
watching me,
I am learning
that I should let my
emotions stream
like my thoughts -
my words.

I am learning
that my friends are right,
I think like a man
and spare myself too much.

26 March 1993
Nature in it's irreverence
for human kind
makes quick work
of what is dead
by transforming
the living purpose.
We irrepressibly hoard
our grief
claiming our martyrdom
as comfort.

Already a spider
has woven it's web
along the thorny stem
of a valentine rose
Presented to me
in a vain attempt
to rouse
what was long spent.
The rose is now dead.
The spider has a home.
How easy things seem
in nature
And yet how easy for me.
I will
not discard the rose now!
- where would the spider
live if I did?

7 May 1993
A man
(The man I love)
once told me
he'd had a nightmare!
- I'd disappeared in the rain -
And I was flattered
that so simple
a dream
could be deemed a nightmare.

I should have told him then,
I was no sugar-plum fairy.
I was
flesh,
bone,
fat,
muscle,
blood
and dirt
(All waterproof)