Fencing Nothing


There’s a fence around the world
Cutting across
Tangling through
Twisting over
Everything I’ve seen
Everything I’ve done
It’s all contained
By fences

I had a special place
Atop a hill
A flat rock
Warm and cold all at once
I knew that place
I loved it
It was home and heaven
All in one
Earth and sky
I felt I was part of everything
I’d sing
And it would carry on the wind
I didn’t care who’d hear

Now, all I hear is voices
Not mine
Mine is wasted
Drowned out
And somehow amplified
I hear myself
I don’t recognize the words
The words are fences
I have to recognize who built them
I didn’t
I couldn’t
The fences were there from the start

No one owns the earth
Yet everyone claims a piece
You’re on my land
I’m on yours
It’s not ours
We each have our patch
And if we don’t…
We have nothing
We are nothing
We are nowhere

My special place is somewhere
And I can’t go there now
If I had the key
The words that would let me go
But I don’t
I don’t understand language anymore
It’s all just noise to me
I try to speak
Nothing.
If I write, I have to say who wrote before me
And I don’t know
Who did?
Who used these words?
Did you?
I don’t understand

Time is ticking by me
I can see by the clock on the DVD
I can say that, it’s a mark of my age
My time
I don’t live by the sun
I live by numbers
Green and white
They tell me where to be
Where to go
They tell me who I am

Don’t worry about me
I’ll do enough of that for both of us
I’ll go back in my mind and worry
On all the things I did wrong
On all the things I never did right
Who were they that told me
I was good enough to be here?
When did I decide
That I’m nothing?

I made a graveyard once
In a childhood sandpit
Still in childhood
I buried my friends there
My captives
I built a cross for them
A love heart of clay
Covered it rose pink
Cracked with white
I loved them, and I let them go

She was different though
The first that wasn’t buried in that pit
And when I hear American Pie
I see her grey
I see her black
The dingy, dirt-coloured white
Specked with black

I wanted a rose for her
And got a camellia
I couldn’t plant it
I couldn’t put that lie into the ground
I saw her die
Last squirming life
Shiver into my hand
She was gone
Clinical steel reflecting
No soul escaping
Just nothing

Death and abandonment follow me always
Constantly with me
I’ve been responsible for more than I can say
One thing, I’ll never speak
I tried once, but it was only half
I’ll never say it, but the mother knew
She knew what I’d done
And, I think, she knew my hurt for it
I am sorry, and always will be

I told this to my special place
I told it my misery and shame
She forgave me
No one else had been there with me
Unless I bade them come
But she met me there, unannounced
And I stared at her, wondering why
On wings that I’d never seen at such height
She flew to meet me and said without speaking
“I know.”

This is stunning, Maddie. I'm glad I came back to see your writing...I've missed it.