Black Boxes. Caroline Smailes

      But I can't write another name.

      There are no other names that are perfectly straight and perfectly able to cover ALEX.

      [silence]

      But you went off.

      And you found that new name.

      And it had curves in it because you had decided that you preferred curves.

      The lines no longer needed to be straight.

      You adapted.

      You accepted.

      You left me here.

      You left me.

      Trapped.

      [silence]

      My room is a box.

      A black box.

      A sometimes ruby red box.

       ~Is that confusing?~

      You trapped me in here.

      [voiced: unrecognisable word]

      [volume: low]

      I have a front.

      I have a back.

      They are my window and my door.

      My door takes me to my children.

      My door keeps me from your Pip and my Davie.

      Our two children.

       ~They are your children too.~

       ~But you know that they are your children too!~

       ~Am I trying to be too clever?~

      The view from my window is ever changing.

      I see the sand.

      I see the sea.

      And that image is my painting mounted in a chipped red window frame.

      A sometimes black window frame.

      A perfect square.

      A perfect painting.

      A painting that holds the memories of you and me.

      We met as students.

       ~I know that you remember that.~

      We lived in the same halls.

      On the same corridor.

      And we met in the first week.

      You were so quiet.

      All the girls wanted to know you.

      To know what made you tick.

      You were different.

      You carried books around with you.

      And you read those books.

      You had a guitar.

      And you could play your guitar.

      Your friends were all girls.

      You preferred female company.

      And although girls flashed their breasts at you and although girls flicked their flowing hair and offered themselves to you.

      You never accepted.

      You had integrity.

      It covered you in a bubble.

      It protected you.

       ~When did it pop?~

       ~When did the bubble burst?~

       ~Was it when you selected that girl from that magazine and trimmed her flawless edge?~

      I love(d) you.

      I used to watch you playing your guitar in the common room.

      And I love(d) you.

       ~Did you realise then?~

      We were friends before we were anything else.

      We were friends that became something else.

      [silence]

      But not until our second year

      I was chair of the Poetry Society.

      You'd come along to listen.

       ~Did you realise that they were all about you?~

      You used to listen.

      You never clapped.

      And then afterwards you'd always want to walk me home.

      Sometimes you'd hold my hand.

      And we'd walk in silence.

      Words didn't carry meaning for you.

       ~How many hours did we spend together?~

       ~How many hours passed in silence?~

      And I always preferred your place to mine.

      You lived alone.

      You preferred it that way.

      You liked your own space.

      One room—bedroom/lounge/kitchen.

      And then a door to your grubby toilet.

      Your furniture was shabby.

      Your toilet was always grubby.

       ~No it was filthy!~

      But in the corner, just beside the sunken brown armchair.

      Your guitar rested against the wall.

      But the guitar would wait, as you mixed, rolled and twisted the end of your joint.

      Then you'd balance the smooth roll of paper onto your lip and you'd strum.

      And you'd sing your sad sad songs.

      And the lyrics wouldn't connect with me and with us.

      They were of places and experiences that we'd never shared.

      But I wanted to recognise myself within your words.

      I wanted to hear you recount experiences that we'd shared.

      To be singing about a depth of emotion that you had suffered because of me.

      And that's why I kept coming back.

       ~You didn't realise did you?~

      I wanted to make you feel something in the hope that you would commemorate me in your words.

      Like you had for the Indian Girl.

      That you would give me a purpose in being.

      Because you stirred me when you sang and you strummed.

      You turned something on within me.

      You made me want the performer in you.

      And I'd wish that you'd sing and strum something that would make my insides explode.

      A song to communicate the words that you never spoke to me.

      [sound: humming of an unrecognisable tune]

      That was before we ever kissed.

      I used to think that first kiss was an afterthought.

      A something that you never really meant to happen.

      That we'd travelled as far as our friendship could go.

      And that the only possible next step was a kiss.

      A kiss that should never have been.

      [five