The weatherman predicted a tornado, I heard from the television buzzing in the kitchen next door. All day I’d been warned by radios and professors and by the end of the day, I’d turned childlike and bellicose, a little tantrum throwing itself about like leaves in a winter storm. That weatherman was trying to swindle me, my thoughts hissed, and my capacity to trust was emptying, as it did little by little each day. My threads of thought were tangled once, now unravelling somehow and their loose ends would swing when my headache stirred bone-deep whirlpools deeper and darker. I couldn’t stand the voice of my mother, who was in the kitchen, on the phone to some friend about the supposed tornado’s brooding presence, and her nasal tone of voice penetrated through walls, slid under doors, and tossed itself too far when she got overexcited. I couldn’t stand it, the bleat bleat, the cheep cheep, her playing mother hen in her nest which all but one one of her hatched eggs had flown. What would she do without me, I thought aloud because no one could hear me, and reached for my bag for a lighter and tobacco because she could probably smell me. Smell the smoke, at least, and either call the emergency services in a flight of hysteria or come to rap on my door with stale, baked knuckles, but as I lit up and waited for her thunderous approach, the bulb on my ceiling gave a pathetic flicker of light, yellow as a dying leaf, and then the room was dark. Outside the window, behind the blinds I kept low, the circular winds were furious and the television had gone quiet and my mother was screeching and that tornado had arrived, ripping up every geranium in the nearby gardens. My windowpanes were rattling with the force of lowering winds, and my headache roared nebulously, and my mother screamed more and more, before the room dissolved, taking the storm with it, and here I stand in a cornfield, warm and shimmering gold.
I wake covered in powder, a blanket of white dust,
not once like snow, just cold.
Yesterday’s rainfall had made the ink in my novel bleed
and the inscription on the inside front cover
is undecipherable now.
No apples in the fruit bowl, no milk in the fridge,
no missed calls, just envelopes on the doormat
and cat food in the cupboard, and coffee.
Plastic crockery, styrofoam cups (How?
Did I ask how I ended up here?)
Black coffee. black ink, and a black eye that I see
in my reflection, rippling water in a saucepan on the stove
that slowly obfuscates my face with bubbles.
What a strange notion- everything turning to black and white
and where would the shades of grey go?
Beyond the window, the streets are remote and bland until
they are not, then they're boiling over.
I sit in my armchair to stop myself staring, to stop
the scalding of my hands, and my cat curled at my feet
as though I am royalty with coffee.
The sky is blinding white, like my memory, and seeing it
was the highlight of my day.
Until I took a small handful of pills, washed down
with black coffee.
