someone singing to me in my sleep. covers pulled over and dreaming music, cleaving it to my soggy head in a beautiful good morning drift of total falsehood. awake people know the truth. wake up and i'll know what's really happening. i wait twenty minutes then fall downstairs, pour some caffeine then hit the shower. just like i'll ignore that the dreams aren't real, i'll ignore the fact i'm late already. the only perspective seeping in tells me i grabbed every chance too late anyway, so being late to do pointless work is really quite inconsequential in comparison to having spent my life in the metaphorical shower. i burn my skin off for far too long until i feel cauterised, until i swear my entire body must be saturated with water, until i can feel the rush of hot water cascading through my brain, and then i finally bring myself to turn off the shower. drips on my scalp, metallic surgical shower head and hospital partition curtain. my train left five minutes ago. bathroom so stuffy i can't breathe i throw the window open. i look down at my body, soaking the mat, skin slick with water, veins like twine underneath. now i have to decide if i'm going in or not.
biscuit tins and loud tvs. i can feel all hope bleeding out of me with every moment i spend here. went to work in the end today, got sour looks for my tardiness but i just beamed at them all. got an office on my own because i sing to myself and piss everyone off. knocked off early to come and see gran, but god this place is horrible. it's sending her more and more bonkers by the day. walking into her room though is like stepping into 1948, she talks non-stop and by sheer conviction creates her own reality which is incredible to soak up. i've been sat here for 40 minutes now, and all i've said is 'hello grandma'. she's not talking to me, but unbeknownst to her she's talking for me, scratching out this wonderful leaky biro drawing of her home, her life, the kids next door, what mr faulker is up to, right across the cornea of my mind's eye. seeing grandma is total escapism, an out of reality experience. she's talking about grandad - dead for years - to her mystery audience. who knows who she talks to? and the happiness on her face is indescribable. grandma is saving my soul, restoring my faith in humanity - and she doesn't even think i'm born yet. i think i've got her artificial munificence with life, maintained in public but paid for in private. sometimes she cries, and i have to hold her head while she puts granny spittle on my shirt. fifty years late for a new millennium, and i don't blame her.
