Category: memoir

Broxburn Born and Bred

My name is Gordito and a woman buys me from a farmer for a fiver. To save him the effort of drowning she says. Then she puts me on Gumtree for forty quid.

My name is Gordito and I am tapped poked stroked. I am up and then I am down and then I am spun and then it is dark.

My name is Gordito and I am boxed up in Broxburn. I am the cargo in city car club. That makes me right on. Rescued from the Bronx with my pox in a box.

My name is Gordito and I have developmental issues. I overshoot the litter tray. I jump and miss. The ball. The fly. The moth. I vomit hairballs onto the only white mat. I am two weeks behind and I never catch up. Ever.

My name is Gordito and everything is black and white. I see colours but I can’t name them. The worms did that. Squirrelled into my brain and ate up too many words. Words for wine or a sweater or the cushion I’m allowed to scratch.

My name is Gordito and I want for nothing. My whiskers are white and my paws are black and I try, every evening, to catch the tip of my tail. Sometimes I look in a mirror and I see nothing. Nothing I understand at all.

My name is Gordito and I am very soft. Soft in the belly and soft in the head. Humans bury their face in the warmth of my underhang. Sometimes they cry. I like that. A lot.

My name is Gordito and I lie lengthways along the radiator. Always the one way. Never the other. Always in winter. Never in summer. I’m not stupid you know.

My name is Gordito and I have cancer. It grows on my back like a great round stone. It makes me run like a fool. I can still jump up, though. That’s the test.

My name is Gordito and if you look into my eyes all you will see is love. Nothing else. I am pure. And I am stupid. And I am here only for you.

My name is Gordito and the children pat my ashes into the deep square hole for the sapling. The children are serious. Now they know about death. This is my proudest achievement.

Tags cats, grief, pets

memoir poetry

Kristine

Your death sat between us

Dead centre on the table

Flanked by the Pinot Grigio and a tossed salad

Spoken of like a coffee morning or a game of whist

You were wearing shorts

I’d laughed and you laughed with me

You wanted the sun on your skin

No one could deny you that

You fluttered away in early summer

An autumn leaf blown off course

A bird lifting off from the wire

A rare moth swallowed by the dawn

There was a celebration of your life

Your plan, your day

My words the frantic swarm of sanderlings

Jostled by waves on the incoming tide

Tags grief

memoir

Without thinking of you

It was seven years on the 30th January. The eve of Brexit. The anniversary of your death. I can’t believe it’s been seven years. If someone had asked, I’d have shuffled and counted and eventually settled on four or five. It’s still so raw.

There’s a bus stop in the West End outside a shop that used to be a chemist. The bus stop doesn’t have a shelter. I went to that chemist for your drugs when it was open out of hours. I can’t wait at that bus stop without thinking of you. The plain white boxes of medication piled up on your dresser. The arrival of your hospital bed. The smoky coal fire in the room that became yours. The soft winter sunlight that waltzed over your sheets.

There’s a cycle path that runs along the Water of Leith. It winds past Tesco through a stippled bower of trees and on to the Scotland Street tunnel. Sometimes there’s a community art project in the tunnel. Or young folk nodding heads to music in the rain. I went to Tesco for you. Stood stricken searching for small things with big tastes or tempting smells. Prawns in a gingery sauce. A blistering avocado. A bag of peppery rocket. The flowers would stick up out of my pannier, pint-sized soldiers with soft floppy hats. One night the heads severed. A trail of creamy petals shimmered the tunnel in woe. I can’t ride that path without thinking of you.

There’s a beach outside my flat. A great blond stretch of sand, held together by parallel lines. Beside it there’s a bar with not much of a view. It was a lunchtime in a season with cold days. We were eating soup. Pushing hard butter out of golden wrappers. Spreading firm yellow squares onto white bread rolls. You told me then. The words so simple out of your mouth I couldn’t believe they were true. I can’t enter that bar without thinking of you.

There’s a desk in my room. It, too, is pale. Pale oak. It has shelves and drawers and a round hole for cables. On the top shelf I have a light, a jar of pens, and a row of thick reference books and thin jotters. Sometimes the books and jotters topple. The light, held solid by its smooth lead base, never moves. You collected that desk. You put it together while I made us coffee and read the instructions and faffed around and pretended to help. You were well then. I can’t sit at that desk without thinking of you.

There’s a text on my phone. The last text from you.

Tags grief