I was drifting across
the ocean of thought, hanging on to dear life
When I came upon a
boat floating in open water, and there I found
Seven spirits waiting
for me to come aboard and sit with them for a while.
The first spirit was
my friend Jonathan,
Who is always on my
mind when I’m under the weather,
Someone who knows me
inside and out,
Someone who would
never let me drown,
So why didn’t you
throw me that lifeline, dear Jonathan,
When I was twenty-five
and you seven years the wiser,
When you were still
young and I had wrinkles to prove my age.
I asked you where
we’re all heading to, headed at, and you smirked and said
“It’s all a matter of
time, Dearest, until we’re eaten by the worms,
but while we’re
wasting away, here on this boat,
let’s make a fire out
of our wooden oars,
our legs and wooden
hearts,
that would not be
touched by sympathy,
by whatever emotion
there is to express what we truly feel about ourselves”
and I said that I’m
too scared, that I would rather
talk about him for a minute.
And so he faced me,
kissed me, and thus threw me over board again.
The second spirit was
my friend Benjamin, whose name
Of all names are like
sister and I, like mentor and candle,
like water and wood
swaying from side to side,
and I told him that he
had never looked that good
And his beating heart
he carried in his hands for everyone
To easily pierce
through, to rip out of his grasp and toss over board
spoke to me and said “why
did you leave me, why did you leave me
when I was
still a child and you, you sent me to slaughter, you
Who were my daughter,
my only friend,
You tore me open and
poured the ocean’s water over me,
And the salt left an itchy wound and kept me from healing”
And I tried to close
my eyes and ears and it just wouldn’t stop
Speaking out to me,
calling out to me. And all the tears that
I shed
dropped down into the big wide open and made the water more salty,
My eyes even drier
and our life-long history even more rocky.
The third spirit I was
glad to meet in the boat, of all places
I know that is the
least comfy, so I was dragged out of my zone
To meet her again, and
she gave me that glance to freeze the whole world over,
And spoke down to me
in that condescending, tantalising voice
That would never leave
my ears again: “nothing
you have ever seen or
heard of or experienced or came upon or
across will always
stay with you, since most things
will be forgot in the
second before your world turns upside down,
and all the
information you gathered over the years
could have been of
such use to ghostly encyclopaedic sites,
and all the rites, all
the rhythm in your heart you rehearsed for when you
imagined yourself to
glimmer and glitter will be forgot as soon as you
enter that last second
before the whole world freezes over”
and I could only but
break down, shake my weak side
when she was the one
to blame for that harsh streak,
that character of mine
I could have sworn I left behind when I left home
And when I heard those
trumpets bellow, that unworldly tune,
That is the moment when
I ended up on that ocean in that mood.
“So, have you changed?" asked
the fourth spirit, and I sat with her for a while.
We chin-wagged
about the good oulde days when we were twelve,
When she was still
blonde and I still dumb, numb, and barely at all.
When hair would start
growing in the unlikeliest of places,
And she would kiss her
bed-side poster’s faces,
When we were still
full of imagination and dreams to behold,
And she drank out of
that cup, drank that coffee on that boat
That rocked my world
for so many years to unfold.
“Maybe those past ten
years were a waste of time” and I confessed
That I had none of
those brainy comments at my disposal,
Not confessing that
she stole my life when I was fourteen,
When I was sitting on
that desk, and so I took that knife and carved goodbye
Into the wood next to
her thigh, and she smiled
And her crooked tooth still
standing afar,
was yellow to the
nerve and I rocked that boat “i zäh Jahr”.
The fifth spirit with flaming
red hair, was the image of myself
In seven years’ time
when I’d still be stuck and you'll all be bored
By this electronic
networking, our strong and independent cup of tea,
And Juliet was her
name, told me to stand my ground,
Never to give in cause
surrender, oh yes, surrender is futile and sin,
And I asked her
whether waiting for another life in exchange for mine
Would be an elegant
solution to the lion fighting within me and I,
And she said that “we’re
all doomed to live with and through and by
Ourselves, and every
person we meet along the way is yet another story-line
to stretch and
decorate our eulogy with.”
And I said that we
were all cursed and purified at the same time,
That we could choose
to drink from the cup or the flask,
Choose left or right,
choose a card, as Tom the ferry-man had pointed out,
choose to lose, but
then again, who are we losing it for?
So I got up, ran to
the very end of the boat that rocked my life
For more than a
quarter-century to find my dead sister sitting on the brim,
Ready to fall off,
ready to give in and leave that shelter again,
So I grabbed her arm
and chose her to be my sixth spirit on this island of mine.
She turned to me, and
speaking through her black veiled hair she said
“I know you’re
thinking about me seven times a day, seven days a week,
but why don’t you
visit me in those places that were ours
when we were children,
when we were scared to face the evil of the world?”
and I said that I was
all grown up now, that life had slapped me in the face,
that I have been
beaten many times to ever return to those happy days,
and she said that
“nothing is too dark to never reappear, you should
never opt to
make your life that easy, and if it does, then please,
forget about me; do it
for my remembrance and for my safety,
but should you ever
get too uncomfortable, we can always claim
that place of all
places for ourselves again” and I said that
I have stopped
dreaming a long, long time ago, I am all grown up now
and have embraced it
in its entirety. And so she started weeping,
And her sobbing still
haunts me sometimes when I close my eyes,
And I wake up from
slumber, thinking she’s lying next to me.
The seventh and final
spirit I met on that boat, on that
Rocky Road to Dublin,
was my saviour, my hero, the lover of mine,
My kind of guy that
would never let me down,
And I said why I am so
afraid of giving with both hands
While I am waiting for
you to return some of that gesture
And he said “well, I
am a tatter-tale, don’t take it too personal,
I am that kind of
spirit that keeps taking because you are sweet,
You are that perfect
soul I would hug and cuddle and kiss,
But my words will
never get through to you since you are that bell
That keeps ringing
whenever someone is opening his or her mouth;
You are the noise the
seven of us hear whenever you are the queen,
The queen of it all;
don’t get me wrong, we still love you,
But the train has left
the station, the car used up all its petrol and oil,
And you’re standing
there all by yourself, keeping people at arm’s length,
and I said that my
eighth spirit told me to be free,
Which means never to
expect or imagine situations seven minutes
Before midnight, and
most of all, I stressed and stood up
And made the boat rock
even more, I knew not to be afraid anymore;
And so I took that
leap of faith, jumped off the boat into the cold cold water
And kept swimming
until the waves swallowed me whole.
