VERBAL PORTRAIT OF A CAT OWNER
(or Things I Have Said Twenty-Eight Thousand Times)
“… In or out, make up your mind!”
“Oh, for crying out loud it’s grapes! You don’t even like them!”
“What have you got in your mouth? Give it here! Give— great.”
“How on earth did you get all the way up there?”
“Um… whose whisker is this in my tea?”
“They’re baked beans! Beans! Not cat food!”
“Who’s a good kitty? You’re a good kitty! You’re the best kitty!”
“Off!”
*meow* “Meow!” *meow* “Meow!” *meow* “Meow!”
*sniff* “What’s that smel… oh. Oh god. That’s revolting.” *hork*
*yawn* “You have fish breath.”
“You DO realise that closing your eyes doesn’t make you invisible, right?”
“Boop!”
*purr* “Aw, so cute – ow-ow-ow-ow-claws-claws!”
“Get out of there!”
“For god’s sake it’s just water, not hydrochloric acid.”
“Jesus CHRIST it’s 3 in the fucking morning - it’s not breakfast time!”
“What happened to my shoelace?”
“Nawwww!”
“No-no-no-no-not-on-the-carpet-not-on-the— …for fuck’s sake.”
© mjc 23 January 2017
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Unanswered
There's a whole world of questions left unanswered,
Now that you're not here.
When I need a wine recommendation,
Or I have a question about the torque settings on an electric drill;
When I want to know about post-WWII England,
Or which chess pieces can move sideways,
Or the best way to stop sprinkler heads filling up with sand;
The go-to chair is empty now.
I could ask Google how to do my taxes,
Or about the Prince of Wales,
Or what to do when the sink gets blocked,
But Google can only do so much.
It can give me cold hard facts
Names and dates.
It cannot add the warmth and flavour that you always used to put into every answer.
It doesn't add the human flourishes that thaw the cold hard facts
And give them meaning.
There are entire fields of answers that I never learned
Because you were there, patient and sometimes not,
Ready with an answer, or an explanation, or with the tools for me to find out my answer for myself.
I trusted in your knowledge to help me spur my own.
I miss answers having meaning.
© mjc 16 February 2018
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Bedtime
On nights when you and I are engaged in our companionable parallelism,
And your task cannot be easily interrupted
When drowsiness begins to hijack my eyelids,
I'm quite happy to kiss you and wish you a good night,
And wander off to my bed alone.
But on those same nights,
The absence of your heartbeat next to me is noticed,
And the warmth of your arms sorely missed.
The soft notes of your voice and the pressure of your fingers,
Squeezing mine as I curl around your back while you pray
Are as much a part of my nightly ritual as the prayers are of yours.
And I find that Sleep comes more reluctantly,
Shy and uncertain despite the relentlessness
With which the Sandman had been pounding against the windows
Mere moments before;
As if he knows my day has not been properly completed.
Instead, my fatigue notwithstanding,
My mind lies awake for minutes or hours,
Like a child determined to see Santa before succumbing to the call of their dreams.
© mjc 17 October 2022
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the one time
The one time you got me to cut your hair,
You were surprised that I insisted on trimming it all short with scissors first,
So that the clippers didn't choke on it.
Your dark curls with their wisps of interwoven silver slipped silkily between my fingers as I tugged them away from your scalp,
Then hissed against the snick of the blades before tumbling like fallen leaves around my feet.
Your soft, boyish charm fell away under the work of my careful hands
As you sat in front of me, my legs entwined with yours.
I stepped around your knees as I sheared the youthfulness from your scalp.
You lean back and rest your head against the comfort of my body once I am finished,
Dusting my already covered clothing in still more stubble.
I chuckle and brush the stray hair from your brow.
The intimacy of these small moments are the lifeblood of love;
They endure long beyond those first flushes of infatuation
Or the elaborate romantic gestures.
A memory in the years to come of a shared moment,
Where 'nothing special' becomes very special indeed.
© mjc 31 May 2022
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prisoner
I listen to the grawing of the seagulls that flap around the carpark,
Fighting over scraps from the public trashcans
That overflow onto the well maintained lawns of this small local park.
Their cries are oddly soothing in their raucousness.
Somewhere, out in the cold autumn surf that is lit golden just like a million other sunsets,
He bursts from the waves and brushes the saltwater from his curls.
Strong hands strip the drops from arms and legs made pale by too many secluded days,
And he revels in the feeling of sun and sand and chilly water reminding him that he is alive.
In mere moments, he'll smooth himself dry with the towel I gave him last Christmas,
Then begin the trek back across the sand to the carpark where I wait:
Immobile, bitter,
Simmering with envy in my broken prison.
© mjc 24 april 2022
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