The Farmer's Wife

At a quarter to six the alarm sounds, beaks gleaming.

One slipper in the larder and the other,

with the collie, beneath the sink.

Burn the toast. Get the post. Pour the tea.

Bills and a card, all marred by spots of rain, mud from the lane

where the postman came and fled

from Pip. The spokes and chain her merry game.

Every morning she hangs her head… her friend has left again.

Feed the chooks, the cows, the bull and the Jacobs, nostrils wet and steaming.

Defrost the blueb’ries, rasb’ries and strawb’ries, ready for pie making.

Pluck the goose. Feed the dog. Biscuit and Tea.

Crumbs for Pip. Most for me.

I look out over our fields spiked with silvering shards.

Gold briefly smothered with winter’s glass.

Pip sits on my toes, pushes her nose into my grasp.

Worth more than metals. This is calm. Content.

Treading snow through the carpet, he comes home

From tending to the Autumn sown.

Coffee and “The Good Life”, a repeat,

Then he confines himself to the office to work.

Poring over papers, numbers, sums and sales.

My husband never made it past Wales, you know,

In the war, his Father passed away.

That’s just timing I guess.

I’m bored of the telly, of dissatisfied youth.

They try so hard to avoid the truth, they flatter themselves.

Kid themselves.

With fame and stardom, with unreachable dreams.

When did life become a contest?

The pining has become grotesque, the whining…

I grew up in this town. A brief spell in Scotland shepherding.

That’s as far as I go. My life is this town.

I thumb through Pratchett…no, Kipling and Armitage tonight,

Squinting through the slowly dimming light.

I wait for him to flick the switch,

“Turn on the lamp you ridiculous girl!”

Pip squeaks, coils around his feet.

“I’ll take her out for a leak, shall I Jane?”

As he trips out the door with Barbour, wellies and dog in toe,

I indulge in a grin. This is calm. Content.

These aren't even the wounds that create scars

I haven't written on here in a while, but I figure that's okay, because I have been writing. A lot of it is just incomplete, unfinished, unpolished. A lot of it I probably won't go back to. It's been like trying to repaint an important room in the house and having a thousand and one things to do, as well as not harm any of the objects in said room, as well as still needing to use that room on a day to day basis. Rooms... these little boxes we keep our lives in. Mine is often a very good reflection of the state of my life. I've been too busy to do any washing, so I guess it's lucky that I have more clothes than anyone else I know. They are strewn all over my bedroom floor, the surfaces, the empty side of my bed. Drawers are open like tongues lolling out of an unconscious head, the wardrobe doors yawning wide. It's busy, messy and disorganised. How inconvenient.

So a lot has happened to me recently, some good, some bad, but all extremely affecting. I feel affected, diseased almost. I wouldn't go as far to say I was trapped, because nobody ever really is... not really. I do crave escape and I know it's nearly here. I've written before about never wanting to hurt people. Looking back, I think I was slightly naive, due to the fact that sometimes you have to hurt people, including yourself, to do the right thing. Assuming that is, that you know that it is the right thing.

Listening to your gut can be difficult, there are so many other vital organs making such a racket. Entirely rude.

These things that have happened... they aren't even the big ones. I'll look back in 10, maybe 20 years and smile at the child I once was, how significant and brutal life's twists and turns felt at the time. These things... they won't leave scars. We'll all go on with our worlds, perhaps thinking back to that person who we gave ourselves to, for any amount of time. I'll look back, and I'll remember growing up. When you look at a scar, the moonlit rise of skin saving skin, you remember what happened, how you got it. You forget the pain. Every time. We fool ourselves, we forget what pain is, because if we didn't, we'd never leave the damned house. This will not leave scars. Only a few should haves and what ifs.

Are those harder to shake off?

Scars. They are formed in a calculated weave of cells, rather than the random formation of our natural skin. They criss cross over to cover the wound, like a patch. We darn ourselves, essentially. Funny thing is, this carefully calculated formation is less efficient than standard skin. It is of inferior functional quality. I think there is something in this. There are only so many times we can heal ourselves, and each time we do it less adequately than the last. It always leaves some form of mark, whether that shows or not. Healing ourselves, albeit inefficiently, is all we know how to do. So we do it because we have to. But there are only so many times you can darn your favourite raggedy old jumper before you have to give up.

It always leaves a mark. I have faded scars that were once far more prominent. But over the years, they have faded. I've forgotten exactly where they used to lie, and how I got them. But those are just the little things. A paper cut here, a grazed knee there. Those aren't the kinds of things that leave proper scars. Those we can fix. Those we can heal. Those we can forget. Those we can lose sight of in our own wondrous efficiency.