this mishmash of muddled memories with their strands of colour sounds and sensations knits one purls one knits one into a familiar blanket you hug it close warmed by the cramped school canteen lumpy mashed potato smell of cabbage and disinfectant and your fat teacher called Mrs Middleton the house is big noisy and cushion-filled your pink bedroom flowers beads scarves and scraps of paper covered with messages from your friend Kate her borrowed red lipstick in the middle of your dressing table

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but this room where you are now is dark and dusty crowded with unpolished furniture and cluttered with someone else's belongings it smells claustrophobic the aroma of cats' piss or something else unpleasant then there is that man who touches you calls you love don't talk to strangers but he brushes the tangles in your hair so softly rubs cream and lavender scent into your hands smooths a shawl across your knees places Cinderella's slippers on your feet

only then he forces fabric onto you bends your arms at funny angles pulls them awkwardly into heavy coats sometimes too you hear him on the phone whispering cold secrets like the wind plotting when you demand an explanation he goes quiet and sad like it is you who is in the wrong and not him you ask to go out but he refuses so you scratch at him and he just cries tries to trap you in his arms tell you what to do it makes you angry who does he think he is you want to run outside in your nightdress dance in the dew laugh pick daisies sing carols kiss Geoffrey Moyle

instead there is this tall greying stranger who sometimes helps you sometimes hurts you who is he who are you why can't your remember

3 November, 2007