i can hear you through the walls, asking – who is this bedman of yours?
quite simply put it, bedman is not what i grasp or claim as my own, instead, everything i strive to be. he is utterly
unreachable within the milky way, hidden
underneath the bed with his family of dust bunnies.
bedman is all the metaphors i cannot speak, for i am too afraid of
understanding the intrinsic, gaining all that self-awareness… to whose benefit, for what
use?
metaphors are not needed in the afterlife; they do not follow you into heaven.
the minute you grab the lop eared creature, squeeze him in your fingers till he bursts out the sides like a squashed nectarine, that is the exquisite moment he ceases to be bedman anymore, meaning; ceases to be the muddy water.
occam’s razor suggests i define him as solipsism, but even that creates questions and raw, clean, spotless puddles. the difference between mirror and water becomes blurred and far too close to differentiate them anymore, which is only as dangerous as identical twins understand it to be.
bedman is absolute negation of reachability; everything i shun, pushed and stuffed into sentience. if you can process human scepticism into tangible actions, you will have created your very own bedman.
i warn you though, he cannot love.
utterly incapable of devotion.
do not expect frank hands, backs, shoulders. do not expect absence of misery.
a butcher holds his paint splattered knife, causing both grief and fullness, complacency and excitement – without which, we would both starve, bedman and i.
lost him for quite a while – decades even. he ran away without saying goodbye.
spotting
his curious form,
picking
him up with fingertips from the road side grey,
i tucked him into my breast pocket right beside my beating fish.
bedman watched me write every single evening, yearning to win my cold heart over. but, i never gave in.
i never.
gave in.
monday
if the bell is working – why not ring it? if perfect is in the wardrobe dear, lets just close the door. ultimately, if we wake and it is a monday, we leave our holy blinds shut tight. people outside only remind me of snails, trailing around in the wake of their own sleepy gaze. you are new here bedman, you do not understand things like me.
without realising it, my teeth clamped shut and veins rose to the surface, releasing poisonous fumes, heat, nonsense into the atmosphere. slaughtering all those hard-working snails. the sun, heaving itself over warmer houses behind mine, lugging the great coat of white, began to slow down. by this point of late morning, i could step into the absence of bitter darkness, bailing out the stripes i placed myself behind, and into the sclerotic kitchen.
bedman reached out across the breakfast table to tamper with my conscience, forgetting i could be awake without having language. did i ever truly love you, before you went away? wince.
sipping mud up through congealed milk, decided today is not a day for menial labour or tricky thinking – instead, a day for inhabiting both sides of the war. bedman always hated that stinking war. thought best do something with goodness in it; planted nine bean rows out back. no hive for the honey bee, no peace drops to be found, but did dig around the soil for a while – searched for my missing expression. growing bored, planned a meeting with the saplings not quite up to scratch. we talked for six, seven hours, eight years – about ecological biomass. grew a beard, shaved it off. went inside.
orbiting around the circumference, i desired to walk to the pharmacy, naked doctor, restaurant toilet, park bench, oak newspaper rack, empty cafe floor. i looked to the wall for a front door, gasped when it wasnt there. adult teeth have all but erupted, no way to escape. noticed everyone carrying flowers outside, chose to carry a lemon inside and bumped into the bullets bedman left behind.
nothing but a yellow fruit to defend myself; feeble artillery or peace making masochism?
bedman tried to snatch the lemon but i had a very tight grip. knew i had to run away from this new, free, weeping thing in my home. he was present and frightening to me and sang songs so melancholic that i felt empty across the room. we could not be together any more. claiming loneliness as my only possession, i packed everything into a hemp seed bag and planned my getaway.
remembered that bedman was a retired pianist who bought a lighthouse to live in across the land, left solely with his grand piano. beautiful sonata’s could be heard from all the foreign cargo ships and sweating men on the docks; started as a novelty but within a week became as common as the wood pigeon’s coo. his death was the urban acupuncture storm to a deaf child. striped lighthouse soon rotted inside out, generations of dock men passed away wearing corduroy pants and bulging chests, buried with bedman memories. what i mean is, my retired pianist was forgotten. no – what i mean is, if he can run away with nothing but a piano, i can run away with all my clock tower loneliness. why did he come back to me, was he scared of the skirting board society? what could be worse than me?
started stuffing, but, couldn’t fit everything in my bag. plan slipped down the gutter. no escape.
the line between bedman and pianist swelled, all taut with emotion and tonic water. decided to go outside for a fresh cigarette, rain drove me back. spent the left overs of the afternoon painting self portraits using lots of different colours until everything blended into mud brown and it all made sense. carpal tunnel syndrome, pastry crumbs on lap, hat all crooked and moth bitten, painting unfinished, framed, sold to local butcher, bought a first hand edition of flaubert with money and shook hands with the devil. didn’t manage to conquer rome, do dishes, run away, try on new hat – nor feed the dog. slept a passionless, blank slate sleep.
ate a cold sausage at two in the morning and watched cars roll past the window.
tuesday
woke alone, spoke to the radio about current affairs, fondly contemplated the difference between solitude and isolation (one is designed to drive you insane), went for a swim in a grey pool where feet don’t touch floors, gasped for cold air but didn’t want it when it arrived. suffered… enormously.
tried to do my morning routine just right, bedman unsettled things ever so much.
bed for breakfast, peanut butter scoop on toast – better than a bowl of cello concerto. decided i do not want my dreams to arrive, because what on this holy earth will i have to think about after? caught bedman stealing my underwear. was going to punish him but remembered he is only a version of myself, and what would be the point in that? learned a lesson in autogenic relaxation.
silence of the homeward journey threw me out the house, second time around, hopefully better than the shocking first – into a spot reserved for half decent observers. bedman didn’t follow but didn’t expect him to, not even worth mentioning his absence. school register showed broken mouthed stallion. naturally, bought a cuban espresso from man (sweet tiny robin), read a book without fullstops and rewrote lots of old poems in my head. considered what they sounded like to the untrained ear – thought it would be scattered marbles falling on wooden planks. retired my old self onto a bench in brown park to finish a half decent novel i’m inclined to read, partly because it was written by a fully decent man and partly because i’m always willing to finish what i begin (proof in the empty mug).
sat adjacent slightly off centre on a bench surrounded by voices.
two men had a conversation about scarves beside me, and i, reading – not taking it in, barely able to turn the page because my fingers were blue, owing to the fact i’d been sat still smoking my final cigarette six times, smiling at my severe inability to quit, (sure i went cold turkey last week, evidently didn’t), looked at the cotton men with total power. majestical.
bought another hand warmer; coffee tasted like a cathedral – one of those large lofty ones with the departure of birds upon human arrival and jesus christ chained to a wall, unable to leave. willow tree and its proud, restraining roots. saw a film about sea life and polluted family relationships, realised everyone’s bedman is unhappy, began thinking about an ants cochlea, if they have three tiny bones or if they even have ears.
to do: buy a microscope.
walk home was even more silent than i thought it would be, even with trickles of nonsense i feigned interest in. fell asleep with restless, wrinkled bed sheet dreams and bedman watching me.
fell out of bed at three and retired to the cruel floor. realised i’m only an ant, saw the world in pixelated black and white and forgot to dream in colour. slept through all the way till six like a good girl. mother bragged about my decent habits to the other mums at nursery meanwhile i was tiny and giving up lunch money to the older kids, who humiliated me for having such a devoted moddy coddling mother. she grabbed my sweaty hand and looked glumly at my starving, empty stomach. mother is bedman, disappointed at my impotence and what a plain, unloveable creature i am. baby is coming home on the next train, tucked inside a box of apples. easy to miss.
to do: collect fruit from station.
slept a different version of the same old, boring me; just as vulnerable in death as life.
every sleep brings me closer to the truth. felt grateful to be closer to god, despite shivers and aching back.
wednesday
humph. my new self peeled off the adhesive floor, flushed a neuron down the toilet then flicked the switch of the over filled kettle. overshared thoughts with spaces between book pages, thought the more they knew the more they would like me – regretted this and tried to hide my embarrassment in breast pockets. bedman took up all the room, couldn’t stuff anything else in. frustrated and alone, slid burned something or other down my throat, turned the aching radio up to drown out the barking mad next door. sank a cod liver oil for rotting bones.
radios shouldn’t feel bad about their naked self and dogs shouldnt own bungalows, but they both do. the world is diabolical but cautiously circular so no one gets cut or scraped or poked or grazed or left behind. bedman said nothing whilst i put a plaster over the sledge hammer gaps in my body. gasped with pain. grabbed my pen. ready to fight. weight of lead was replaced with a much lighter, comparably darker, ink. poked a hole in the paper, learned my lesson. wont write my love letter to the postman on the carpet again.
il write my eulogy instead.
radio man told me restraint is just an underrepresented form of liberation so i restrained from putting my left eyeball in. squinted right down to the station for malum, which means both ‘apple’ and ‘evil’. tried to pick this apart but the fall of man stopped me, tobacco seller screamed atrocities at the non existent gnome by his. thought i knew better than to acquaint myself with the barking mad, man’s expulsion from paradise explained everything. evil malum of my right eye.
not my fault i live beside the lunatic asylum, grocers, zoo, wood pigeon nesting ground and, also – bedman and the whale. spent the whole time on platform conjuring images of delicious bible smells at home, and all my wooden traits littered like a waste disposal site. also, bedman, waiting for my riddles. couldn’t decide where to sit, didn’t sit anywhere at all. forgot about apples.
ran home to watch bedman extract drugs from a tupperware and inhale the scent of his own fingers. ran home to watch him swallow heartburn, pride, cholesterol, one bucket of magnesium and three packs of dementia control. he sucked on something too, couldn’t work out what.
i, myself, swallowed something of the sleeping pill kind. watched a documentary about middle eastern politics with closed eyes, frightened myself silly i did. tempted by cold dinner, decided against world war two boiled onions and insisted upon plating up fine spiced meats and expensive cheeses and wholegrain foods that keep those enzymes thick and ticking away. sleeping pills started to kick in meaning i sliced off both my thumbs and danced at what a good cook i am. the world became hazy, salty and salivary; dizziness grabbed me and refused to give up.
a hundred and forty seven mirrors hid in plain sight but only one showed my true self. couldn’t find the true self, felt afraid. (yawn) black cat stalked past with no capacity for self recognition, only competition. cats become more brave or more frightened on approach to mirror, gordon gallup would surely give me the boot. yawning yawn yawny. tiredness was driving off a perpetual road – the problem being, i couldn’t stop dreaming up miles of concrete with white dashes down middle.
nasty thing that head of mine. yawn. the feeling of exhaustion is so marvellous when you are safe and warm but an all encompassing terror when stood naked before frightening stimuli such as ‘yourself ’ in the toaster reflection.
decided it was the end of the world and hired a crane to lift my up by the ears and drop me into bed. tipped them in hopes they’d pull the covers over me. didnt.
slept beneath a fleet of shitting wood pigeon. dreamt it was snowing outside, noiseless and secretive.
thursday
glorious day! oh bliss, oh harmony! woke a different shade of optimistic today, perhaps deluded on ammonia fumes and ample sleep but eager to get the wide old day started.
swam in lake, watched fish laugh at me then float to the surface one by one by one, waded toward tea van, scalded tongue on england, naked in nothing but a tea towel, nibbled on warm buttery teacake deliciousness, endured heart failure wheeze, ran all the way home to hide my shame in a bottle of whisky. didnt fit.
drank the gurgling poison down to make more room inside the bottle. kept drinking – eventually, simply to make less of that room in me. celebrated paradise with the wood pigeons, realised they hold everything i need to know and everything i need to know holds the pigeon.
an optimistic pessimist knocked on front door to deliver a package or parcel or letter or message not entirely sure, hoped it wasn’t a telegram – but even if it was, wouldn’t be able to translate it. postman had eyes like rotten oranges, my love for him stretched out on the carpet by the fire; yawning, a soppy tabby kitten with tummy full of white milk.
hoped no one i loved was dying as i paced around kitchen. eros took pity on me and sent a kite, knew i was unbelievably ravenous for attention. glad to be noticed by something, held kite firmly. green thoughts hit walls and got thrown back to me, bedman was the lobster elite number 1 tennis ball machine. awarded circular, soft bruises all over my body for my clever equisitie thinking.
urban outgrowth felt jaded, uncomfortable, incorrect. stuck to sitting under the tree for morning meditation. watched perpetual mini explosions stutter out chimney, not one but all the catholic bells praised the violent work of kitsch. watched bombs go off again and again and again, air smelt like purple love songs. meditated on this, let my mind be the last wandering baird. cleared space in the attic of self by holding my nose and blowing really hard, released kite. whoops.
couldnt stop for long before the inherent ‘i hope’ ‘if only’ ‘what ifs’ broke inside. marched into bedroom with arms swinging, dual nationality. sat on bed with bedman. asked if we could move the mattress to the stairs and pretend to sleep on a hill. refusal was the verdict. stared into space for a while, could have been four minutes could have been six hours. needed the toilet to pour all my unrequited love down but couldn’t go upstairs. something rectangular and white with springs in the way.
four walls of the castle began closing in, slipped through the gap into the kitchen. sun broke into home with a crowbar, cracked a deep yellow egg on the floor and tight trousers waltzed around. bedman smiled at my seductive moves, his grin… the berlin wall. opened the fridge of domestic violence, tennis ball whizzed past my face but i was too slow to catch it. who can rightfully possess rest? bit my knuckles with watery eyes, wished there was a plank of air under my feet. wished i was either on a horse or a bike. felt disturb internally, tightened taps on the sink of honesty.
gap to the bedroom became so small i couldnt squeeze back in. sent a mouse to retrieve my duvet, was willing to caress and stroke and hold him with cursive desire, hiding under moonlit covers together. stinking rodent never returned to my arms. felt loneliness, betrayal, heartbreak – all in one go and slammed car door on the finger of love. slept with the carrots and single aubergine, thought i participated a lot that night to the conversations. had to sign a sheet to say i wouldnt spill the beans.
froze myself into an ice box sleep, tricked myself into believing the world around me was expanding. dreamt of tiny letterboxes covering a large red door and managed to wriggle myself inside one whilst looking for bedman.
got stuck, woke up squished. woke up, a telegram of flesh.
friday
think this morning was a friday, arised as near to the percolator as possible – score!
listened intently to the dawn chorus out the slightly closed back door, heard drains slotting in and out of their beds. cod liver oil sat next to the coffee beans as the ‘only two things i’ll ever need’, choked on both pills at once. bedman coughed phlegm onto my naked feet, sent him packing.
watched next doors child steal a pack of cigarettes off the counter and a gallon of milk from the milk stream. called the police by myself, officers arrived every so promptly, felt proud of my civil servants. soon enough, three paper weight boys stood in my kitchen, let themselves in, bedman hitched a ride.
officer, the crime is brown drink and red bacon and tendor cigarette smoke.
officer, have you read this brilliant book im reading – leaf storm?
officer, will you go to bed with me tonight?
cold milk dripped down a hairy chin, watched white rain head to the gutter of lust. all three decided there was no use for legalities in my kitchen, also, to my invitation; got no reply. didn’t let it bother me. old enough to handle rejection now. old enough to touch myself.
the officers stole both the bag of beans and cod liver pills on their way out and all three died of mercury overdose. bedman decided it was me who killed them, not him.
couldnt drink my coffee; there was a frog in the bottom, shard of glass in the middle and deep fog on top. motorbike slipped around the sides of my mug with a rapidly declining tank of gas. wasnt sure how he would escape. watched him accept death like the arthritic, gout filled, tumoured, senile german shepherd under the willow tree, moaning ever so slightly.
wonder if the biker came from the swamp below or clouds above.
tried to enjoy the feeling of loneliness, realised it is dire and will never be fun. someone recommended i eat less acidic foods, thought of them as i peeled my orange. someone else said i should read happier books, thought of them as i wept over flowers for algenon. kept receiving advice from someone’s, stored it all in the tiny metal tin that sat on the mantelpiece. bedman took them straight out and ripped them up; some kind of childish revolution, but he was the king of youth.
sipped and puffed and wrote my way into the afternoon, all whilst lying down. horizontal authors are neat and tidy and special. broke for a gulp of fresh air and mug of cold water at half three, read an article on hematopoietic stem cell transplants. thought it would be about poetry but wasn’t, switched it off and fell asleep writing. napped on the wrong side of the clouds. met the motorbiker in thready dreams.
rose with coagulated thoughts willing a stroke to paralyse metade, woke up in the biggest bed of all time. personal desires lay down with four pig heads in the slaughterhouse, god bless their souls their trotters their curly tails which aren’t that sweet but should be. hairy pipecleaner. left the arms of crazy and fixed myself with grated carrot soup, tasted orange.
decided not to apply for a grant or pay rent or dance myself silly, instead sit and sipped soup with radio murmuring newspaper warnings. worked on the oldest novel. worked on the mirror walking down the road. listened to nothing but the seagulls crying because they missed the ocean. realised i hadn’t seen bedman all afternoon, infedility crawled into bed beside me at some point.
dreamt in zeros and iced finger buns.
saturday
woke up and acknowledged the audience. asked them where all the bedroom audacity came from, asked them if i can take it all, or at least, just some of it? saw huge dog and tiny dog on way to get saturday paper, brewed thoughts of futile birthplace inside my living room corner shop. decided birth place is subjective anyway, no conclusion reached in the courtroom. birthed bedman on the rug.
was the tiny dog born on the same day as me? felt a connection with her that i didn’t want to over indulge, enjoyed her diamond englazed pink collar with the violet bow. licked my lips when owner looked at me, accidently protruded my pink fleshy muscle over thin lips whilst your woman looked at me, honey. contemplated ways to take my tiny princess home, worried about a criminal record and how bedman would take it – that is, if i ever survive this unrequited-love break-up party. scampered home a squirrel up a tree. held a heel of bread in my palm, caressed it softly, clock kept time. grew sick and tired and emetic with rotten lonliness. game of life was making me ever so bitter. bedman, oh concrete companion, put your cardigan on and make love to me?
tired simply because i was awake, faced midday with stale bread and cold feet. sun hit my eyes, became excited at the prospect of growing taller. refused to be bad company for myself anymore, began a list of things i could do with new found tallness – consisted vaguely of shaking hands with the lamppost and having to shop around for a new helmet.
stepped out the sun and into the dark room. light felt too hopeful anyway. sat for a slaughter. shhh.
took my camera to the shore, created black sorrow out of a living memory. cut it squarely out the sea and restrained, stuffed, handcuffed the view into my box. cinema lives on as the biggest boredom destroyer, but at least it can dance and has culture. cinema is the biggest victim and biggest perpetuator of solitude – didnt you know? docks reminded me of flute players.
cameras are yoghurt and yeast and tripping over awkward feet, ceasing to think properly of proprioception and public liability insurance, exposing things like cracked lips and amorous train rides – and red, glowing ulcers placed on mortified strangers.
bought a gold frame for the inevitable photo of paradise. cut it squarely out the metal.
went home to pour water from a metal jug into a metal jar, then into a plastic cup, drank the words with cold slipping down or an eel, im not sure. bedman was in my room reading tabucchino’s ‘requiem’, rocking to and fro like a grieving teenager. like a wave in turmoil. scoffed at him.
needed to keep up my strength with all this poetry left to write – had a glass of milk, orange juice, tonic water, then a stern green apple. felt good to have so many colours onboard, multimodal pain approach. stared at the wall, gods window, saw so many things you wouldn’t believe, dreamt of a different universe where walls are always doorways into bedrooms.
got into cramped bed, carbon dioxide reminded me to breathe throughout the tumultuous night. sealed the evening off with a wax seal, coffee stain, fake name anagram.
bedman slipped in beside me, first time he’s done that in a while. slept in same bed but countries apart. drank myself silly to celebrate. lymph nodes started pounding to get out, movement kept me alive. pancreas twitched all night, rancorous organ that doesn’t know left from right.
dreamt i gave birth to a large cabbage head, sold it at the farmers market and bought a log burner with the money. wished it was true, the evenings would be far warmer. had three or four more cognacs to celebrate, also a sniff of privilege.
coughed up my colon, fell into a far deeper sleep.
sunday
sunday mornings, bedman – are a wide open mouth that cannot speak. perpetual yawn of infidelity, a man is always being cheated on on a sunday – and why on earth should miserly wives not go out and find themselves a younger, better looking thing for one day a week. that is to say, a man fears both caffeine and sleep on a sunday, particularly when his wife claims to go dance the tango/ coffee with friend/ run walk swim fuck/ suck another mans tendon.
empty theatre with no actors or seaters. horizontal ladder, knocked over on a friday night. big breakfasts, cold breakfasts, skipped breakfasts. pigeons breakfasting with each other just to feel aspiration. woke up beside a cold, naked back. silver needles slipped into kind warm loving tubes that were eager and begged to be penetrated. sundays. supplied both warmth and fear and pleasure and melancholy, supplied the sleep that is both vital and permanently frightening. swallowed vitamins, minerals, painkillers, restored soft osmotic potential. merry go round skulls began to creak. kitchen echoed outward; porcelain mugs tapped together. hot soapy water in sink, hair on end, silky yawn, faded dressing gown exposed mid week bad habits. sundays.
dog needed a walk, no one would walk him. cats had full roam of the streets, ginger things on their wooden throne looking curiously at peasants groaning in bed. cigarette on the balcony but dont smoke anymore; instead, breathed in someone else’s cigarette on the balcony. wet coats slumped on dirty floor from night before, blood stained whisky glasses rocked themselves off the end of the world. sundays.
clean concrete, dirty concrete, wet concrete. not even cafes want to chat. camels lazily blundered into the greengrocers, bought evil apples and tiny dogs to feast on in peace.
children coloured in at the kitchen table, legs swinging and bellies full of only things within sticky reach – dry pasta from the bottom drawer, broccoli, mayonnaise, forgotten muesli bar. bedman grabbed my wrist, not with violence, but paternal reasoning. dont leave.
what actually happened? beside low and thready pulses, liver struggling with last nights overdose and the imaginary dog needing a walk, not a whole bunch of bananas. i have to leave.
sundays are the least altruistic day of all; creativity surpasses me. cornflake leaves sat, wet in the white cereal bowl and bedman called out my name. i didn’t even glance in the right direction. lackless lovers stringing up pearls of desire with stern generosity. bedman pined to be touched. sunday. mundane needs and grey passions – things like eating, shitting, love making, going for damp walk with cold hands. that is what embarrassed me most, so i tied them to the wall and shut the door when flushing last nights passionate affair down the loo. bedman pleaded me not to leave.
the absolute fantasticness of reinstalling an old lover took over my sunday morning. how could i ever dream of leaving? the bread rose alongside my swelling feelings for metaphors.
will you be mine again, after all the time apart? it was all such a rotten mistake. we know the problems will bubble up like yeast and reattach; malignancies growing throughout my ribcage, mornings will be filled with retching and heaving into the toilet roll of infatuation. we didn’t care an ounce. we were in love.
my guts no longer belonged to me but who governed this decision? and, what if they are replaced by a coil of red ribbon, who would ever know? spent the day as an exhausted blocked toilet, bedman kept flushing but i just spilled out, chronically regurgitating. unable to swallow. throat tightly shut and a man in desperate need for a shit. closed my eyes and fell asleep.
awoke as the worm in adams apple, awoke in bedmans utter absence.
Blossom Hibbert
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