'In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it and spread, black shadows moved about in them, the roar of the beasts of prey was quite different now, and...
i don't quite know why i drew away some day in mid-july, whilst my milky thoughts curdled on that tar which was growing in her.
i had been punched in the lungs and was collecting in my branches to reconfigure, to rewind around that dark cloud. it did not hit you like me, it could not --
but the God that we had revoked was now digging his fingers deep. my first (very catholic) thought was: "this is punishment for not loving Mother enough." her body now choking with clouds --
all of our history collects like dust in deserving and not deserving, the nightmare of Nanny in the concentration camp, and Aunty Bobby's fear of tumours closing her throat (i cannot breathe --)
i look down to my abused body and think of her vomiting in the living room, the lump in Gramps' spine, his sharpening ribs -- Uncle Gordon's stomach swelling (he could not eat) and Scrumpy whining with doomed dolent eyes --
and i can't swallow my food, i look at my pitiful chest and detest it seeing that one day, even my body will not have me either -- (for how long must it go on)
on the tube, i see an advert of a child diagnosed with leukaemia and i can't help but cry seeing maybe one day a child quite like me, with all those genes of sickness festering (the ones that i gave her, and which my mothers gave me)
inside her -- i drew away but did you really want to watch all those worlds unfold?
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