Last night I went to bed, lost, confused and scared.

I woke up and my heart still hurt.

So I called a meeting with myself.

Myselves

The baby, the little girl, the teenager, the young woman, the lover, the breastfeeding mother, the grieving woman who hasn’t bled for 5 months and the queen.

And I listened to each one, in turn.

The Baby

The Baby, she’s just rigid, sobbing, she can’t get no sat-is-faction.

Limbs flailing but no one picks her up.

She doesn’t know how to talk, where she begins or if this vast blackness is ever going to end.

The Little Girl

The Little Girl has brought along some of her favourite moth wings, shiny shells and pretty leaves to show daddy again, but he is still sleeping.

At least it seems like he is sleeping, but why is his light always on? she asks, and why is he reading that huge Lord Byron biography?

She dances and sings and he looks up momentarily.

so then she dances faster, sings louder and also does that cute little thing that he liked once.

but he just lights another cigarette, touches his temple with his fingertips and closes his eyes.

she suddenly doesn’t know if she is coming or going.

The Teen

The Teen is mute, collapsed just inside the front door, waiting.

She doesn’t eat or sleep, or revise.

Her chest is a hollow circular cave of pain which doesn’t wax or wane.

Men push cocaine and condoms through the letter box.

She would fuck them all, if only they would come close enough.

The Teen’s mother is at work

or in the kitchen listening to Women’s Hour on Radio 4

or asleep in the bath with the light on

or a few roads down, having that affair.

You can bet. wherever she is, the teens mother is smoking and at the same time repetitively banging her head against the wall but somehow forever and instantly capable of a bit of swift rug pulling:

a deft ànd practiced outward rug jerk from under her daughters pretty little unsuspecting feet every so often makes her feel more alive.

The Young Woman

The young woman is reading books on Zen Buddhism, she is very busy drawing and writing songs about love and healing, more presents for her daddy, even though he is already dead.

The Lover

The lover joins the teen by the door, her vulva dry, her vagina numb.

Men come and go through the letterbox, she is letting them all in,

her orgasm is a mockery.

The Breastfeeding Mother

The Breastfeeding Mother is carrying 10,000 babies in slings.

She will not put any of them down, not even for a minute.

She feeds them all day and all night and she never sleeps.

The breastfeeding mother is a bit distracted right now as her husband is criticising her for the way she looked at him the day before yesterday,

To be specific

He ‘really didn’t like the way she looked at him when he made himself a cup of tea but didn’t make her one’

There is a women’s circle tonight but the breastfeeding woman hasn’t the energy for that.

The Grieving Woman (who hasn’t bled for 5 months)

The grieving woman who hasn’t bled for 5 months is crying and rocking and crying some more.

She has lost her job.

Her husband is still angry about the tea incident.

People keep dying

Her foot is broken.

The world is locked down.

Her children are starving but she can’t move,

actually she won’t move.

For every question her answer is no.

Whatever shape it is in, the moon is making her cry out loud and she has started eating pomegranate seeds like an animal, growling and snapping.

As long as she can touch the earth, the greiving woman who hasn’t bled for 5 months knows she is safe, she is safe.

The Queen

The Queen is a smile, a deep breath and song that doesn’t wait.

She is all the seasons, all at once.

A law unto herself.

A complete star conjunct Uranus perhaps.

Her womb is a luscious green heart, her vulva; a waterfall.

She dances and sings in the mud, she finds the rain hilarious.

And anyone who comes into her orbit starts dancing and singing too.

We all meet, the breakfast club and we listen to each other carefully.

‘group hug!’ calls the breastfeeding mother

And we huddle in together, ankle-deep in tears.

‘All shall be well.

And all shall be well.

And all manner of things shall be well’ says the baby

And the queen just throws her head back and laughs.