One Poem - Maggy van Eijk

Irrelevant Remarks About The Weather

It’s that day again, that once a year routine
the same wind picks up from the sea
the same headache won’t go to sleep
I shower and get ready

I enter your dusty oak office
with pillars of books and chaotic
paper mountains and the howling sky
peers in through the window

I sit down in a collected way
one swift movement
obedient and quick

I place my hands on my lap and I keep them very still
so you can’t make a note

You begin to ask me questions
after a few irrelevant
remarks about the weather and
I am familiar with what you ask

Those questions - imprints on
my brain stamped by type-writers
of time and reason and sanity
how tick are tick you tick today tick
and I set my brain to click and tick
in a very similar way

I smoothen out my vowels so they match
your velvet voice – a fine layer of
psychiatric silk, ironing out all
traces of crazy

And you decide to take that risk
because my progress is so great
you allow me to return into
the wide windy world with my case
and my clothes and a safe dose of
pills because I’m so much better
and I might even smile and say
hi it’s nice to see you
hi it’s nice to see YOU
hi IT’S JUST SO NICE TO SEE YOU

In true Eureka fashion you declare me healed
a paper gets stamped like the back side of a cow
I am the best cattle on this rotten farm of yours

Finally you call any one you who cares
you tell them of my success
I leave the office
down the steps

A dull wind sweeps through the corners of your office
specks of dust fly through the room
the dust will never settle
like a twitch beneath the eye
tick tick tick ticking
until the next time.
--
Maggy van Eijk is originally from the Netherlands but now lives in Bristol to complete her degree in English Literature and Drama. In 2007 she was awarded BBC Young Writer of the Year resulting in an all expenses paid Arvon Foundation Writers Residence. In 2009 her short story "Teardrops and Tupperware" was published by Inside Out magazine. She is currently working on a play titled "Fumes", set during a self-harmers anonymous meeting.