Morgana Rubini

@selkiesounds

written during the two lockdowns in England, they explore themes of loneliness and feeling trapped and dreams of freedom.

Three Poems on Lockdown Loneliness

#1

This loneliness is piling at the bottom my

stomach. Unable to free itself, to open the door and walk through the delicious wind

of the streets. To dress itself up and look straight in the mirror

not with a backhand gaze. I

want to learn to love my loneliness, how

it shows me new spots

on my ceiling. How as I run from it

my legs are learning to move. Its push for me to find something other than

the dust beneath my desk. To feed off something other than the desire

to shrink so small that my room feels like a world, where I can

play with the fly on the window, and climb up and sit on the daddy-long-legs back.

I picked the card of death today, but

I could sense the refusal before it even showed its face. I am dreaming of arm-sized propellor

bombs raining down

on me and a crowd screaming:

stand out in the open, beckon them towards you

with open arms. stand beside us as we wait for their shattering explosion.

But all I could think was I DON’T WANT TO DIE.

A cog within me is stuck and I refuse to drink the greasing oil.

Instead I wear my white refusal and sink lower and lower,

until I land at the gates to the underworld

and play hopscotch at its entrance

teasing the guards with my play.

But it seems all I learn is that I am as fragile as my mums old wine glasses

that keep going missing one by one

running away to hide their shattered pieces.

#2

The other day I went to the harbour

And ate a whole pack of grapes in ten minutes

And tried to see the end of the blue mist

But it kept seeming to run away from me

Swaying as it laughed that the world continues even if we don’t

And I watched the vanishing

With pinched eyes but

All I could make out was the blur and the never ending expanse teasing me

And I tried to reach my hand into the punnet and fish out

A single pebble of light

To keep warm and safe

In the wet and dark of my mouth

But my palm kept coming back empty

If I could drink the wind and the sky

I would close my eyes and lie there for hours

Till I had devoured it whole like the greedy bitch i am

Lying there bloated and blue and

Entirely in love

I am a standstill woman and I play merry go round

And perfect blue house

Whilst the birds never stop moving above my head

Forever fighting against everything that stands still

Staking their claim to the world with a single beat of their wings

I want to clench them till they break and

Pluck out tiny wing bones

And sew them into my own

And then fly so fast I overtake Peter Pan

In his eternal ellipses

Projected prolepsis

From this day

I shall always sit on the floor

I have forsaken chairs

The lower I get the closer I am

To the mud and soil and underworld and worm like kings

I rule over nothing but my own desires

And they seem to always be running away from me

But instead I sit and try to stuff myself so full

That my stomach forgets all it’s cravings

#3

My mother called me today and said that her body

Was hurting from a lack of physical touch

That standing two feet apart from someone

Leaves you with a bruising boot print in your back

And i think of her alone in her flat

Among grey concrete and wailing streets

I think of how she will wake at 7am everyday

And walk from her bed to the sofa

And I can feel the warmth of her hum

With a cup of coffee and a book

She will curl up cat like

All tender and comforting

And I imagine I can feel the fold of her arms

its worn cocoa butter skin

And I am sure there are also days which feel so black and small

And the walls feel like they are trying to crush her in

But her table still feels so large for only one plate

And I wish I could gather up

The same way she used to swaddle me in soft sarong

And together we could walk the the cliffs

Leaving our hearts to open and fly

I am grieving

For relationships that have been

Dreaded out on the washing line

Slowly loosening from my tether

I am who I am when I am giving out love

And my love has spread through every inch of my house

And has nowhere left to go

Now left in the corner slumped