Domestic By Belinda Rimmer

   wakingphotolife: Flickr CC


Domestic 

The problem with legs that won't go is they won't go. There was a time I could dance a night away with an exactness of step. I could kick a high-fandango, pirouette and split-jump across a room. But not any more. Life can knock you about. It's a bossy school teacher forcing you to do math when you'd rather write a sonnet, which, by the way, has counting in it. 

People, and by people I mean doctors, can't find a cure or a reason. Their quitting came slowly, after rounds of drug therapy and creams and hours in stuffy consulting rooms. I understand their frustration, I really do. 
I've been seeing a psychiatrist called Gerald. We're on first name terms. He's almost completely rotund, like a barrel, the sort you see in a pub pretending to be a table. 

Because I'm a difficult customer, I see him twice a week. The weeks have turned into years – three to be exact. He thinks the ocean of pain in my legs has nothing to do with my childhood – although there are Oedipal issues we address on a regular basis. This morning Gerald asked me, 'If your legs could carry you away, where would they take you?' 

I thought of Tenerife. But if you could choose one place in the world to visit, it shouldn't be Tenerife. I almost said Butlins. Gerald would have had a field day with Butlins, all those childhood memories. Instead, I shined the buttons on my coat.

By the time my husband came to fetch me, I was sobbing. He doesn't usually come to fetch me. Someone, maybe the receptionist, must have phoned him. He placed a damp hand on my shoulder, gave me a squeeze – a threat.

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Belinda has worked as a psychiatric nurse, lecturer and creative arts practitioner. Her poems are published in magazines, on-line journals and anthologies. In 2017, she won the Poetry in Motion Competition to turn her poem into a film, since shown Internationally. In April, she supported Gill McEvoy at Cheltenham Poetry Festival, and has just learnt of her second place in the Ambit Poetry Competition.

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