Six months I stayed in Emma’s room <br />And watched her in the mornings weave <br />Her long fingers through her fine hair; <br />Faded violet, gone from a moment of expression <br />To be confined and to lose its statement. <br /> <br />She laughed like an echo, as if there was no source <br />Simply the room humming soft edged melody <br />From the pale walls. <br /> <br />We would sing to eighties music, played badly <br />On an old wind up radio. <br />We would sing loudly and without tune, standing on the aged, <br />Grey chairs that bled their stuffing in sad melancholy, <br />We would stand on them and dance. <br /> <br />Sometimes sat in the small bath, attempting privacy. <br />Fully clothed and dry in our ceramic half cocoon <br />Sharing our stories <br />And our secrets. <br /> <br />Emma’s room had pale blue walls. Wounded many times over <br />Through pins and blue-tack; adorned now <br />With self-drawn pixies. <br />Mythology. <br />Little reality was there, in Emma’s room. <br /> <br />I spent six months in Emma’s room. <br />I lay sometimes, my head on her lap <br />And we would sit in silence as she <br />Stroked her long fingers <br />Through my hair. <br />Reflecting on the events <br />That had taken us to this corridor. <br /> <br />She slept fitfully, foetus shaped and huddled <br />Still rolling, still calling occasionally <br />From her dark dreams, <br />From her intrusive memories <br />That, while awake, she could pretend to ignore. <br /> <br />I spent six months in Emma’s room <br />Before they took me sixteen times to the basement <br />And electrocuted me to docility <br />And she stayed in her room <br />With her bed on the floor <br />Because she was so afraid <br />Of what might lurk beneath.<br /><br />Tallie Pascoe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/emma-s-room/
