Sylvie Hill

Your Perfect Projects

I sat. I watched. I listened.
I started, then stopped. Began to talk, then halted.
My heart tensed up like when I used to tear my dresses.
Like when the bone holding my ribcage together
busted up, enflamed, enraged not by passion
but a bruised heart.
What was that madness?
I could never put my finger on it.
In total calm, in paced breath and balance
I sat on the stool you lent, like you were protecting me:
a Queen sat there with the other man staring at me,
asking: “How do you guys know each other? Who is she?”
You smiled… like you owned me.

I sat. I watched. I listened.
I started, then stopped. Began to talk, then halted.
The tension arose like Gingerales bubbling in a capped glass.
You make me nervous. Not the right kind.
“Will we ever get it back again?” look on your face, always on your mind.
I love men with intense precision.
Concise expression.
Meticulous execution.
Perfectionist. Obessionist.
Craftsman who know design.
Artists with a good eye.
Attitude, knowing they are the best.
Unapologetic for being a pest.

But your head flew wild bitching me out as you tried to draw conclusions.
“Shut up a second, let me ask the questions, I’m the expert, don’t confuse this.”
(Watch it, watch it. Only one man now I listen to when he tells me I need to ‘sort it’)
Hardly a collaboration, but ok, you are the expert. Again. And again.
You always said I threw away a good thing, but I’ve never been more relaxed.
You said: “You’re stressed, I can feel it” you were wrong, and do you know the context?

I sat. I watched. I listened.
I started, then stopped. Began to talk, then halted.

It will always be about your work, your ideas and your thoughts.
Your expertise will always prevail, never leave room for anything else.
When I said I was writing of my friend’s art—you scoffed, said it was shit.
I never even got to the part about going to London and to Paris, again.
When I tried to say anything at all—you joked, ridiculed and put me down.
I never was sure if I should go back to you, but last night, the reason was found:
“I need to have control,” you said of design and all your projects.

I am not a project.

I was love: and, it was not in your remit to absorb its potential cost.

But now in your loneliness and fierce guilt every time you see me,
You relive injury, paying for it with all your senses.
And I pay a lot, too, for only two hours of a visit.

© Sylvie Hill, 2013