My Eurovison song - I keep my heart in a bottle...

Eurovision, what fun! I couldn’t resist watching it last night – the costumes and skirts, the tumblers and fireworks, bad singing, bad songs, political voting, over excitement.

I went to bed my head full of Bang-Booms, La- La-Lees, and opera; and then I couldn’t sleep.

Sometimes when I can’t sleep I sing one hundred green bottles in my head. Yes, I know it is excessive but I don’t usually get past seventy-five or seventy before I drop off. As part of this ritual I picture the bottles lined up on the wall and watch each one as it falls, listening to the musical tinkle it makes as it hits the ground and shatters.

I don’t picture any old bottles either. I imagine old Victorian bottles, green and cloudy, like the ones I found in our cellars when we dug out the knee deep rubble. Old lemonade bottles with stopper-marbles in their necks, leaning patent medicine bottles, thick cloudy marmalade jars, even an old inkwell. I should really throw them away, all they do is gather dust, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Once I have found something I tend to hang on to it – it’s a bit of a nuisance really.

Anyway, last night I don’t think I’d even smashed twenty bottles before I was asleep – and then I dreamt of bottles amongst other things.

I remember waking up and scribbling something down in the book I keep by the side of my bed; the one I use to catch my dreams before they fade and when I woke up this morning this is what I found.

Maybe it was the echo of those terrible Eurovision Song Contest lyrics, particularly the Eastern European ones - all doomed love and bitter struggle, or maybe it was something else. Like I said - once I have found something I tend to hang on to it. Who knows, maybe I’ll enter my night time scribbling as next year’s Icelandic Eurovision entry.

Bottle.

I keep my heart in a bottle.
It’s red, full bodied with an interesting bouquet. Iron and anger, and as for the aftertaste – it goes on for eternity. Spit it out quick. It might infect you.

I keep my hope in my shoe.
Hidden away and close to the ground. Holding me up when all else has failed – always there but not always apparent, warm and distant but mine at least.

I keep my thoughts in a book.
Invisible ink, faded to nothing, lilac and blue, and black, and red. Written in code but missing the cipher - locked down shut with a key lost long ago.

I keep my memories in a suitcase.
Dusty and dark, on top of a wardrobe. Flashes and bits and covered in stickers. Places I’ve been, people I’ve known. Never reaching for the handle I leave it alone.

I keep my love in a blanket.
Faded and worn, threadbare in places. A small cold bundle stuffed in a corner. Guarded, discarded - too lost to unwrap. Awaiting the day it goes in that suitcase.

I keep my heart in a bottle.