Faint Hum

In the upstairs room of The Railway Tavern, Ben chairs a discussion around a fictitious tale. With the author of Human, Animal present, Seth Insua deep dives me into intergenerational trauma and queer self-discovery. During the Q&A, a question is posed, “What memories do you not want to forget?’. In earshot of the Two Brewers just down Clapham High Street, I can hear the faint hum of a memory three months prior. Of others chanting five words I included in a poem I had performed that night at the Two Brewers, this year back in Spring. Eighteen months before, I visited my mother at Royal Papworth as she had just undergone major heart surgery. As I sat by her bed, and as she attached a compass pendant around my neck, she whispered softly into my ear, ‘Love with all your heart, my beautiful brave boy’. She kissed me on my forehead and then whispered five more words. Just a few moments later, her heart stopped for good. As I left the Two Brewers alone, on my way to the Tube, a group of outside smokers became sirens of hope. Chanting those same five final words from my poem made me feel mother was there whispering them again sweetly into my ear,

‘The heart is a muscle’

The heart is a muscle and that muscle is a memory,

and that memory is a whisper and that whisper never dies

The heart is an always forever flowing river.