White Noise Days I’m having a white noise day. There’s a sound like tinnitus in my ears, like the distant crackle of a television that has lost its signal, when the aerial lead has come out of its socket. An old familiar channel is no longer transmitting. That’s what it’s like when somebody is not there anymore. Forget about calling an engineer to fix the problem, no aerial adjustment or change of set will bring them back to you. You cannot reconnect with them. That person is off the air but it’s not the end of them. They’re just on another frequency and you can’t receive it, so you will not see or hear them anymore, at least not until you join them. You have to sit and listen to the sound of life without them while they’re up in the airwaves beyond your reach. In other words, every day is a white noise day.
Susan Wilson lives in East London and began writing poetry following the death of her mother in 2017. Her poems have been published by Lucy Writers, Snakeskin, The Runcible Spoon, Dreich and Areopagus. Prior to the pandemic she was a regular performer at “Spineless Authors”, a local open mic event. Her debut chapbook is ‘I Couldn’t Write to Save Her Life’ (Dreich, 2021).
Amethyst Review 