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There are memories which feel almost tangible

They weigh heavily like stones

Like the dark moss carpet

And the night shadows through the frosted front door

Different to the friendly figures I might have imagined on my bedroom walls

It feels as though I’m waiting

I remember feeling that intensely

Held deep inside. Waiting and fearful

It was almost superstition

My life

Try to be good. Not to anger, or anger them

Not to be bad

And I felt so hideously wrong

Filthy

As the memories come flooding back

The white mottle of the street lights through the trees outside

I spent hours awake watching those walls at night

Why can’t I remember?

Why this fear, blistering every cell?

What came in those shadows I feel?

It’s uncanny after such trepidation of touch

To long to be held

There used to be such a burden of filth and hatred in me. Thick and screaming

Rarely have I been able to let someone hold onto me among these whispered shrieks

I flinched at every impact. The room

Felt too near my childhood

It’s a calculated leap

And I am ready for the fall

Nobody leaves at the worst times

It’s later as the sun fades the night away

Perhaps, as we have long since learned

The gospel chanted and scribbled early on the walls of those young years is falacy

But still nobody stays

It’s not the old wounds that smart and sting

But the new, raw skin still longing to trust their exposure

Maybe there was love then

But now it is different

I still want it, despite myself

Too Still Life 13th November

Been too long

Afraid

Doesn’t cover the reality

Or evade

Flashes of boldness

Fade too fast

It’s a sin to stay

But Cowardice for going?

Guttural, breaking, almost a sob

Tearing me to shreds and I am

Nothing

But nothing’s

Still here

And it could be so easy

The distance is palpable

Fingertips touch

A lifetime away

It’s like a looking glass

And there are faces

Places

Space on the other side

Space for me?

Away from my confined shell

Hell

But is there enough

If I leave behind

Am I enough

To pack it all away

Go or stay?

Longing so deeply for my own foothold among others

Paths

And so independence is farce

So much could or could not be on either side

How can an

Ending begin elsewhere?

My Grandmother’s Plates

Last night we ate dinner on my grandmother’s plates

I have used them since my parents gave them to me on the weekend. Sturdy yet their history can make you so afraid

They cannot be replaced. They are unique

So am I, yet my vitality and beating heart make me sure that each second I waste

Changes made can be undone

Or altered besides. We are cocky as we breath in and out and navigate from one day to the next

Yet are those changes might never be undone

Whether they are needed or not, life is relentless like that

Memories of my grandmother’s room are so vivid

The varnish and wood smell of the cabinet beside her bed; the books she kept inside

Her soft wrinkles and the hard, sharp sound of her Londondary voice

While I was with her I felt loved in myself. I remember her tight and bony cuddles and I did like them

Though my own comfort in the embrace in others has come at a time closer to those plates coming to live in my willow-patterned cupboards.

It is perplexing the way of our hearts opening

And painful

Lonely as they have the right to choose

And not choose us

Frightening

As understanding unleashes a tide of memories

Their fear is palpable; lurking like shadows in the hallways of my mind

Vivid. If I still had access to the parts of me that still felt that filty worthlessness I would want nothing more than to tear away every shred, skin, soul and memory

But that voiceless waif is gone

She can question, however tentatively

Hold her own self

Not to waver, quaver, run and fall

However all enticing those memories in their fragments

Like my grandmother’s plates I can choose a new path

It might be so far removed from any experience they, or I

Encapture

I might be so, so frightened to use and taint them

But if I let them gather dust what will that prove?

Confidence is more a tide than a rising anchor

It’s ebb and flow equivocal to our struggles

Whether that is how we are seen or not

Like my grandmother’s plates I will prevail

Rose Chintz and a determined smile

My grandmother died long ago

I hope she would be proud

Eloquently Wasted

At the end of the day I can’t say I emerged simply

I’d love to

Not to think too much

Second guess

It’s like an elixir

At the end of each day I’m drunk, and at the same time sober

Full of words and expectations

Staring into the cold, vast night sky

But I’m not so eloquent as to find the words I want to sing with

I feel a sense of belonging;

Oneness with the world

But at the same time feel it slip away

Grain by grain

Complicated by the mundane tasks

I dance, trip, weave and

Fall blindly through

At the same time able to see myself always falling short

This is how it is

There is never enough

Of me or for me

I’m a hard person to satisfy

And I can’t settle for simplicity or oneness

There has to be more to satisfy my soul

Always searching

Always rambling

I’m not good at names of theories

But I understand

Their cogs and wheels

I see the intricacies

I see the good

I’m not often a first choice

I love too hard

And fall too far

I want to include to many details

And instead end up stuttering, stammering

Wondering where to begin

Then how to end

I am not eloquent

I don’t know if I have what would matter if it were wasted in the first place

I spend too much time wondering

And never enough in contentment at my own achievements

But I am myself