I’m drowning
in this sea of faces,
So many faces,
All eyes on me,
So many eyes,
I’m suffocated,
So many eyes,
But none can see,
My mind rewinds,
Removes all traces,
Inside, my stasis
starts to bleed,
The wounds are born
from sworn self hatred
that filters out
wellwishers deeds,
All good intent
my mind erases,
And in its place;
a rotten seed,
And from it grows
all the hollow aching
Black Dog’s thirst
could ever
need.
I took a moment to
walk
in the
wind,
It took hold of my limbs
and danced me to the skies,
An invisible guide
that found its way
inside my mind
and whispered,
“It will be OK”,
Showed me there’s another way,
That there will be another day
beyond this night,
That it’s all right
to sometimes hide away,
To secrete my tears amidst the rain,
To stifle sobs until they fade,
To mask the pain,
Because a walk inside the wind
clears the cobwebs of all sin,
clears out
e v e r y t h i n g
and muffles all their din
so I can let the right ones in,
Reset,
Restart,
Rescind,
so I can win.
Photo credit: Radu Voinea
Inspired by the dutch word uitwaaien:
I am through,
And it’s all on you.
I know that I will lose,
And when I do,
I know that I will choose
to welcome death,
I cannot catch my breath,
My eyes are sunken,
My mind is drunken,
My face is ripped off and I’m hunkered,
The body blows are raining
and I’m failing,
Because I cannot duck and weave,
How can I when I cannot even breathe?
There’s no reprieve.
I am drowning
in the sky,
I cannot hide,
The night
washes over like a tide,
Fills my lungs with poisoned dye
overflowing through my eyes
like acid tears,
And I am melting,
Dissociative and helpless.
I am through
and it’s all on you,
You could stop this if you choose,
But you refuse
to let it go,
Your heart is stone,
Your hooded deeds are hammers striking bone,
Your words alone are iron
and I am pummeled from a lion
to a haggard Jouvet cat,
Slipping from the only consciousness I had,
My head is lolling,
The water’s calling,
I am falling,
I am drowned,
The roar of life
has dragged me down
and it has left me
without sound,
Silent, bloated, blue.
I am through,
and it’s all on you.
Well played.
I am a sleeping bear
with the richest hide of tan,
Try and wake me if you dare,
But none too many can.
You can poke and you can tease;
I may grumble, I may moan,
But in a deep passivity
I have made my humble home.
A bear unlike my kin,
Yes indeed I stand apart,
For while I may have thickened skin,
It hides a timid heart.
So sleep is what I choose,
And I choose sleep because it’s safe,
For even the strongest sinews
will give way to strain and fray.
One hundred times you’ll shake me,
One hundred times I will ignore,
One hundred one? Now that will break me
and this sleeping bear will roar.
So the moral here is clear,
The warning; plain to see
I am a sleeping bear
and you’d do well to leave me be.
They say, Ask me no questions,
I’ll tell you no lies,
If you ask me, “How are you?”
I’ll tell you, “I’m fine.”
If you don’t want to hear it;
the truth I deny,
Don’t ask me the question.
Don’t force me to lie.
So I have been writing since I was 7, inspired by my father’s own passion for poetry and his enviable way with words. My older brother’s remarkable love affair with poetry also started at a young age and his career has really taken off this year. You should check him out if you get a chance, he ROCKS.
But perhaps the most amazing thing for me right now is that my 9 year old son came home from school today and showed me a poem he wrote. I was overwhelmed with pride and cannot wait to see where this new interest, this new talent, can take him, so I promised I would share his poem on my blog, hopefully launching what could be an amazing life of rhyme.
How apt that his first ever piece is entitled “Launch”. I hope you’ll see the potential I see when you read it. Enjoy!!
LAUNCH
By Reece Malcolm
BEFORE TAKEOFF
Glass eyes see
people prepared
for the journey ahead
for the gigantic rocket
to fart out the fiery flames
Glass ears hear
rumbling like a hungry
grey wolf ready to
flame up and explode
Glass mouths scream
in the caved belly
of the wolf
squealing out loud
Glass hearts feel
terrified in the chill
shivering in the cold
soon they might start to
mould.
TAKEOFF
Glass eyes see
the rocket pushing
into the air
leaving steam
behind it as
it goes into
the black sea
of nothingness.
I’ll curl up right inside myself,
I’ll curl up and I’ll hide,
I’ll hide there right inside myself,
Shrinking, liquefied,
I’ll curl up right inside myself,
They won’t notice I’m not here,
They’ll think I still fill out my skin,
They won’t see me disappear,
Hollow bones and stringy flesh,
Teeth and hair and nails,
The world will see my outline
While I slowly rub out the details.
My head is full of popping corn,
Must let the right ones in,
Some are bitter, some forlorn,
All sodden; soaked in sin.
My head is full of popping corn,
A jumbled, maze-like din,
I cannot breathe; my cords are torn,
I’m choking on the string.
My head is full of popping corn,
Can’t let the black dog win,
But his howl’s already filched my dawn,
His dark has drawn me in.
True love is not like the movies;
It is not always all singing and all dancing,
It doesn’t always hit you like a lightning bolt,
More often it is slow, and unassuming,
and so quiet that,
Sometimes,
You wouldn’t even know it was there.
True love is not like the movies;
There are no moments of remorseful epiphany
leading to grand gestures of love,
Just days of cold shoulders
and cupboard slamming,
Until one of you asks,
“Would you like some tea?”
And the other replies,
“That would be nice thank you, yes.”
True love is not like the movies;
There are few offices bursting at the seams
with red roses ‘just because’,
There are just toilet seats finally put down,
And piles of mashed potatoes
sort of in the shape of a heart.
Sort of.
If you squint.
True love is not like the movies;
There are no mid sentence kisses
to the backdrop of conveniently timed fireworks
that will steal away your breath,
There are just tight lipped pecks
adorned with toast crumbs
as you go in opposite directions
on the morning commute.
True love is not like the movies;
Your partner will break wind
and
it
will
smell,
You will fight – without the make-up sex,
Sometimes there will be no sex at all,
Lots of times there will be no sex at all,
Middles will spread and hairs will thin,
Someone will get sick,
You will argue about money,
You will hate each other at least once,
OK, maybe a little more than once,
You will do battle, sometimes with each other,
But more often together, against the world,
You will take it in turns to be the rock,
To cheer each other up,
To be a shoulder, an ear, a hand, a crutch,
You will witness the passage of each others lives
and your own will be better for it,
You will learn and you will grow,
You may feel empty at times, sure,
But mostly you will feel fulfilled,
You will overflow,
You will overcome,
you will endure.
Because true love is not like the movies;
It is real,
It is endless,
It is not bound by the rules of life and death,
It is perfectly imperfect,
And it never fails.
True love is not like the movies;
it’s better.
You held my hand when I was young,
I looked up and saw more than my father,
I saw the first man I would ever love,
And the mould for each man thereafter.
You showed me the beauty of strength
when it’s blended with a gentle core,
How to appreciate all that I have,
While still pushing myself to be more.
You taught me the value of family,
And that the brain is vessel to feed,
You taught me selflessness and humility,
And the world between want and need.
You taught me how to seek respect,
And showed me how to self-reflect,
How to always reach for the stars,
And how to never accept anything less.
All this and more you have shown me,
And for all this and more I give praise,
You have made me the woman I am,
And I will love to ’til the end of my days.
