Tag Archives: confessional poetry

within

I am of him,
that’s for sure
this stubbornness
so ingrained, it must be
woven into my genes
somewhere near the ones
that gave me
eyes the size of saucers.
as I become who
I always needed to be,
I let him drift out
to the ocean to rest,
finally releasing the corpse
I’ve been carrying
on my back for so long –
I find a new set of
superpowers in my heart.
it beats like his now
and always should have,
really.
I was not to know,
but now I do.
and his spirit weighs nothing
no more than a breath

I let it burst

from within,

to taste freedom for

the first time in

twenty two years.

torches

yes, she brings me flowers
wrapped tight in a tesco bag
more than one smile
dances on her face, and
so I look and learn there
in that great establishment of education

she never grieves
she lives
she puts pain in the
wicker basket on her bicycle
and cycles into the sun
no matter how heavy it may be

she is a stream, river
and a fountain waterfall all
together at once, not
without mud or silt but
flowing, flowing, flowing always
washing us clean of
our sins and sorrows

with this power of water
she could erode us
but she chooses to make us float
she could drown us
but she chooses to cleanse us
she could guide us foolish sailors to our deaths
but she chooses to hold great torches up as guides

thank god,
thank god for her
I think as milk comes out of my nose
while I snort and shriek with laughter

threads

there is a
wall there now
I can’t see it with
my eyes but
I can feel it with
every jangled nerve

your elbow
permeates brick
and cement
to rest on mine
it is rude
and tenacious

you don’t
look at me
the way you
used to
so I wonder if
you felt it too

surely you did
I was picking
shards of cement
out of my hair
for days
on end

the hair on
my skinny forearm
stands up
to attention
soldierly
full of electricity

I look and
the golden threads
on yours
are laying flat
with no
visible disturbance

so I suppose
I won’t spend
any more time
wondering what
you dream of
when you’re alone

permission

for a long time I
chose to be
your victim
all torn up with
sorrow and disgust
making you all evil
all wrong
and myself
so weak
it was so much easier
to absolve myself of
thorny responsibility
this way

now
that victimhood belongs
to you
not me
not anymore
I survived your
long con
and your violence
and I will
not allow your
actions to scar me
any more
because you
are lower than shit
not evil
no, because that
would relinquish you
from the permanence of
who you are
in your humanity
and
the choices you made
in your selfishness

the reasons why I
allowed you to
exist within me
mean nothing at all
not now
not anymore
my pain
does not matter
not anymore
because I
have given it
permission to leave
forever

strawberries

you are part of me, yes
but you seem so
far away and surreal
not quite a fairytale
not quite a fantasy character
from my little picturebook,
but you have lived only
in photographs for so long
that the thought of you
somehow existing in my reality
is almost laughable

you could almost have been
my imaginary friend
or a once-loved doll
from the toybox,
lost to the years and
faded now in adulthood
with nobody really
too sure on the
specifics of your life’s breath

I remember the sting
of dettol on my grazed toes
that I got dancing
through steps and wild
strawberries,
the first week we moved
the scars are long gone now,
but I bristle in joy
each time I see a strawberry
growing on the side of the road.

I remember my baby heart
turning into stone
when you sucked in your
last laboured breath
tucked into clean white sheets
your bones are long buried now,
yet your soul’s suffering
is still taking up
too much space in my mind bank

should I surround myself
with strawberries and slippers
brown LP sleeves and men who
grumble and laugh like you
used to do, before
you were dying?
will these things
ease my inheritance of your pain?

only that I had
been just a little
bit older
perhaps you’d be
an anchor instead of
the salt sea breeze

rope

he is a
wooden a-frame
an old one,
resolutely standing
at the side of
the school hall,
just waiting
to be climbed and clambered upon
by the tenth generation
of children.
you would think
time should have
weathered the pine,
should have
made it splinter and break
but still it retains
its polished surface
and strength,
somehow.

I am
not a wooden a-frame,
more a hanging rope
that burns the hands
and sways unpredictably
fun to climb
hard to
get down from.
but a treasured
piece of
school gym equipment,
nonetheless

holly

just a road like any other
suburban to the very core
full of grey paving slabs
and comfortable family cars
each house square and dignified
with just the right amount
of curtain twitching.

the shrubs are lined up
outside the short brick fences
each one alike in its nature
each front garden path,
trodden in with memories of
grown up children and
school mornings past

the holly bushes of the house
that once was ours
seem to glitter in
the dim night light,
but not looking nearly so
inviting as they did
all those years ago.

I steal a sprig from the front
a perfect thing, its points
all frosted with white
some fairytale thing,
it seems it my hand
a little piece of green is all
but dripping rich with
vibrant memories of the plainest
days

plain,
but so wonderfully pure
so wonderfully formative
so like a dream,
that I scarcely can believe
they belong to me at all.

joy hits me
heavy in the chest
with a fist
as I look through
painted green window frames,
still existing as they ever did.
and my sadness
comes off the roof
as mirror-like summer heat
or through the old brick chimney
smoking logs that we burnt
for three whole Christmases.

porcelain

the sink is my
porcelain paradise
running water and
safe smells of soap
my porcelain paradise
my porcelain prison.

contamination lurks
all around it,
once-friendly taps and
plastic bottles
seek to ruin my
little ritual with their
looming possibilities of infection

an elbow to the door,
the faucet,
a towel to turn the water on,
little fingers to turn handles and
the indexes to scratch itches.
still
everything feels dirty
and wrong
no matter how rigidly
I stick to my
fucking stupid little ritual

I sit in my bed,
another prison of comfort
surrounded by my things
my things that were
so clean this morning
now besmirched and dirtied
by what I
fear so greatly

I am a lapdog prisoner
content to lock the door
of my own cell,
to bolt the windows
and suffer
even though
freedom would be so much
easier.

easier
but so full of danger.
perhaps
I should be done with it,
and cut my own hands off.
perhaps.