Poetry of Beatrix Aoibheil

You are my sunshine… From the time I was small I wanted to fly They tell me the impossible had always caught my eye My only sunshine… I resented the bridle, the bit and the chains It wasn’t until you that I learned the price of broken reins You make me happy when skies are grey… You touched me with Midas’ finger, left me golden and warm Your breath gave me wings and I straddled the storm You’ll never know dear… But the night came so quickly once you were were gone Without your thermals I was grounded alone How much I love you… There were no chains this time, no reason to run Your absence crafted Icarus, seeking her sun Please don’t take my sunshine away… There is freedom in the skies, a kind of bliss in the night When there is no horizon and no guiding light After all… it’s not the fall that kills you.

There were times when the words you wrote cut me sharper and deeper than any knife had the right to claim It hurt like fire and ice and bruises and bones protruding through my skin And still  and yet and so… I never stopped reading Not once Because I could not ease your suffering no matter how I wished to; and so I thought that really truly honestly The best I could do was suffer with you.

I believed in fear as passive pain; it makes its home in paralysis in hesitation in chance slipping over horizons like shooting stars so when blood stained my eyes clouded like halos around my vision I knew only rage I had never seen the stars but now I was truly blind My sharp edges became weapons this life became a battleground; my words daggers; my actions mauls; my thoughts poison; there was a kind of madness in it, I didn’t know myself I could not tolerate the thought of losing you but the sight of you the sound of you the thought of you… everything was soaked with red it was Russian Roulette but the chamber wouldn’t stop spinning I fled; my silence was a shot… The shot that held the bullet.

This time, my darling, your grasp exceeded your reach; you had only ever meant to love me and instead you made me your own I bear your marks deep in my bones Now; still; always The sunshine in your fragile heart took root in the deep places the dark places the forgotten realm of my soft and tender soul which had, too long existed beneath ice and dust and ash until it knew nothing of life or love or daybreak You touched it; it knew you… I was afraid

You were my constant companion, my darling; the golden Achilles to my bloodstained Patroclus where I wandered you followed my flaws were not hidden from you, but you you with your faith and your goodness believed me better than what I am; you saw my hurricane and believed, believed yourself immune and safe cradled inside the eye of my broken storm But you could not have known you could not have forseen what your persistent adoration would do to me; and how could you? I had only ever shared those parts of myself that were safe; those places I could amputate at need and still survive the cutting I was twisted; you laughed I was bitter; you smiled I was sharp; you touched me with soft fingers and reached for me with upturned palms I was cold; you let me crawl inside of you and take in all your heat I was hard; you kissed my mouth until I felt soft again… whole again… young again… Me again.

When you found me I was bruised; battered on the winds and waves of those who were still enough of themselves to make ripples I knew you in a way that could not be explained I loved you before I had ever touched your skin you were everything I had forgotten that I once had cherished You were the summer sun and I your pale imitation in a winter’s moon the sky was still untouched in your eyes and the rose of sunrise graced the current of your mane you were soft, warm, bright, joyful; it was infectious, my darling you breathed life into marble and I could feel again I could exist again; in places that were here in places that were there no longer was I trapped… you set me free But you were soft and I was hard you touched me and my edges cut your skin your blood soaked stone until it softened into flesh, but the process left you littered with battle scars it never stopped you so I never apologized And I should have, but I didn’t

I was born a twilight child; dark curls and eyes like summer sky I loved the color yellow and the heat of summer sunshine warming my skin I couldn't see stars; their existence was this foreign thing a word I heard in stories that had no meaning for me it captivated me, fascinated me; I plunged into the world of night with greedy fingers and feet that never touched the ground I ran with wolves and slept with deer; the owls taught me their mournful song the night was mine as the day had been mine; I was beloved of both my parents But there are dangers in the night as well; I leaped before I looked and fell into the pit I was bitten, raped, savaged by darkness beyond the touch of night I was warped; twisted the morning fled my eyes and the evensong my hair I was no longer innocent, in the daylight there was no place for me but I could no more face the night than I could fly, and so I fled I bled; colors into greys until my eyes were slate and my hair no more than ash I existed but neither here nor there; only in the places in-between did I have shape or form over time I learned how to embrace once more the darknesses both that which I had loved and that which had corrupted me my palette now held blacks and blues – silvers broken up by crimson like blood on fresh-hewn snow There was purpose in being a child of the moon; it suited me in ways that became practice and then habit there were rules and there was joy but it was hollow; everything I knew was twined with sadness an echo of what had once been to showcase the empty space left behind I lived but barely; I laughed but harshly; I loved but partially; I was but only slightly