My Corner of Life

In a moment, 

Between impulse

And duty

There is -

In effort, pushing slow through heavy mud - 

Joy. 

Intended and unforeseen

Not struggled for nor against

For, just one moment, is Joy. 

And I am alive. 

With baited breath I listened out

For unspoke words to comfort

Unheard pleas for unwanted help.

In lonely nights, which lasted years,

I did not hear her softened speech,

Only echos which filled the room.

It is raining,

The sky is grey

And the world is dark

And the breeze dances over it all

Like a whisper

It is quiet here,

Each droplet tells a different person

To stay inside

Until it is only me

Taking lonely steps

Along this sodden path.

And this feels

I would be free!

Or at least I would exist under the delusion that I am

- or would one day be -

Free.

What a shame it is

That we must outgrow whispering

When we learn that secrets

Are no longer secret

Once they have been spoken

If I were a child,

I would be trapped

Under the delusion that

I am free

Or that I would one day be.

And I don't know which cage is worse:

I had known you only as my mother,

When I met you for the first time,

You already knew me.

You knew me when I was new

Eyes wide and seeing wonders for the first time

Learning joys unremembered

And sadness I had not felt before

Feeling like each moment was the most it could be

The warmest, the coldest, the weakest, the strongest

That I would ever be

As I met myself, became myself, you met me too

But I did not know you until adulthood

When I became aware that you were a stranger

That you had shielded from yourself,

Your past, your fears, your doubts,

And it was time,

For me to meet someone who had lived for decades before she met me,

And that exchange of information

Made me change too,

We are constantly evolving.

When I met you for the first time,

You already knew me,

Tonight

I say

Like my emotions are the edge of my finger nail

Or like the croak of the first words in the morning after a night out

Curable by a file

And a gulp of cold water

Not rough like the waves

Or like a lifeless body bouncing along a pavement as it's dragged by a car and a rope around its neck

I'm rough like the edge of a cliff

Like the exhausted step as I stumble on the line between life and life being too much

And if the edge of my nail catches on my sheets as I wait for sleep

I will fix it in the morning

It rolls...

Along the ground, 

Silent beneath the wind

Unseen against the grass, 

Imagine me, bold and good,

And sharp against the sea, small

beneath the sky and sailing

In purpose, like the best ship I could be

Daydream a storm coming

Whipping up the air, clouds

Like heavy words,

Shrouds the light of day,

There are rocks I cannot see.

Then watch the hull crumble

There is the awful crack

And hear the people drowning; No hope

For lost souls aboard my ship,

Never mind for me,

Squint as pieces drop away

And I become so small that

I’m a piece of driftwood

Heading back to shore,

Please hope I find a purpose

Though I cannot imagine what,

Who has a single use for

Viewed through tired eyes,

The sting of the rims of my lids

Glow

Like the light

Of that orb

As it rises,

And although it is a time of the day

Which I would call night

The purple glow

On scattered clouds

Makes me smile,

In an hour which does not belong to me

A seemingly familiar sight emerges.

It is not close to my nature,

But I feel glad

It hits,

On the trunk of the tree

That stuff up.

Unnoticed,

The wood cracks,

Small at first,

Then the weight bares down

And unexpected

The air climbs in

And expands

And jams open

The spilt,

The wind blows

And howls

Until the tree goes