The agony of my indecision
had done my head right in.
The hurting of my inner child
had left my true self wilting.
The logic part had made up its mind.
The fragility, it was a fraying:
teetering in, about to give way
a lifetime battle drilling.
So, where could the courage come from,
to say a crucial ‘no’ some time?
Perhaps it stemmed from dark-down stuff
that finally said ‘enough’.
Reasons
Walk in, chat, feel welcomed and held.
I’m rated by bosses, part of the meld.
Means a lot to belong, when everything else
could be me, alone, days become dense.
Urges
It’s regular work, though boring old admin
that takes me away from what I’ve been yearning.
Bored. Hate it. Feel something else is calling.
I can teach, write, blog, and be free.
Reasons
Fear of unknown is what keeps me here
and a deep-down blankie of safety.
If I leave, what’ll become of my time:
squandered, wasted, wishing-well drowned?
Urges
I can meet new people, be open to new things
Be alert and fit, not a slave to alarm rings.
Reasons
Can’t trust myself to follow my dream.
End up bereft, broke, regretting my tears.
Urges
Run out of urges. Can’t remember the pull
to be free of misery, detached from the dull.
Reasons
Perhaps there’s a part of me that isn’t done yet.
Maybe a lesson to learn, an unspun pirouette?
How much longer will I pad the dreams
of others who pay me daily.
Why is my vase full of distracting sand
instead of pebbles that count, that matter.
My true life skills, my singular gifts
are stifled in admin, thoughts of bills.
Striking out, writing stories down
feels impossible, crazy, waste of time.
And so I count, I help, I fix, I support
the sorry souls of others.
But when will it dawn that I could die
with my stories still inside me.
doing what other people want
has squished my me,
engrandised your you,
and left me wondering ‘what if’…?
Of all the Queens, I sense I’m Hearts,
but it’s the evil that attracts:
the darker heart has much more power,
from Macbeth to panto’s roar.
A poem for day 23 of NaPoWriMo 2015: take a chance
Fear:
I creep around, spying other’s glory
through shrouds of envy and spite.
I stress, I spew belligerent bile,
I despoil what feels my birthright.
Trust:
If you only knew what your heart could spill.
If you only could allow
those creative gales to transform your gall
into work that makes you feel proud.
Fear:
That gale just feels like a deadly whip
that will beat my words to a pulp,
reducing me to a limping pace
while the rest of the world can gallop.
Trust:
Gallop implies a race to somewhere
while your journey is yours alone.
Pick supreme, your heart’s main theme,
and you’ll romp to the place called home.
A poem for Day 14 of NaPoWriMo 2015: A dialogue
The person I hate
is like a piece of sellotape:
stuck to my fingers
and won’t let go.
A voicemail vitriol
is like an online vicious troll
even from a woman old
enough to know better.
My buttons pressed
I’m trying to guess:
is it what I resist
continuing to persist?
I fear that her tone,
all imperious and throne
is what I’m like when cross.
Hiding loneliness and loss?
You know it’s over when
anger’s always on the stove.
You know it’s over when
contempt replaces respect.
You know it’s over when
me replaces us.
You know it’s over when
you can’t pretend any more.
You know it’s over when
you feel less lonely alone.
Party girl persona no longer protects
the sad, lonely being within.
Lipstick helps to fake a smile
that brightly distracts my suffering.
Mask of success no longer serves
to boost my life-weary ways.
What are accomplishments anyway?
Not as if you can take them to the grave.
Extravert energy no longer helps
when I want to retreat from the world.
People just jeer at my fistful of faults
as into a ball of shame I curl.
Being just me is never enough.
That’s why I look ever outside.
Within my walls is a dark, blank hole
that is waiting for me to die.
(image courtesy of Kheat/freedigitalphotos.net)
Achievement’s a cloak like the emperor’s new clothes
that eventually show their nude.
My success has been my calling card, through
a life of critique and rude.
My cloak was stitched with A-grades, degrees,
a career of mastering challenge.
I wore my cloak with scholarly pride, to dinner
and breakfast and lunch.
My achievement cloak hid all of my sins,
and a body that could not connect,
because feeling something might propel me back
to the blows around my neck.
My cloak brought me work, and sometimes awards
to frame and prove I was good.
Titles, money, power and glory – isn’t that how
success is understood?
Work became my pride and joy, stressy badges
to sew to my cloak.
Not knowing that what I fed myself, others,
would eventually make me choke.
‘Cos when success was robbed from me, and
I lost my believed esteem,
the cloak that fell from my puny self
exposed my bare-bodied screams.
Without my cloak I was shrivelled, a slug
on a rainy path at night,
without form or spine, or plausible goal,
I writhed with shame and spite.
My success had always defined me, gave me
light in a room of dark.
Without external validation, where the hell
would I find my spark.
I’ve been searching my soul for the answer to that
for the last six or so years.
In a cycle, I’m temped by the lure of success, and
a salary to stamp out my fears.
When that eludes, I seek something else
to fill the void of the cloak,
but without its defending, hiding role
I find I’m emotionally broke.
Yet once the cloak is exposed as fake
it’s hard to believe it was once real.
My journey now is to create a new life
out of fabric with a softer feel.
I’m facing each day with authentic intent,
Yet the urge is still there, I reckon.
Is my cloak hung up on the hook of beyond,
or does its shield have an unbearable beckon?
inktuition 