under my duvet, onesie-d and warm
i’m safe.
at parties with mates, patter from mouth and glass in hand
i’m safe.
in meetings that count, with lipstick and heels
i’m safe.
to show my feelings, expose an emotion
i’m unsafe.
to express on paper the novel within
i’m unsafe.
to say to the world what’s really in my heart
that’s unsafe.
Expose. Hide.
Safe. Unsafe.
Aren’t they both
two sides that chafe?
I can sense it coming: the second I do something
that brings you displeasure.
For want of cliché, I see your face grow dark. Your mouth
becomes taut. I feel the pressure
in my tight little tummy.
I cast around quick for what I’ve done wrong.
Was it my socks that were too separate?
Bedroom too scruffy? Homework left undone?
Or was it my breathing that annoyed you so.
You couldn’t bear noise
when you had one of your heads.
The tiptoeing I did gave me fabulous pointes,
to the stage I could walk without leaving a sound.
But what stretched the bow
to the arrow of your aim
was your tut and your sigh
like the end of world was nigh
just cos I’d pulled out my ribbon
or opened the curtains wrong.
Your rage would instantly shut out
any view that would challenge your own.
You felt the right and the need to shout
at those who needed you most.
A sigh could be on its own
but a tut would precede 7, 8, 9
and then 10. The scariest number of all,
said in the slowest of ways
as a countdown to lash out and hit
if I didn’t shape up, pipe down and sit.
And so to hear your sigh, years after the first
when I haven’t done exactly
as your vision dictates,
a terror strikes the heart of me,
takes my thighs
as my confidence vibrates.
I have no memory of what it was like
but I sense it in faces who see me with spite.
I hear it in their tut
I shudder with their sigh.
I hope this memory is a healing goodbye.
it used to be all about me
now it’s kind of all about them
because when I help all of them out there
I learn things about me in here
and in seeing things about me
I grow and understand more
which helps me understand them
and isn’t that life’s adventure…?
I fill in an online form.
The missed bit just keeps on repeating.
I paint a wall white-as-white brilliant.
The grey bit’s still pale and bleating.
I cook with a heart full of herbs.
The dish, I end up overheating.
I vigorously vacuum the floor.
My nose, the dust motes keep teasing.
I bear my pure soul on the page.
The sneers, they stop my pulse beating.
You give me fleeting hints that you’re looking after me.
You throw me toxic trails that you’re teasing me with glee.
You remind me of my sadness through scents from deep indoors.
You show me cheeky glimpses of the chance to feel restored.
I think you’re trying to prove that
I should relax and get the groove.
But I’m tussling with the tension:
is it far too late to mention
that I’ve kind of got you sussed?
In my soul I totally trust.
If I look at my work through my father’s old lens,
I can only see fatal flaws.
If I look at my work, check down and not up,
I’m only fit for a crippling critique.
If I view my work through his envious look,
I can sense his blue eyes go glazed:
his look can melt my cast-iron talent
to a wobbly, kiln-broken mess.
But the lens through which he has cast his spell
has been buried five years and ten.
At what point can I say ‘enough’ to his hold,
and deny his dream-hogging blitz?
My real dad’s been dead a decade and a half.
But the inner one just can’t let go.
OK, so I’m loyal to my daddy by birth.
But there’s a time and a place for loyalty and guilt.
Instead of looking down my father’s old lens,
perhaps it’s time to write my own script.
I catch myself,
many a time,
living rules of others
that no longer apply.
Still their critical words
will fill my head.
Even though they’re
gone. Passed. Dead.
Their invisible binds
taper me to a past
that served me ill.
When will my ice defrost?
Loss speeds alone; angry car drive
unpleasant. Duck, dive, dodge;
sneaky sideways swerve
leaves the South London visitor
outmanoeuvred. In the funeral lodge,
wishing she’d ever had the nerve
to address the issues she’s never dared.
Long-gone relatives leave memories dislodged.
Maybe black and bruised was all she deserved.
My love in life was seeing the world.
To be precise, it was sunning my soul.
I came alive on my summer holiday:
my skin could cope with all those rays.
My problem was, I couldn’t see beyond
those speckles of sun. I was just too fond
of easy-bronzed skin to see that my girls
were curled to wizened, before-their-time whirls.
A strip of hurt they might just tolerate
but, in later years, they felt victims of Fate.
It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t really know
that love and abuse could be bedfellows.
I thank the wisdom of my first-girl is called
to cancel the bits that left her appalled.
She learnt from me how to be what I’m not:
she’s now reaching out to heal what I hurt.
Ten years of non-life,
as dementia kicked in
were still the breathing years.
I’ve got maybe 40 years left
to live or non-live,
depending on what I fear.
What I can’t get over
is the flick of the fatal switch
from here to not-here.
inktuition 