I feel so raw
when my girl gets called
a loser.
I think so fast
when my love for her
is tossed
in the net of all their taunts.
They’re bigger than her.
So what?
They swagger, they sway
in her face
to stop her winning game.
They’d like to blow right out her light
a candle snuffed before its prime.
Yet in her heart she feels
some bright
that shines way beyond:
oh yes. She’ll have her time.
I win a race. I achieve something great.
Yet the girls in the playground
mock me til I cry and I deflate.
What’s wrong with putting my all
into a sprint I really meant? Yet I bow and say
I’m sorry to the losers who cajole.
Can’t we all be equal partners in the race
of life and love? Or is losing just so shameful
that to want to win is a self-centred disgrace?
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?
People pool, don’t they –
into clique-y groups, fiery moments
and watery, stroppy, wish-we-coulds?
The outsider is a needle in the hay:
the heart is there. The soul
is, surely, connected with the rest.
But the sense of one girl’s skin
waits, crawls, skitters and drools
and skates a lonely figure
on the playground of the cool.
What she needs to do
is treat expectation like a foe.
Why lie down and take it,
when victory’s won versus the lazy?
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.
A writer not writing is a storm that never abates:
it lashes in on itself, its clouds a heavy weight.
A writer not writing is a gift token unused:
its promise of riches fit for recycled refuse.
A writer not writing is a ballet shoe never worn:
never to point or pirouette, it languishes forlorn.
A writer not writing is a star without a twinkle:
a forgotten beat in a universe that’s fickle.
A writer not writing is a heart in arrest:
a soul that’s sunken, sad and suppressed.
A writer not writing forgets what she’s here for.
I made the choice, many months ago,
to write for me, my life, my soul;
not to give my words to a critic so cruel
as to conjure a devilish snarl.
Yes, a red pen has been my roaring trade,
but I administer it with disciplined charm,
not with a stroke of disenchanted rage
whose aim is to destroy and disarm.
Yet my words need an audience to feel alive,
though I don’t need approval, applause.
If I write for others, they own my work:
why on earth would I sell my heart short?
inktuition 