Category Archives: Poetry

Manners

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Manners.

The underpinning foundations

of my character.

Each brick laid,

cemented by behaviour

and a continual rhetoric

of pleases and thank you’s;

letters and notes

dictated by elders,

concerned and ruled

by the opinions of others.

Irony, the cladding

of superficial politeness.

Made to worry

about what others thought;

anxiety taught

from such a young age.

Language is never innocent.

Words braided

into the hair of young girls.

‘Be good!’

Little Red Riding Hood

eaten by the Big, Bad Wolf.

It’s wrong

to love yourself

too much.

Be confident,

but not too confident

lest others think

you know more

and judge you.

Toe the proverbial line

always.

Your reflection,

an illusion;

a hall of mirrors

obscuring yours

and everyone else’s truth,

making you short-sighted.

You overlook yourself,

blinded,

yet continually reminded,

that being good enough

is something to aspire to.

Being, always

just out of reach,

that idyllic beach

photo-shopped only,

in the pages

of glossy misinformation.

You’ll travel far

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Melancholy,
lost my dolly,
threw it from the pram.
Along with toys
and other joys,
but I don’t give a damn.
‘This world’, they said
can give you all,
your heart could ever desire.
How wrong they are,
you’ll travel far
but only if on fire.
With passion burning
in your soul,
to step beyond yourself.
To shed your fear
and change the gear,
create a unique goal.
This world, you see,
spins on a thread
of honesty and trust.
Your angel dust,
the you within
will guide you as you tread.
So walk a path
that’s all your own,
embark on your own course.
Ignore words of others,
those well meant brothers
and feel your inner force.

I remember everything…

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I remember everything…

Bound and gagged by memory.

The sweat forming between our palms,

cold toes seeking a warm calf;

my atoms trying to fuse

into your touch,

to become more than

my own molecules,

more than the DNA of my birth.

I remember everything…

How they spoke in hushed tones,

not comprehending what I heard.

Squirreling away their insecurities,

secretly storing misinformation

whilst my adolescent mind hibernated.

The fat added to my young bones

as I gorged myself in a no-mans land;

exiled to my room for being too much,

exhibiting too much emotion

for all of us to handle.

I remember everything…

Them desperately trying to stem the flow

of the uncomfortable reality of being human.

Distractions so short-lived.

I became mute, playing charades

with an audience blinded and paralyzed

by their own inadequacies.

My voice raised,

only that they should hear

how lost I felt trying to be them.

I remember everything…

How desperate I was to confirm

to their understanding,

to learn the lines of their script,

of a life that can only be improvised.

Rule upon rule became my yard stick,

constraints doing nothing more than

enabling my own dysfunctional mind;

tricking it, confusing it,

beating it into submission

robbing it of innocent fascination

reinforcing lie upon lie;

that the world belonged to everyone but me.

I remember everything…

Another’s make believe world

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I dreamed

I was unworthy,

that my mind was lost.

Criticism became fact,

fiction, a mindless pursuit

as I molded myself;

folding and squeezing

every surplus part of me,

until I was small,

so small,

that I fitted neatly

into another’s box.

The stars above my bed

cast shadows

on the stage,

where I sat

with my back

to the baying audience.

My inner child

was labeled

too childish.

too much,

too loud,

for their adult world.

The room suddenly

as empty

as my mind.

I flinched

as integrity

tried to embrace me,

her touch alien

to my heart.

Yet her kind words

reassured me,

her breath

brushing my skin,

her accepting touch,

tucking a loose strand of hair

behind my ear,

before leading me back to myself.

Waking me up

from my disloyal sleep,

where I had fallen,

inadvertently,

into the depths

of another’s make-believe world.

Starved

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I can’t hear.

I can’t think straight.

My mind and body starved.

Reason fighting with fate,

obstinately refusing to accept

that there is anything wrong.

My body inert,

a barren mass

fighting itself,

fighting its fears.

Scared to step aside

and make way

to hope…

Is it possible?

Possible to become

familiar with yourself?

To accept and acknowledge

every intricacy,

every human nuance?

To discern the purpose;

its value in surrender,

to my own brilliance…?

and imperfection…?

in equal measure.

Back to Black by Amy Winehouse

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He left no time to regret, kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet
Me, and my head high, and my tears dry
Get on without my guy

You, went back to what you knew, so far removed
From all that we went through
And I, tread, a troubled track, my odds are stacked
I’ll go back to black

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to, I go back to, us

I love you much, it’s not enough
You love blow and I love puff
And life, is like a pipe
And I’m a tiny penny rolling up the walls, inside

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
When I go back to

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to

Black, black, black, black
Black, black, black
I go back to
I go back to

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to black