Tag Archives: writing

pass the parcel

Posted on by
Reply

Old beliefs wrapped

layer upon layer,

the hidden purveyor

of an age-old game.

Old news leaves

print on my hands,

smudging what’s real

in an unreal world,

where nothing is fixed

all opinions mixed,

as we all pass the parcel.

Until the silence

lands on my lap.

The beat of the music

pausing my mind

as I gently go in,

removing opinions;

discarding them

for the rubbish they are.

The repetitive blah

that fills time and space.

The make-believe stories

we tell ourselves.

The repetitive lies

of not being enough;

that life should be tough.

Living hand to hand,

hand to mouth.

Forgetting life’s a game,

a never ending play

where the one you betray

is only ever yourself.

“There is no means of testing which decision is better…”

Posted on by
Reply

10525708_10152622529154175_9155612567562280185_n

“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, “sketch” is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.” Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

It’s the same old, same old… If another does not know their own mind, their own heart, how can they be ready to embark on anything? I am the same, feeling my way along and through this mortal coil, trying to remain aligned and present and make sense of the uncertainty, that is the human condition. There is no judgement here, not from me anyway. We all seek the same Holy Grail; the mystical marriage of self and from there, a love affair with another. A joining of two hearts and an adventure of discovery, an opportunity to speak our truth and be loved and respected for it.

Is Love therefore the answer to every question? I suspect it underlies everything we seek, both externally and internally of ourselves. It is both the foundations and building blocks of life. It evades us often, especially when we fail to recognize it in ourselves; unable to trust in it fully and feel totally safe just being ‘me’.

I continually try to understand why I am where I am. Why I have met the people I have met, what lessons there are to learn from these encounters and physical interactions.

I’ll put my hands up at this point. Yes, I do tend to rush forward, racing towards an unknown future. Am I any different from you? Everyone, in some way or another, is trying to be true to themselves and that of course can lead to disappointment. It is indeed always disappointing not hearing what you would like to hear; when you catch a glimpse of another like minded soul, only to be pushed away. Don’t I know all too well, that at times what you want and what you need are in opposition and the bugger of that is, you know that is how it sometimes has to be. There is gold to be found in those moments, along with frustration and at times tears. But why am I running scared? Scared to feel emotions, scared not to feel emotions…. Scared of feeling too much, scared of not feeling enough… Scared of getting it totally wrong…

Fear can rule mercilessly. It can bury us in indecision and feelings of inadequacy. It can strip you of your knowing and push you down a path of blinkered illusion. I know this is true. Fear has led me down many dead-end roads. Fear is my unwanted guest, arriving uninvited, with an air of self-importance.

So how can I move past this? How can I remove myself from its scrutiny? I know I am impatient to move past my fears. Impatient to get on with my life unabated by my own misguided limiting beliefs of not being enough. Not being ambitious enough, not being aligned with my life purpose… The ‘not being’ lists are like Kryptonite to my soul.  They strip away my intuition and kill my uniqueness.

Something has shifted in me though. I no longer wish to carry around my own dead weight. I want to shine. I want to dust off my ambition and step forward with a sense of my own worthiness. I want to stop procrastinating and start holding myself accountable to the life I want to be living. This life does not depend on anyone else. It rests solely on my own shoulders. It is my gift to myself. I would be doing myself a great disservice to not hold up my own mirror and honour myself and my gifts.

I want, I want, I want…

What I need however, is to be honest with myself, to believe I am worthy and to keep moving forward.

Manners

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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…

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.