This winged emotion

The darkness swoops down, unfurls its wings and roars.

Chest heavy with the ache only grief can name,

it sets sap to everything, forcing the moment

to solidify: amber for the night, amber for the dawn.

Granted silence at last, it hunkers into itself,

waiting for the deep gashes in its scales to heal.

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Weather warning

The cloud got off the bus, black and heavy

with rumbles already rippling across it.

It had started out light, peaceful cotton,

but was soon forced to drift into a haze of vapour.

Words began to weigh it down

and the darkness spread as lightning grew in its belly.

When finally it stepped through the threshold to home,

the crackles broke out and kicked down the flood gates,

roaring all the while.

 

After, free of all it’d carried,

it settled into a cosy nook of sky

next to the sun’s evening rays,

not a touch of storm in its makeup.

Harbour

The skin on my back is raw,

I feel a niggling at my shoulder blades.

Writhing, a separate entity that I have no control over.

I don’t know how long I can restrain it,

one day it’s going to spike out

as wings.

 

Despair

The photograph shows a cottage, half-built,

support beams visible before the thatch.

I touch them and feel my bones vibrate,

wounds opening up all over my body.

 

Tears run from them, not blood

 

and from the cottage, through the paper to my ears,

comes the shrill whistle of a kettle.

I remember. She always offered me tea.

Water

We call it rain, but could it be tears?

Emotion that we’ve held in so tightly

it had no choice but to cast itself out

in disguise – only to evaporate

at the slightest suspicion its been found out.

Grave Digger

it approaches,

dusk creeping into my skin

but i’m not ready to sleep yet.

i can’t be petrified and forget

the smell of petrichor

as i walk through the long grass

in the mornings.

if it were another’s words

there would be no question that i would fight

but the fractal, small measurement of tar

blocking my ability

to raise fists,

forces me to kneel down and weep

as earth is piled over me.

Building a dam

Troubled gaze,

flashes of haze in the mind

replacing coherence

with an utterance of garbled words.

Grinding out thoughts half-chewed

down the speaking pipe leading to you.

The waterworks called my eyes

also storm in, no surprise

and shut away every important thing

so I’m left rambling.

You understand, I know it happens to you too

and I agree it’s never grand

to be suppressed by your own throat

as it seizes up dry as a deserted moat.

Oh well. We’ll get there.

We’ll just enjoy every moment we have to spare

together.

A thousand

There was a time when revealing any part of ourselves

to others

was something neither of us

could ever do.

We liked to play with illusions and give them out freely,

a cheap ticket to the circus act

we wanted to emit,

concealing with flare and artful tongues

the decrepit conditions

behind the scenes.

But our painted smiles have been washed off,

scrubbed away

until only our blemished, ruddy cheeks remain.

We’ve gone au naturel,

and now our smiles for each other

hold as much power as a thousand

years could bring us.

Drop your guard

When you stand before someone

exactly as you are,

no armour, no shield,

and still have the courage to look into their eyes –

you are strong.

You are raw, and you are real.

And when you let them do the same,

with no judgement,

understanding dawns for both of you.

You might be scared,

but opening chests that have long rusted shut

was never going to be easy.

All you can do is be the net

to catch each other

as your whole spills forth

and slips through your fingers.

Ten thousand steps and counting

We can go years without connecting with anyone.

Passing comments with associates, laughing at their jokes,

offering background information.

Some say that is connecting.

But it’s not.

Not on a level where

all illusions dissipate,

body language relaxes and accents sneak back in

to chilled speech.

Not on a level where you know what the other is thinking,

gather a conversation of meaning

from one gesture

and laugh just from the slight twinkle

in each other’s eyes.

We can go years without that,

and then one day

stumble into the realisation that the right person

was there all along,

and together

you squeeze the friendship

of those years

into a month or two, and go on

as if it’s always been that way.