Trust exercise

Experience minds, not just their vessels.

Let them help you peel away your layers

while you do the same for them.

The walls of your fortress will crumble, but that’s okay.

Share the past; stinging words, flashbacks. All.

Allow the memories to be, allow them to mature

and disperse into momentary fizzles.

Know that time eases, but is no ointment.

Keep a jar handy to soothe the welts if

and when they rise.

And communicate. Any way you choose.

Being voiceless does not make you mindless.

Understanding is sourced from so much more

than words.

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The smallest touch

The air rushes past and I can see

the silhouette I’ve left in the gust.

Arms spread, in flight (if it were possible I could muster it)

reaching for the ripples that play about my fingers

as if I might grasp them and pull them in close

to feel their warmth and smell the journey they’ve taken

to get here.

After, I wonder

if they have met me before and that is why

the wind comforts me so.

The kings of our past

Your footprints are swamped by his

no matter how old you get, how tall you grow or how wise.

Because the ghosts will always contort the mirror

so you appear small, a mere cub

hiding in his father’s shadow.

Igneous

The heart stone is solid,

never fading.

Even in grey light

the complex shadows within

can always be summoned by the wielder

for reassurance,

showing every part of the spectrum

until calm has been restored.

Reflections in water

Together from dawn,

deep diving into the world:

symbiotic minds.

Appointment time

Panic. Pre-empting.

All the conversations in my head

overlapping, overcrowding

flashing up memories of childhood.

The willow tree. School gates.

My dad having to leave after accompanying the school

to swimming.

Her face. Her voice. Her screaming in my ears.

It’s all raw. Still raw.

Latched

I walked away. I did.

I failed to see the strings still attached,

the cable wired to my head

to replay

the days during the days during the days.

The smell, the ichor from inside

clinging to me, polluting my thought process

so I cannot build the pathways forward.

I have to sever this connection,

wash away the dirt

so when I look in the mirror,

I see myself and not the paint.

Trauma

it’s a shadow in my brain

a lurking, creeping, whispering thing

that doesn’t shy from light

but swallows it

if I do nothing

if I do nothing

if I do nothing

it will block me in. block, block, block

if I step into it, let it feed off me

and find my blood is its poison

my pulse is its poison

my heart is its poison. beat, beat, beat

it will shrivel up

and become nothing more than a stamp-sized portrait

reminding me that it rules

no longer

a memo note

it happened, it happened

but still I can stride

 

Lost

Your eyes    drift

Hands reach back into drowning pools

to drag you out    alive

you    breathe

and wonder   why

A Haunting

I see ghosts of footsteps all over my world,

my mind palace

is haunted by them

and the words spoken with every tread.

Stamped into my core

so I can never forget them.

 

The footsteps are all different sizes

and some voices I refuse to listen to.

But there is one I love to recall,

and it is the same one

which leaves new ghosts everyday

with words more energetic and meandering than the last.

 

Every so often, I will etch

a line it has spoken

into my breath cloud,

a reminder to you that what you say

will always stay with me.