Fight Against

Folded neatly,

crinkle free,

you fill the box up generously

with spare clothing for your next adventure

here, knowing I’ll

keep it daisy-fresh, water pure.

We may part this night,

yes, it wounds me inside,

but we won’t let it become a tide.

I know, despite all that’s uncertain

that the fates have yet

to pull down this curtain.

We’ll be Atlas and hold up the sky

together, you and me,

our bond a permanent tie.

 

 

Advertisement

Surroundings

The earth talks to me.

The vibrations spur my feet on,

coaxing me to see with my body,

not just my eyes.

How much I miss by looking,

how much I see when my eyelids are shut.

Nice Trip

I’ve been known to trip on air.

And not merely stumble,

but fall headfirst into

 

a tree, lamppost, grass, concrete.

 

Some times are more painful than others.

 

People tell me it’s lack of attention,

that my head

is so far in the clouds

I can’t see what’s right in front of me.

But I promise you,

it’s just air.

 

How can I avoid air?

 

Now don’t be silly, even if

I hold my breath,

it’ll still be around me.

 

My theory is a little different.

I think I get drunk

on the vibrancy in my head

and the earth gets jealous.

It believes it can never

live up

to such standards,

and so seeks to jog them

from my mind.

 

What it forgets

is that in order to think

such wonderful, impossible things,

I must first learn to appreciate

the real, the possible.

 

Otherwise, there is no foundation

for me to then sculpt with.

Here We Are

So you want to know

what your closed eyes are missing?

 

Take my hand and I shall show you.

 

I’ll take you down to the stream

and let you dip your fingers in the cool water,

let you feel how the rocks break and curl the flow

and how the small fish

shy from your wake.

 

I’ll take you up hills and obscure paths,

hold your arms out wide

so you can be swept away by the wind

to fall easily among the long grasses and fallen catkins

that cheekily kiss your skin.

 

I’ll take you to forests where the rain has just eased

and the scent of wet earth and crisp leaves

rises to meet you with every stride,

while the birds flit overhead deep in song

and squirrels scamper up trees,

only to chitter angrily when you stray too close.

 

And after all that,

I’ll draw your hands to my face as I smile,

so you can feel each muscle lift, each crease of my eyes deepen

and feel the heat rise to my cheeks

as you finally blink awake

and look at me fully, gaze locked with mine.

 

Root Ball

I’m standing on a platform

that I used to think was my world.

Every so often, I would see glimmers off in the distance and wonder

what they were.

Now those glimmers have extended roots

to latch onto my platform, so that it is not a platform anymore

but part of a greater whole that I never knew existed.

I can now walk to them

any time I wish

and sink into their greeting, unafraid

of judgement, knowing above all that I’m accepted

and always will be.

Inner eye

The world is a pearl in an eye full off possibilities.

It reflects the river that sounds so fully in your mind;

roaring and strong and always surging on

catching drifting thoughts and forming them

into something solid and proud.

 

Eyes

Eyes on a stranger’s face. Even blind

they can frame a person’s thoughts – windows in and out

are still windows if they’re glazed or frosted.

Seeing isn’t the only thing they can do.

 

Looking directly might hurt, like the sun. It’s okay

if you feel that way, distance and focus points help.

 

They might wash over you; a gentle wave on the coast.

More often than not, they will judge you, even if it’s unintentional.

Society might as well have us drink poison for all the filth we’re fed.

We can dress them up, paint them pretty colours

or frame them like precious art.

 

We can ignore them if they linger too long.

 

We can learn their greeting, learn their reluctance,

learn that everything and nothing might be hidden behind them.

The moon and the world

It rises,

like a bubble to the lips of the sea,

arcing overheard,

radiant

with its silver blush.

Its fingers reach

for the other’s outstretched hand,

their yearning concrete enough

to swell the chest of the shore.

Return to sender

I don’t want to stand out here in the dark

waiting for a train that may never come.

All the others have been collected,

but no-one wanted me.

They looked at my identity, flicking the tag

away in disgust. Waving me off.

 

It’s quiet now that the crowd has gone.

And cold. I wonder if my parents ever considered

that no-one would take me in.

I was sent away. Now I’m being sent back,

returned to sender. I am useless

like the unused gas mask around my neck.

 

In the museum.

Haze. Frost across the future

in an eggcup full of water

in a statue’s cupped hands

in a child’s shoe.

Tinted.

Refracting red.

Wheat fields rise:

golden, new.

A heady scent bottled and archived –

a summer in the West.

Before the fall.