The Wee Folk of the Wishing Well

So you see, so you see,
So they say, so they say,
What happens at the crossroads in the twilight
In the gloaming
Can you see? Can you see?
Dare you say? Dare you say?
What you saw? Whom you met?
At the crossroads in the twilight
On a warm autumnal evening…

(Follow the stairs down the side of the hill,
Follow the path twixt the ivy-hung trees,
Follow the spit alongside of the Sound,
Follow us into the mossy green haunting…)

Find the place past the troll’s bridge,
Where the cloverleaf ramps thrive
In the brambled, ivied hills,
To the wheel-spoke splay
Where the roads cross thrice.

At the twilight there, in the gloaming,
The light shines upon the path
To the wishing well.
The path is only there on odd nights
When the worlds align
In the twilight, in the gloaming.

Find the well, the wishing well,
Amongst the trembling aspens
The well where they drop down wishes
Like coins upon our heads:
Send a babe, turn a head, spark a love, play a game;
Drop a lure, catch a look, act the muse, stop a pain.
We polish up the wishes they drop
Like coins upon our heads,
Shine them up till bright they gleam,
And then we send them back,
Wishes granted, though perhaps
Not quite as they would think
In the twilight, in the gloaming

Those well-wishers rarely give us thanks
But still we grant the wishes that fall
Like coins upon our heads,
Cos that’s what well-wishing’s for.

Should I Then Presume?

I cannot fight this battle alone, but the other soldiers have left the field. They have gone to fight other battles -- and not unimportant ones, because the downtrodden are always worth championing, and the cause will always be a siren song for those who seek justice and peace.

My own battle is for my heart and my mind. But my heart and my mind ache and bleed for others’. I want to cry and scream and make myself be seen as me -- only as myself, unique. But I want to hide, to bury myself in a cause, to bring others to the light, to save souls, and let the glory fall where it may.

I need comfort, but I want to give more than I take; my reserves are run dry, and I have nothing to offer the world. My perspective is skewed and my wit is dulled. My mind wanders and my heart wants too much. What have I to offer those who look to me for anything at all?

Nothingness. Both terror and solace, heaven and hell. To be one with the void -- but I fear the void. To rest, in dreamlessness, forever. But I fear to lose myself, the root of all that is me. Not my mind (that comes and goes) and not my heart (it beats too wildly for that which it cannot have), but something else, larger than the sum of parts, greater than a cohesive whole, without which, I will simply cease.

The cessation of the self, given up without a struggle, is both idyll and idle, something to contemplate, but not to achieve. I cannot enter that space which is nonspace, for I know that I cling too much to my corporeal, fragile existence.

Not to suggest violence, but simply letting myself go, dissolving and becoming part of a greater mystery.

And how should I begin?

sum of the whole

I am afraid. I am tired.
(be bold, child.)
I am hurting. I am sad.
(heal. hope.)
I am broken. I am angry.
(be whole.)
I am aimless. I am restless.
(learn to be determined.)
I am timid. I am weak.
(time to be fierce.)
I am cold. I am drab.
(let the fire burn.)
I am mad. I am lost.
(find imagination.)
(breathe.)
(rest.)
(be.)

(let go of the weight of the world.)

Why wish upon a star...

My lucky stars were all long dead
before ever I saw their light--
yet I prayed most every night
to those ghosts of flame.
What good can come of worshipping
gods who passed this world by
and departed before the mind formed,
before my eyes opened
and saw the expanse of sky?
There is naught left but the sundry
corporeal world, the toil and moil
of simply being that is this mortal coil,
the well of the soul long run dry.
My praying lips are parched
from too often drinking moonlight.

I need a bigger box

I need a bigger box
for all the things I feel
all the time that crowd me,
hem me in, and indeed overwhelm.

I need a bigger box
to put away all the pains
that creep in on me
and rest upon my shoulders,
that curl up in my lap,
that drape themselves
around me like a shroud.

I need a bigger box
to fit all the miles of road
I have already put behind me,
and one for all the miles of road
I have still ahead.

I need a bigger box because
my current compartmentalisation
system is simply insufficient.

My Valley of Unrest

How long has it been
since I left this place?
How many secrets have
come to rest here
since last my feet trod
this path,
how many more ways
of saying ‘no’ have
fallen from my lips?

I used to fear this place,
the place of denial,
the place of 'without.'
It hemmed me in,
when all around,
just out of reach,
was a lush and fertile plain
that stretched out to Beyond.

I said ‘yes’ here once,
and it almost unmade me.
How then can I say ‘yes’ again,
knowing, as I do, what
that one word can cost?

puzzling pieces

Sometimes I wish I could take every feeling
and put them into an old-fashioned hat box
with a slot in the lid just wide enough to slip
them in. Then I could open the box and take
each feeling out, quietly, thoughtfully, one at
a time; examine its worth, assess its meaning,
ponder its implications, and figure exactly
where it fits in the jigsaw puzzle of my heart.

Thank You

How do I thank someone
for doing something that
others find distasteful?
Or disrespectful? Monstrous,
even, in some ways? How do
I thank someone for finding
a boundary in my heart
(my body, my mind)
and pushing his hardest
against it, despite knowing
it could all end in disaster?
(It did not; there was rapture
and begging for more.)
How do I thank someone
for finding beauty in a part
of me that I always found
shameful or embarrassing?
How do I thank someone
for unlocking my heart
in a way I didn’t know
I needed until it cracked
wide open? How do I thank
someone for all these things,
when he himself rejected
everything we did together?
How do I tell him that I am alright?
More than alright--I am finally free.
How can he believe me when
all he sees is brokenness
and misery and dysfunction,
when what is really there
is openness and joy and synergy?
There is always give and take,
on every side of this equation,
and nothing would have happened
if consent had not been freely
(enthusiastically, joyfully) given.
So how do I say thank you, Sir,
when last we spoke,
you disavowed the heart
in you I loved so much?

Scars Linger

‘Memories fade but the scars still linger…’
-Tears for Fears

Once acid spilled, seeped
between my toes. Webbed
the flesh, melted it and
fused the pieces together.
Made knobbly bits of raised
burns that took ages to heal.
I remember how it felt
to walk when the skin
puckered and stretched,
tried to scab over
but needed to be cleaned
so often, scabs never formed.

Working a piece of soapstone
with the wrong tools
in art class at a public
school, and the wedge-shaped
carving knife slipped
and sliced the fleshy part
of my palm, extending
the heart line with a bright
red slash that bled into my
cupped hand, then washed away
in a splash of pink
in the stainless steel sink.
The skin tried to knit
back together right away
and kept pulling apart
whenever my hand moved.
Finally, all that was left was
a thin white line reaching
from the natural divot
in my palm all the way
to the side of my hand.

A round bulb of flesh
nestled against my sternum
just above my breasts
soft to touch, the evidence
of my stubbornness being
outdone by my body
rejecting a piercing
I kept forcing on it.

The part in my hair
on the left side,
brushing my pixie cut
forward from a cowlick
on the back of my head
exposes the thin cut
on my scalp where
my head collided
with a steel fence post
in a moment of
misperception. Hidden
by long, thick hair
for years, unremarked.

Three-quarters of an inch
of raised, pink flesh
a hand span from my pelvic
bone, just below the hairline
below the waistband of my
pants, where once I had
a mark distinctive to me,
that if someone saw just
my body, would know
was me instantly. Now it is just
a slash, and I had no say
in whether I wanted it removed.

Each scar on this pale and
fragile body, each cut made
in this thin skin, every hurt
that drew carmine drops,
and I can recall how I got
each one. The scars on
the inside of my right wrist,
on my left knee, right elbow,
chin, temple, collarbone,
at the nape of my neck.
I remember the needles,
the knives, the doctors,
the asphalt, the bicycle,
the bottle I dropped.
But somehow, I have
forgotten where
some of the scars
in my soul originated.

written 3 April 2016

Other Words (3/**)

I am not like you.
But we are alike
in our otherness,
aren’t we? You have
words that belong
to you; I have no words,
because I am not
other enough. I am
too much a part
of the sameness
of the ‘us,’ rather than
the ‘them.’ You exist
in a space separate.
I exist in a space in
between. But between
seems so far
from either place,
like a bubble outside
of time and space.
It is the void I fear.


written 8 April 2016
**third in a series, total number of parts unknown

Hidden Costs

The doctors told me
this was what was best
for me, and maybe they
were right. I can see
the benefits already, but
they did not tell me the costs--
not the true costs, anyway.
Six weeks of recovery, with
nothing but the demons
in my head to make
their unholy racket.
Six weeks of being unable
to silence their slander.
Huddled in my home, alone
and injured. Listening
to others discuss their successes--
or else their disappointment
at my choices. My body,
my pain, my parts, and now,
my scars. But like everything
else, it is always about how
my choices affect them.
Never about how
my choices affect me.


Written 19 April 2016

My own private war

The thing about depression is that it is an agony without an externally visible cause. There is no scraped knee or spasming muscle or laceration of tissues to explain the pain of the existential crisis, and this is why it is so hard to believe it should be (and can be) acknowledged and parleyed with like any other hurt of the physical body.

I have this pain, you see,
(no, you cannot see--
there is nothing to see,
no broken bone,
nor grievous wound,
nor fever, nor spasming
muscle: not even a scratch)
this agony inside me.

No visible cause,
nothing to bind,
no obvious need
to splint or salve,
nothing to say,
‘This is why I hurt.’

And even when it lies
quiescent below
the surface of thought
it aches in the most
tender and secret
parts of my mind.

And I have no choice
in the matter: I must
rise each day to do
battle against
an unseen, unknowable,
intractable foe: crafty,
devious, cunning,
deceptive and deadly.

Exorcism Pending

Hello ghost of my past -- I did not know
you haunt me still. I thought (foolishly)
you were banished -- laid to rest in a tomb
unknown to me; unmarked by memory;
worn by time; until the very bones that
held you up were ground to dust and ash
and blown away. But here you sit, perched
on my shoulder, filling me with the dread
that my past is not yet past enough, time
has not yet passed in its fullness for me
to be free of the chains you forged within
my heart of fire; how was I to know my very
soul would bind me up in you in ways
unforgivable; inescapable; incontrovertible;
incomprehensible? You shattered the forge;
you scattered its ashes. All that is left
in the dark, in the earth, is the ember of me
that must grow to a fury to set me free.

Into the Woods

The woods are just trees,
The trees are just wood.
~Stephen Sondheim

What happened here? Did I take a wrong turn?
I fear I cannot see the path that led me this far.
I see the trees of the wood; who fears trees?
But the light is not good here in this wood,
And I fear I may have lost my way.
I fear the dark, for the night hides in its depths
the things that lurk out of sight, preying
on those unaware, or of lesser might.
I am small and fragile and not at all strong.
I long to be away from here, from this place
where, no matter where I turn, I cannot see
whence I have come or whither I go.
If one is not predator, then must needs one be prey?
I cannot go on and on and on, along paths
unmarked to destinations unclear, but
neither can I stay here for the night, fearing
what waits for me to sit a while, takes its time
to stalk closer, muffled in the murky shadows,
padding softly closer on clawed paws, teeth
long and sharp, ready to rend my tender
flesh when I stop to rest for just a moment.
No, I shall find no safe quarter in this wood,
nor can I find my way out again, for the way
in is not the way out; through is the only way
and the journey is a long and treacherous trek,
but they say the rewards will be beyond
anything imagined or imaginable.

Sobriety

I drink too much on occasion;
I smoke too much sometimes,
too; I take drugs every day; no
it’s not you it’s me. Really. Inhibitions?
I don’t have them. I know how
to say, I want this. I fancy you.
Please kiss me. But still,
I don’t let you see me sober.
Sobriety is a curse -- it is me
stripped bare and saying, See
how damaged I am? See the pain?
The fear? The insecurity and doubt?
See where I come unravelled, where
I am frayed and worn, where you
can see the light shine through
because I have no substance left,
at all. See where I come undone.
I fill myself with cloudy smoke
to obscure what I truly am -- to hide.
It is putting on a mask, or perhaps,
wrapping myself in a shroud. It is
comforting, calming, centring.
You don’t believe me; that’s okay.
Or maybe you’re not sure. I still
won’t let you see me sober.
Because, let me tell you, me sober?
I’m not what you think I am. I am
not who you think I am. I am not
the inquisitive, intelligent creature,
with an open smile or an easy laugh.
I am a darkling thing. Furtive.
Irrational. And sober, I do not have
my voice. Sober, I -- me -- myself--,
am not the strongest; I’m not the one
that is heard. This body, sober, isn’t me.
Someone else comes in
when the drugs wear off.
She walks like me, she talks like me --
but she isn’t me. I don’t want
you to meet her. Not yet. But someday,
you will look into her eyes. Will you
see me there, deep inside, standing
in her shadow? Will you see me
scream in silence? Will you see that
when I go mad, I do not go anywhere at all?
Will you see her and think she is me?
My sobriety is where she lives -- where
she rules -- where she is in control. So,
I don’t want you to see me sober.
Because I fear you won’t see me.
You will see her -- and she’s a fucking monster.
Let me keep her under lock and key.
Just a little longer. So maybe --
by the time you meet her --
maybe you’ll fight to keep me instead.

Scott Expedition, 100 Years Later

What hubris was it
that grabbed hold
of his brain--
what madness seized
him, and said: Here,
where others failed
and died, here
I shall succeed;

In that remotest
part of the world
where there is no
night for months,
no horizon, no markers
by which to navigate.
Just the punishing
expanse of glacial
landscape in every
direction; no sea
and no sky, just
bare white desert
stretching infinite.

The bright yellow
sledges and red
rucksacks and blue
parkas were the only
colours to bend the eye.

And then, with
a headwind the whole
way for the first
nine hundred miles,
the two-man team
ran out of food.
Grit and determination
failed, gave way
to hypothermia
and malnutrition,
and there were times
he wanted to give up,
to die in the desert
of endless white noon.

Starving, ready
to lie down
in the snow,
'utterly pathetic,'
he radioed for supplies.

Sitting, eating
the smoked salmon
and cream cheese
on crackers before
resuming their journey
in the fabled footsteps
of the ill-fated Capt.
R. F. Scott (buried
under the ice),
he contemplated
his own failure
to complete this journey
unassisted, with only
what he could carry.

But surely the man
who died alone a century
past in the cold
on that shelf of ice
at the very edge
of the known world
would not begrudge
his successors' success.


written 17-02-2016

repaired

Take the fragments
of this clay pot
(broken into pieces
against the wooden table,
fallen to the floor)
and paint the seams with gold.
Fit them back together
and fire them in the kiln;
Life exists after death,
and light shines bright
in darkest spaces.
My body is the clay
vessel, made of the earth,
and of the sea, hardened
by the sun, and shattered by
the world; paint my scars
with gold dust and make
my brokenness beautiful.

Falling

i am falling -- falling
falling in(to the void)
falling out (of love
with the world)
falling on (my knees)
falling up falling down
all around and back
again -- just constant
(constant constant)
constantly falling through
(space and time)
((place and purpose))
plummeting plunging
lunging lifting
and out and over
up begets down
and out chases in
(round and round)
and through
(through -- through)
falling through (him)
and (her) and (me)
and (we) and (they)
and (you) falling into
us and them
same and other
others fall with
fall against fall
fall back to down
fall down to out
twice and thrice
and once again
there is all and
naught and in
between the fallen
sacred spaces
(falling into ruin)
((falling in the dust))

Self-Consciousness

Take your fingers, my love,
and trace the scars. Here,
down the curve and underneath
the skin is hard, bubbled up
where the knife cut,
where the flesh parted,
where a piece of me came away.
Touch me where I am now
less than I was, with this
smooth, shiny reminder
of being more. I will close
my eyes as your hands explore
the new story my body
has to tell.

Means and Ends 2

How it must feel
to shed all that density
that life-preserving fat
to feel the body split.
Is it transformation
or simply emergence?
Thin and fragile and cold
having only the fur enough,
stretched out like a rug,
on which to lie.