poetry, word doodles and other writing stuff
Your footfalls echo through the dark.
Somewhere the owl hoots
swift wings gliding.
She lays awake waiting,
night after night, moon after moon.
Lest she misses your ghostly attendance.
Bringing both,
solace and pain
to tortured grief.
The foxes’ sinister bark breaks through the night.
You pause in one another’s presence,
Two restless spirits,
one spectre, one flesh.
I have been thinking about you all day.
The day after.
It began the moment I passed the robin.
An almost spring morning.
Life assuring song on top of his lungs.
Witch hazel blooming.
The first day after death.
When you are faced with the facts that:
And you, you are left behind.
Not quite at the same pace with everyone else.
Not quite in the same space with everyone else.
Still with the one who left.
Yet utterly bereft.
Hot air created foam in rich milk.
You can’t taste the pain au chocolate.
All noise is behind a thick glass wall.
One foot in front of the other going no where.
Ice cold wind slashed your face unbeknownst.
The last roar of winter passes you by.
And you, you are left behind.
Darkness within
Sick mind
Suffering soul
Caring for things that don't matter
While breaking the ones that do
You have been lost for so long
Your self righteousness has become your guiding light
Trapped in delusions and unspoken woes
My grief won't save you
True Colours
@storyfae
Hold your loved ones close. Family doesn’t need to be genetic. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Talk about what matters.
You are in a hole
6 feet under
I image a worm crawling through your eye socket
It’s all a bit Tim Burton in my head right now
Ashes to ashes my arse
Buffet for the creepy crawlies
More like it
Nurture nature
Fair enough
But you weren’t supposed to
43
That’s no age to just drop dead
Not as in drop dead gorgeous
No just dead
Stop
End
Fin
You were supposed to live forever
Because ending isn’t anything
I can grasp yet
It makes a hollow sound
The end
I walk under water
All is muted
I expect you to just come walking out of the barn
Or drive down the dirt path
It’s just stopped
Your life
But you echo everywhere
The space is still holding you
It hasn’t realised you are gone yet either
It’s not just me
Disembodied steps each night
In mum’s bedroom
Always the same time
I feel you sit on my bed
There is movement
Presence
I heard the steps
But you can’t
Can you?
Be there
I cry until there is nothing left
Tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth
Can’t breathe through my nose
I scream into my pillow
I don’t know where to put
All that pain
The confusion
The anger
So I want to stop too
Just stop
How dare world go on without you
Don’t they know
That it can’t
I can’t
Keep going on being
Holding the weight of the black hole
That was ripped onto my chest
That night
That night when I was away
And laid crying awake
Not knowing why
Until early morning
Mum showed up
To take me back home
Numb
I sit in the back of the car
Not even get to shotgun
There’s a dude there
Your colleague
Mum couldn’t drive alone
I was too far away
She in shock
It makes a hollow sound
The end of childhood
Some people are a point of truth in your life
They are there, indisputable fixtures
Reliable in their theirness
You always know what to expect
In his case
Stubborn, hot-tempered, loyal, caring, cheeky
Full of integrity
What was right was right, and wrong was wrong
There was no budging
No grey zones
94 is a good life you say
Doesn’t make it easier
To see him go
Good bye
For now
facsimile of sound
reverberating shadows
of empty days gone by
nights cried through
your smell
your arms
your warmth
your patience with my million questions
when you died
footsteps echoed
during bad nights
in my room
in mum’s room
Where you making the rounds?
Mourning
Time lost
Opportunities lost
My heart breaks
Every day
Watching you wait
I worry
Every day
That the sadness will take over
Engulf you too much
I am sad
For them
I know how no dad feels like
The echo is still painful
The border between
The three of you
Isn’t permanent
But it might as well be
The Mexican wall
Is her manipulation
As intangible as the other narcissist’s dream
But solid and prohibiting
All the same
They are lost on the other side
With no way to cross
Their covert and overt attempts
Scrambled
Under a gaslight burning so much oxigen
They can’t breathe anymore
Meanwhile you try to build wings
With duct tape so old it won’t hold anymore
Meanwhile you try to build a bridge
But the Lego bricks are brittle
Meanwhile you try to make a door
But the rusty hinges are jammed
You never know if they know
Off your attempts to scale the wall
You never know if they think
You abandoned them
That’s what’s on the propaganda channels
All day
All night
No matter how often they try to change the channel
They do not see your pain
They do not see your grief
They do not see your sadness
They do not see your broken hopes
The radio is too loud
There is some advertisement in-between the propaganda
Positive reinforcement with expensive presents
The media output is relentless
The words are vile
They cannot hear you hammer
They cannot hear you cry
Life is: watching a loved one’s sun set.
When sadness is all you know
And in the morning you get up
And you try to find an inch of caring
And you paint on a smile
And you moisturize your frown
And you put on your armour
All black, all red, a stunning dress
Yoga pants and tunic
Anything, everything to hide behind
Do not see me–
Get distracted by my armour–please!
Do not see me–
As I fade into the background–please!
I can’t fade.
I am too much.
Too obvious.
Too present.
And then there are words faster than my brain tumbling out unsuspectedly.
So I hide.
Behind my armour of distraction.
Homemade–my silent prayers woven into the fabric.
Not even dragon claws could cut through.
So you carry the hills, the wood, the sea, within. Anchors in a wild wild world.
You might carry faith, belonging, love.
You might carry anger, pride, resentment.
Opposing mechanisms for the same purpose: To keep you save
In this wild wild world, from whom you need to hide your pain.
If only you would talk
If only you would listen
Or entertain a thought
A thought to understand
There is so so much more
Much more you could imagine
You think you know the truth
But there are lies you cannot fathom
If only you would come
Come face to face somewhere
If only you would brave
The time with him and her
I think all you would see
Is so so so much love—love unconditionally
Although it’s not the love
That lets you away with inanity
It’s love that holds accountable
Us to one another
But none of that gets solved
By pulling down the shutter
The shutter is so easy
A safe space to hide
It is the false illusion
That let’s us keep our pride
But is the cost of pride
Worthwhile all the shunning
Is the cost of ego
Leading you into the traps of someone cunning
Because if we cannot see
Beyond our pulled down shutter
How can we ever truly see
The ‘me’ of one another
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
for Abi
Poetry by Nathalie 