Them
I lived with the volume high,
anchored between their protests
and stillness,
which never turned them off.
I lived with my head buried.
I didn’t want to take
their problems with me,
nor judge and deliver
the awful verdict.
The shouting floored the house.
The sudden lurch of a room
knocked me into a bedroom cell.
I lived with their weapons,
their fights,
conflicts were nailed down hard
in my head.
The fear of what could come next
was always present.
It lived with me,
but the real me
was never there.
Roller Coaster
It was going to be the perfect escape,
they wouldn’t find me above the trees.
They wouldn’t see me circling clouds
diving in and out, drinking their fuel.
It was going to be my last day on Earth,
I’d wished them well, said my goodbyes.
They wouldn’t think to look that far,
they wouldn’t even know, I no longer cried.
If legs won’t hold you, then take to the sky
sit down and grip those rubbery poles,
let your chair soar up that metal hill,
let it reach the top and slice the air in two.
If legs won’t walk, then dangle them below,
have them lift no weights in this world of nothing,
have them leave behind steps on untidy ground,
have them drag no more with tired groans.
It swirled me round through a corkscrew of steel
took me to the side, top and bottom of the curves,
left me giddy, my stomach flung to the sea,
but I never found the spark on this blurry ride.
I must have bought the wrong ticket! I ripped it in half,
it never took me to the Planet New −
a place that was waiting with high spirits and cures,
it travelled straight back down to my broken start.
With heavy legs, they heaved me off
let me stagger past that queue of believers.
With a belly full of sick, bouncing inside,
they told me to try again - join the line.
Stand Ready
(after Walt Whitman)
And if the body were empty
could it be stacked with bricks
underneath, holding you up,
but if the body were a wall
would it ever carry you forwards?
And if the body were only water
would it stop running,
ripple a moment of unease,
or surge to the edge of a promise?
Because what makes the body hold on,
be fuelled with a force that knows to stand ready?
I suspect in every day there is a whisper:
in the silk of young skin,
a sound still nuzzling inside.
If a body stands open, it will know it’s there.
Flights, Issue Nine, June 2023
Flight of the dragonfly 