poetic

There is something poetic about going to a poetry night with a failing voice.   Sore and raw.  Where it is a struggle to speak.  Then leaving so tired yet so inspired that it hurts to swallow your words.  I can speak with my hands so this shouldn’t be a problem.  I can express my inner most thoughts, secrets and confessions and lay them out in space.  Leave them there as an offering of myself.  But when no one understands, they hang, like a morning fog between us that just won’t clear.

So I have sat in silence for five days.  My brain all a haze.  These thoughts wafting through my head like smoke, slipping through my fingers.  These thoughts that won’t behave, won’t sit quietly on a page.  These thoughts that are not ready to be heard. 

I need to be patient with these thoughts.

can you keep a secret

I have a secret.  I could list every person who knows.  That is the best thing to do with a secret, periodically take a mental roll call of the keepers of the undisclosed. Make sure new names on the list are checked with character references.  ‘Does not associate with other involved parties.’  I can’t let it get out.  This whole operation would fold.  Every time you bring a new person into the inner circle you lose a little bit of control.  You give it to someone else. You strip off a layer of armor.  My heart needs all the protection it can get.  I’m so careful I sometimes keep the secret from myself.  I can’t risk it.  So I will continue to hold my tongue, to keep mum, to keep quiet, to hide the effects.  To keep the peace.

command the sky

The moon stole my breath tonight, though I would just as gladly have given it.   Hung so low and large, shepherd to the stars.  Commanding the sky be still.  His dimples and defects tell of the battles fought and won. Of times long past.  I wished to sit and listen to tales of the things he had seen, with no regard for the ties I had made with the day.  But now to sleep, I will offer up my breath soon again.

awake

let sob

A sob for every realization.  Each one from a deeper part of my chest.  My ribs heave to take in air for that is all I can manage.  Tears fall to page. Freeing ink to run. Escape.  Even it can’t stand to be here.  My hand won’t leave my mouth in some vain attempt to keep my grief in.

There is no resolution. Yet. Though there will.

second hand

I’m not one for New Year resolutions.  I have never made one before. I’ve not made long lists of well meaning intentions for improvement with ‘I will not strive so much’ lost somewhere down the dot points. Though ironically such lists exist. Sadly, motivation of others around me seems to peter out as the digits flip over and increase.  Days. Months. Those who were clinging soo tightly to the belief that with the passing of the second hand across it’s highest point that night the past will be forgotten. Slate wiped clean.  ‘This year I will do better. Be better.’  Soon their backs are whipped by their own whips for failing to succeed at everything they had promised to succeed at because it was written on a ’to-do’ list for the new self. So it must be so. 

To say that I don’t feel the pull to put pen to paper would be declaring a false freedom from all this that I wish I could avoid.  But I refrain.  I understand the symbolism behind a new year being as a new start but if you screw it up you have to hold onto that for much longer than is healthy.  A resolution is meant to be a way of articulating something about yourself that you would like to change but the stakes need not be soo high.  That second hand passes it’s start point every 60 seconds so there is no need to hold on to your own feelings of failure.  By all means pursue your dreams, strive to do better, we were not designed to grow stagnant, but make it your everyday.  Change because you want to, not because a calendar tries to make you take a long hard look at yourself.  Make a decision to change on the 3^rd of March and be ok with the start date. 

dust of artist past

Dust of artist past.  As time moves on a building stands still, a shadow of its former self.  The beauty and elegance dulled by age and neglect.  The shallowest of breaths as to not alert others of her presence. That this once grand lady be allowed to fade on her terms. Alas, unable to flee from the men who seek to remove her heart.  The very heart that once pulsed life through the bricks and mortar like veins... Darkrooms used as storerooms. Playhouse now warehouse. Playwrites lament for they know its not right. The birthing suites of such creativity now abused and left for dead.  The art forms which began their journey here have journeyed on and scarcely think to look back.  Abandoned.  Surviving on the memories of glory past though slowly losing her battle as she chokes on box upon box of stuff.