Poison Pen Letters to Myself (3 page)

Every word I say

Every move I make

Asleep or awake

Every choice I choose

Every path I tread

Followed or led

Won’t go unnoticed

By unseen eyes

Wet or dry

Won’t go unnoticed

By unseen ears

Far or near

Won’t go unnoticed

By unseen lips

Spoken or silent

Won’t go unnoticed

By unseen fists

To hold or hit

Those eyes strive

To watch and see

Everybody

Maybe too busy

To see

Little me?

You breathe mystery

Hold as if embracing insecurity

Sense still a mask behind the make up

A treasure within guarded defensively

Watch and read

Your body speaks, your eyes speak

They bring forth the springtime wells

Yet conquer not the dry mouth desert heat

I am torn in two

To mother you

To heal you

To bold as brass

Sup your glass

Dry as bone

Serving mine own

Speak to me

Weep to me

Bleed to me

For we are weak when lonely

Dancing around a new emotion

Each as hunter

Each as prey

Stepping forward in armour

And dancing away

Fire in the dark hall

Be I moth to your flame

Read me, read my scars

Familiar with pain

Read me willing and unashamed

Look to me

Faint smile

Arms wide…

Don’t play these games with me

You don’t seem to realise

You can’t push me, pull me

Make me cry and compromise

Don’t try to control me

You just don’t seem to understand

I won’t beg

Bleed

Love

Or fear you

I will never take you by the hand

Love me

Love me not

I really don’t care

Don’t give a fuck

Want me

Want me not

We will stay in this awkward place

Until you have the guts to spit in my face

Hear me

Hear me not

I don’t need you to make me be

I don’t want you

You are nothing to me

You can vie for superiority

Because deep down you feel second best

You can keep trying to push me down

Just proves you are no better than the rest

Feel the need to put one over on me

Just shows your own stupidity

I will never change

I will always be

The one confirming your inferiority

The fear of depravation

Is the result of the unknown

The freak who cries alone

The conformity of a nation

Is the result of constant selling

The underground now telling

Of a tribe ever rising

Reaching dizzy heights of difference

In a land of song and dance

The media forever lying

About members misunderstood

A bloody band

A cult

A hood

But bloody we stand together

Without guilt, fear or shame

Laughing with personalised pain

And rise we will forever

In new forms of frightening strangeness

Grinning at you from the darkness

Hold me through your tears and mine

Kiss me one more time

Split second choices, a lifetime long

When I wake it hurts to find you gone

I watched you as you walked in

I saw the love that you feel for me and I was annoyed

I don’t know where your love comes from

A need to be loved

A need to own possess undress

I closed my eyes to shut out the prying fingers

The tentacles of concern close in

So tired now

Just want to sleep

Dream that I enjoy sex

Once upon a time

Dream that I enjoy touch, love, hugs

Once upon a time

I don’t understand the crashing in my head

The lack of security in my bed

I adored the feeling of being

Once upon a time

I adored the needing, feeding, receiving

Once upon a time

Now I don’t know if it’s mine

Or just yours

You left me tea

And time to breathe

I wake up

Put on my make up

Paint on a smile over the sigh

And wonder about once upon a time

It was a terrible day

Of thunder and rain

The sunshine so far away

So I crept and crawled

To face all the things I did not want to say

And pulled my way

Into a smiling frame

Soon it felt unreal

And I hated my own untruth

But I found that the lie

Belied

The reality of unreality

And all the opportunities

That arise

I still smiled

And cringed

And listened to my own words of advice

Spoken from necessity

I heard myself

Reflected in another’s eyes

I saw all they see

And realised why they need me

Not for my strengths

Nor my weaknesses

Not for my availability

Superiority

Or inferiority

Not even because I am simply me

Or that I am in bonds

Or wild and free

But because

When they look at me

And all I achieve

They see I am only human

With dreams made a reality

Something that they too can be

Give me the chance to be

Extraordinary

Give me the chance to be

More than the best that I can be

Give me the chance to leave my mark

On the lives and hearts of others

Give me the chance to be the name

That pauses on the lips of old lovers

Give me an opening

Something I can work on

Give me a focus

A push in the right direction

Give me a reason

An excuse to keep moving on

Give me a little hope

A glimmer in the dark to keep me warm

Give me a little faith

Just to help keep me sane

Give me something

So that I am no longer afraid

Ok, how about this?

Just give me a clear mirror

So that I can take a good long look

And see just who the hell I am

Moving on, burning bridges and turning your back on old familiar haunts. Consciously saying goodbye and refusing to return. Walking with back straight, never once turning around lest the fear take hold and somehow you find yourself back where you started. Running now, before that little voice gains momentum and insists that your actions are unreasonable. Leaping and hurtling towards a future uncertain, without forwarding address, without knowledge of a safe haven nearby. Knowing only that in your heart, this is the right thing to do. Trusting that your feet will guide you to a place of peace.

Still, those around you do not understand. You wish to move away from the place they are still comfortable in. Voices of concern, of advice, of insistence fill your mind as you head towards distant shores. Perhaps you lie. Lie to everyone, including yourself. Perhaps you say that you will indeed send back a letter, a card, a greeting. Perhaps you say that you will indeed pass on a forwarding address when you know where you will be. Perhaps you will, for a select few. For those who love you enough to let you go. For those who understand your journey, your need to move past your past, your desire to find a sanctuary.

The honest truth is, you don’t know where you will be, or whether you will ever reach your destination. Perhaps you never will find what you seek. Perhaps you will always be moving on, moving away, moving forward. In your wake you leave a memory that fades, disappears into the forever changing landscape until it is unrecognisable. Those left behind will hastily inscribed ‘Addressee Unknown’, and continue with their busy lives.

When you look back at the person who was, they will be unrecognisable to you also. That person no longer exists. Not
here, not there, not anywhere. You too will hastily inscribe ‘Addressee Unknown’ and you too will go about your busy life, without more than passing thought of what once was.

Born as Romany Rivers

Now I am,

And I feel there is no light in my life

But that which was there in the beginning

And will be there at the end

The Goddess guides us all

To walk her path

And this day I felt that I have long ago

Placed my feet upon her path

And yet have only walked it in my dreams

I have pledged myself to thee

Mother of all, and to you the Hunter,

The consort of love and laughter

And safe in this knowledge of re-awakening –

I am born all over again.

I have so much to achieve

For you, for them, for me

I feel old, young and ageless

But time keeps me running out

I move faster than the speed of light

So that I can be there and here

All at the same time

I think there must be more than one of me

I catch myself all the time

Looking the same but different somehow

And I surprise myself

Maybe that is why you all look so surprised

When occasionally

I am not to be found anywhere

There was a man once

Who held me in his arms

Who touched me deep inside

Who smothered me in his insecurities

I held him in my heart

I felt him in my mind

I took him into me

Without him knowing

Who I was

Who I am

Who I will be

He made me feel at home

He made me want to run away

I stayed bound to his smile

Tied into his unnecessary jealousies

He felt without reason

Pulled me close without seeing

Touched without believing

I felt with intention

Pulled him close with understanding

Touched him with analysis

Knowing that

Every minute I embraced

His strangeness

His freshness

His anger

His laughter

I was creating a memory

That would ease my loneliness

In times to come

The paper bag danced with the breeze

Teasing taunting titillating

I heard someone say a curse for the mess of today

I left it to dance for minutes

Before I put it away

To rot within our mothers belly

A waste product of a mentality

Born when we stopped feeling hungry

I walk the woodland paths

And know

I’ll never be alone

I hear the whispering leaves

The subtle way they call me home

I feel the touch of earth

The ways its roots, they pull me in

Connects the universe

Forever in eternal spin

I pray that Mother Earth will turn each day

I hear the storm arrive

The whistling wind, it whips on by

It makes me feel alive

It gives me wings

It makes me fly

I hear the whispered words

Rushing past upon the breeze

A sense of wisdom heard

That lifts me up and sets me free

I pray the winds, they will forever change

And I will not take for granted

That which is there for me

No, I will not take for granted….

Look into the blackened glass

See the images of time gone past

Watch the sorrow, feel the pain

Hear the laughter amidst the rain

From this past we must learn

For it relives now as the wheel turns

What was once will be again

Time gone the time has come

We must accept all our fears

What was done will not be undone

Our future is held loosely

By the hands of our young

They cannot see beyond our words

Tales of life woven and spun

I can see images of the future

Within the darkness before me

But they appear older than the lives

Of those that spawned me

What have we done?

What will we do?

The images fade without answers

It is up to me and you.

The cards slip through my hands

I drift into the world of unreality

Of possibilities

Probabilities

But never inevitabilities

We welcome you and say farewell little one,

All within the same breath

We hold you in our hearts dear one,

Sense the presence you have left

For your journey with us was swift and brief

But your influence as long as memories

We hold each other within our grief

But understand it was not to be

No sounds of footsteps upon the floor

No sticky finger marks upon the walls

No toys embedded within sofa cushions

No gleeful giggles or worried calls

These childhood things are not the gifts you bring,

But you impart a gift like no other

From your very soul you have given a blessing

The chance to become a Father and a Mother

Your life on Earth been and gone

Now sleep deep little one

You kissed away my tears and I was

Refreshed

I try to smile with you

But I think I always look confused

Bemused

Our lives are strange

Together in a separate fashion

Or are we separate but still together?

We talk about children of today and tomorrow

Our children

Or just hers and his and theirs and they will be soons?

I wonder if we can stay in this business partnership

Talking

Voting

Agreeing

Negotiating

When will we argue?

Purge?

Scream?

And run away?

Is that not how things are done today?

Are we Saints to be raised unto the heavens?

A light of inspiration for others?

Or are we just belying the truth?

Look at everyone around us

See in their eyes the ice blue of reflection

And yet I cannot see where we are

I see us in the middle ground of a painting

The mountains loom

Will we ever surpass them?

Or are we too tired from teamwork

Swimming

Across a lake of green

The lake of hard work

A good relationship

Time off together

Time away with friends

Shared interests and differing hobbies

A deep satisfying beautiful azure-green lake of time well spent

But I wonder

Truly

Is this not a lake of stored

Unshed

Tears?