lisagrace

lisagrace Aug 1

The girl was only eleven,
when she first thought

                            "What if I went?"

When even escaping
to magic-filled hardcovers
could not ease her descent

School bullies were not all
that pulled her
towards the yawning void,
on eggshells she walked
around him,

being careful not to flip
his switch
He'll twitch -
see red
It filled her with dread
Better to stay tight lipped -

                Better to be

                                     His pet

The next part of the Retrospective poem series. A growing awareness of fear and control.

#childhood #trauma #fear #silence #control #survival

lisagrace Aug 1

Retrospective: Ten

By age ten her father had left

Gone to another land,

Fortune upon his lips

She cried for days,

She felt alone...

Bereft

●

Part 2 of the Retrospective poem series.

#childhood #memory #father #absence #loss #australia

lisagrace Jul 31

Retrospective: Seven

The girl was only seven,
When he came into the picture

Bribery by way of sweets

"Now I have her,"
He must have thought,
This was no mere caper

She wonders,
now,
if he meant it like that.
But at seven, sugar meant YES

This is the first in a series of retrospective poems exploring memory, identity, and survival. Each piece captures a moment in time, but they form something larger together.

#childhood #reflection #trauma #poetryseries #healing #memory #past #family

lisagrace Jul 26

An Unwilling Herald of the Tenebrae

There it is,

again

All I had to do was look -
and that ****** intrusive thought
flashed behind my eyes

again

I've climbed the barrier,
I'm standing at its peak
when I allow my body to fall -
and the world's landscape
turns on its head
as everything fades
into the tenebrae

...

I blink and shake my head,
tearing my gaze away
My body -
it's twitching at the urge
to climb
I'd thought the yawning void
had stopped calling?
I have to keep walking
I must keep trying

I don't even want
to go anymore!

...don't I?

It happened again this morning...
I didn’t want to write this—but I needed to.

#intrusivethoughts #mentalhealth #tenebrae #depression #survivor #resilience #healing #momentsoftruth #poeticprocessing #dontiwanttostay

lisagrace Jul 23

...I Don’t Think I Can Say This With Brevity

I could not
for the life of me
see anything
past eighteen.
Upon this earth
a terrible curse -
a true bane
of society.

Five years?
Pah -
The only hope I'd ever had,
was to be alive
in the end.
To see what lies
beyond the bend.

And so came
nineteen

...

and twenty

...

and now,
nearly thirty.

I am still looking
beyond the bend.
By the Gods,
Where does it end?

#existential #comingofage #poeticdread #bythegods #melancholy #aging #lifestruggles #quietgrief #timebends #briefreflection

lisagrace Jul 23

Un jour viendra, ça s’en ira (A day will come, it will pass away)

...

Of despair,
the verge upon
I sung the dirge
Through tears it swelled -
a painful curse
Why vie for things
that cannot be?
But this lament
was a fallacy
The cacophony softens,
and I recall -

"La musique adoucit
les pleurs"

“La musique adoucit les pleurs” – Pomme
(“Music softens the crying.”)

#healing #frenchlyrics #pomme #reflection #softgrief #musicassolace #resilience #quiethope