One foot in front of the other days
Long, slow and ponderous
Grey with clouds that rest
Heavy on my heart
And drag along behind

Into the dark hours of morning
I run
Weary and aching
Falling forward
Step after step
Street after street

Until I find
A familiar curve in the road
Surrounded by trees
I used to know
Then pain and glass
Slippery sharp
Embedded in my sole

I pull for a lifetime
Slowly guiding out
Shard after giant shard
Until I am bathed in reflected sunrise
Now I can go home

NCL April 2019

I love you, my sweet, little bug
We lazed this morning, cuddly snug
Hiding from a drizzly day
Warm and giggling as we lay
Hearting art, space and cats
Asking questions, having chats
Watching mag lev trains on screen
Learning magnetism for the keen
A picture couldn’t hold this bliss
Nor any words fully reminisce
The two of us, affectionately enspooned
Love, peace, curiousity, cocooned

NCL April 2019

Your words echo
Beautiful and violent
Deep within my everything
I ache
Wanting, needing, yearning
Words and feelings
Impossibly out of reach
Thank you

Poetry was
Something she did
When she was young
Playing with rhyme and reason
and honesty
Scribbling words and feelings
On scraps of paper
Absently scattered throughout her world

As she grew
The fragments collected
In piles, boxes, drawers
She wasn’t proud or ashamed of them,
They were nothing,
Just bits and pieces
Of a person she used to be

Poetry is
Something she never
Planned to continue
There was no point really
But when the words take over
Escaping in a raw and rushed form
Pieces of her bleeding onto pages
She can't help but let them go
Maybe someday she’ll stop

NCL April 2019

The Cat is in the box
The box is too small
She sleeps by the fire
Caring not at all

NCL April 2019

I am afraid
That when he grows up
He will be someone who can’t accept No
Someone who won’t compromise
Who will take what he wants
If he can’t win it with lies

I am afraid
That he won’t learn how to be gentle
Or when to be gentle
And when to play rough
I want him to know
When to give in
Gracefully
And when to be tough

I am afraid
Of the day he realizes
Superheroes are rare
And people in disguises
Do not always embody
The clothes that they wear

I am afraid
For him
For the things I can’t control
For the doors that close
For the opportunities
I can’t bankroll

These counted fears
And those too ugly to be declared
While they are substantial
I try to remember
Fear and Hope travel paired

NCL April 2019