A blue dress stands out against the moving leaves.
Reaching up she holds a limb and swings her feet,
Catching a branch with her legs she pulls herself higher,
She laughs as she climbs.

A moving world of green,
A thousand shades,
Leaves brushing her face,
Twigs catching her clothes.

Twenty feet below,
Infinity above,
She climbs on,
Seeming to dance as she twists and turns,
Whirls and spins,
Joy of life,
Happiness and freedom,
Carefree and light as the wind and the leaves.

Thirty feet up,
There's no stopping her now,
She knows what she's doing,
She's not afraid.
The height is nothing to her,
She needs to breathe the air the birds breathe,
The fairies are calling her,
Guiding her to the top,
And she herself becoming more fairy-like the higher she gets.
A sprite, dancing,
A brownie, weaving,
A nymph, a dryad,
An elf, spiralling through the leaves.

Forty feet, she's almost there,
A breath of wind curls through her yellow hair,
Her laughter tinkling through the air,
Her voice joins the birdsong.

Fifty feet! She's there at last!
She bursts through the canopy,
Arms waving,
Face upturned to the sky,
She's free,
A smudge of gold in a world of green.

14/09/2006
© Bonnie C. Aspinwall 2006

If you followed me on a walk,
In the sunshine of my mind,
What would you see?
Who would I be?
Would I be a yellow fairy,
Skipping between rows of sunflowers,
Higher than high,
Taller than tall?
Would I be a gargoyle,
Grinning hideously at the top of my
Great, grey stone wall?

If you followed me on a walk,
Through the tempest of myself,
What would you see?
Who would I be?
Would I be a giant black wolf,
Prowling the dense forests of Scotland,
Dimmer than dim,
Darker than dark?
Would I be the ghost of a lady,
All dressed in white, in an empty room,
Barer than bare,
Starker than stark?

If you followed me on a walk,
Through the corridors in my head,
What would you see?
Who would I be?
Would I be a great horse,
Pounding with my silver hooves the earth of a road that never ends,
Over and over,
On and on?
Would I be a painting,
A landscape,
My colour fading,
Paint peeling,
Rough and old,
Gloomy and wan?

If you followed me on a walk,
Through my own sweet fragile world,
I don't know what you'd see,
Or to you who I'd be,
But I know who I am,
No one knows more than me.
Would you like me to tell you?

13/09/2006

Silence.
How peaceful
How innocent
Unsullied
Like velvet
Like a kiss.

*******.

Silence made pregnant
By the words biting at my lips
Bursting to escape my mouth
Barely contained by my clenched teeth.

Silence, while my mind screams
Deafening
Drowning out all other thought.

I am locked in a burning room.
No escape.
Were it physical, this fire would
Envelop me
Consume me
Destroy me.
Leaving only dust.

But instead it just keeps burning
Boiling away coherent thought
Leaving me raw
But whole.
On the outside.
Unscathed to the eyes of others.

Like a fist,
Strong.
Aggressive.
Defiant.
But filled with broken glass
Bleeding even as in desperation
It squeezes ever tighter.

What if I were to let go,
The shattered shards dropping
From my hand?
Like the flicking of a switch
The fire goes out.
Ice taking its place
Or perhaps not even that.
What if nothing took its place?
Emptiness. Blackness.
A vacuum.
An absence of feeling.

How would that be any better?
Such a counterproductive act of self-defence.

Unless it were out of my control?
Suppose I just wake up one day
A shadow
A shell?
A black hole contained within a person.
My capacity to feel
Nullified.
Emotions broken from overuse?

No.
I’d rather burn.
I’d rather bleed.
Than become numb:

Silence on the outside
Matched by silence on the inside.

7/1/12
© Bonnie C. Aspinwall 2012

Twenty little lines.
I hope you didn’t see me count them.
Lines of fire.
Of control.
Straight, short, sharp, neat.
Neat and tidy.
Squared away.
I almost followed suit.
Twenty lines you couldn’t hide.

Two blue ink stains.
I hope you didn’t see me make them.
See them spread across the paper.
Messy edges.
Deep and dark.
Like a crack across the wall.
Like a stone thrown at a mirror.
Like reflections of the moon.
Two blue ink stains on my heart.

Written 02/04/2013, regarding another Monday.
© Bonnie C. Aspinwall 2013

I hear the call of a story
And it's drawing me away,
Away from home,
Away from life,
Away from "Things to do today"

I hear the call of a story
People talking in my head,
As the characters develop,
My imagination's fed

I hear the call of a story
Plot is flowing through my mind,
And I must struggle hard to catch it!
****** it!
Before I get left behind

I hear the call of a story
Anger happiness and pain,
Dialogue and action struggle
For attention in my brain

I hear the call of a story
As I lie awake at night,
Unable, now, to sleep
As dragons fly and brave lords fight

I hear the call of a story
Heroes, armies, rogues and thieves,
The smallest words change meaning,
Emotions skittering like leaves

I hear the call of a story
Notions grab me from behind,
As I stumble on ideas,
I still don't know what I'll find

I hear the call of a story
Near the end I'm almost there,
'And suddenly-'

"Bonnie, are you getting on?"
"Yes, Mum!"

'…And suddenly she broke her neck,
When she fell upon the stair.'

February, 2007
© Bonnie C. Aspinwall 2007