There were days where I'd crawled miles on hands and knees.
Every agonizing inch with only thoughts of finally resting at your side.

There were weeks where I'd close my eyes,
because the damage around me was to horrifying to witness.
My vision blurred from bleary kisses.
The caress of a backhanded comment.

There were months, and months where I held my words at bay;
keeping all my worries and doubts inside my mouth.
A devastating storm brewing just off shore on the tip of my tongue.

There were years where I would cry, begging for some sort of validity.
A single conformation from your lips.
I was in fact being heard over my silent screaming.

I tired of this endless journey.
Days.
Weeks.
Months.
Years of yearning.

Dredging through trenches on fire.
This tiresome struggle to inhale a single smokeless breath.

I drag myself on; towards the end and far beyond.
A clear blue sky waiting for my upheaval.
The air clean with a heavenly scent of freedom and home.

Some people are lost in the fire but some are built up within the infernal storm.

I climbed the rainbow
rode the sky
the ancestors held me close
- hold me still.

The Vulture wheeled
flew straight out of the Sun.

My tribal drum beat
and magic dance
lasted for days
- and as many nights.

The Vulture drank
the magic cactus.

And we danced together
and entered the spirit world.

Listening to the sea,
that dark looking glass
like the watchboy they ask
about the night, my brother,
the black mirror you see,
I know almost nothing about,
I heard a dirge of burning longboats
like the songs the dead sing
to put me to sleep, my death,
if I could tell you about it,
my Captain, I would but I slept
right through it, not dreaming.

Today, I saw a person in front of me, their eyes on something else
and I took a moment to inspect them,
and then I realised it was myself.

There they were, wearing the clothes I had put on in the morning,
wearing the face I recognise in pictures
and standing exactly where I was standing.
But, they were not me – in that moment, they were not.
How could I be that girl, that women standing there in that shop?

The body inside is not that one I saw in the mirror,
the one who was looking a different way.
Inside, I’m more, I’m smaller, I’m darker, I’m paler and
I dress for them each morning, choosing from the clothes
not bought for them exactly,
but forced to match them, to meet halfway.
I knew it then, with a glance at the mirror person, nothing pretty would be bought today.

And it wasn’t.
Some days, it’s dungarees.
Other days, it’s dresses.
Some days, it’s shorts and leggings.
It all depends on who I’m playing as and
I’m sure that’s all okay, but then they say describe yourself in three words.

How can I describe myself, this person  I do not know?

So I go for the easy option and choose them from a list:
Quiet
Creative
Studious
And I suppose, that’s one way of putting myself into three words;
one way of putting myself into an easy to understand formula.

But it doesn’t cover it.
Three words don’t cover it.

Because really, I think I’m just an observer inside my own imagination,
an observer inside my own life and all these other lives inside my head.
I’m just the implied narrator of this person in the mirror
and all these others, who come and go in different places.

But then the girl in the mirror reminds me that tomorrow is my birthday,
a day to celebrate the fact I exist outside of my head
and then she touches a shirt, made of itchy fabric
and there’s life outside the overwhelming inside,
a life where I need to describe myself in three words
and fit into those three words and into that one person,
looking at something else, not in the mirror.

never have i felt such a contented bliss
than to feel the quiet in a world such as this

to pack my belongings within my mind
and travel the world with such wonders to find

to journey across both space and time
to live in a world that is simply mine

never has such a love unfurled
within the pages of another world

you play God and water a flower
judge jury and executioner
swat a fly and dead head roses
all in the blink of an eye

the feeble flesh journey is short
it cannot last forever
and the spirit groans prayers
a captive longing for freedom
and freedom is eternity
and eternity is love
and love is offered to everyone
all along the road of dust.

She's somewhere far away
sitting on her porch
watching the sun sinking behind the church tower
alone
breathing the warm air
as another day of her life
is going to an end.
80 years and no smile wrinkles on her cheeks
her forehead still a history book
where lines of war and struggle
are deeply written.

Her eyes full of colour,
her heart
a room where hope and sorrow
constantly fight against each other.

Her voice, a joy to hear
though it saddens me
knowing that she goes to sleep as the sun does—
lonely, in a dark, quiet infinity

When you were conceived the world made room for you
-a space opened out
and when you were born and began to grow the space enlarged to accommodate your growing needs
and all love asks of you is to be a space where others may find some form of shelter, a generous heart, the unity of Mankind,  a place of peace.