My soul was steeped in guilt
Ink was over my conscience, spilt
Obscured, I felt my way through life
Treading carefully on the knife
Edge I used sometimes to cut my dignity
In pain and shame and in indignity
I’d become addicted to more pain
When life dealt it to me again
When I dealt it to me again
I became blind, I saw no gain
I wished for death, I wished for light
I wished that walking through the night
I might be swallowed into the ghost realm
Where once I stood with my pen at the helm
Rewriting, writing, making history
I still think it is a mystery
In some senses, that I pulled through and made it out alive
Only to survive
With guilt, and my parents now holding me
From falling deeper into the emotional self-harming sea.

One life, darling, in this form, at least
One day the sun won’t rise any more in the east
For you, at any rate. Will you be able to say
On that final day, when Fate takes your breath away
You lived it to the fullest?
Made it beautiful even in the second that seemed the dullest?
Here is my advice – do something mad once in a while,
Something that the thought of makes you smile
Not just with delight, but with amusement, too
At its absurdity in it being something you wouldn’t ordinarily do
Take a chance – Take a run, make a dance,
Don’t be shy, and write to that acquaintance,
Compliment a stranger, take photos of ducks,
Order the wackiest ice cream, smile on those times when you’re down on your luck
Because you were brave, and because you dared
To live your life in the truest way that you cared.

Fire and brimstone in a head
That rests upon my hands,
On my soft pillow on my bed,
Upon my shoulders, even in foreign lands.
A shell just slightly thicker than an egg’s,
But there is no yolk, only firecrackers
That my heart implores, charges, begs
To stop, before the shell truly shatters
Spitting out the grey matter to populate the skies
With nebulae, since I neglected to be wise.

I learnt to start justifying my actions
After years of crying sin
On everything I did and said
And only now the thought pervades my head
Now that I can breath, and I have no one to wrong
Just how wrong I was for the long
Of these two years.
Amongst my fears
I count – Will I ever be as brave, as honest, as forgiving, as principled
As before the time the reality of Life hit me, violent, raw, carried me on its current, limp, unbridled?
Will I find Truth again
Not calling it vain
To struggle and fight
For what is right?
Will I learn to forgive myself, not because ‘it was a hard time, too hard for me to take’,
But come out of the shame I have descended into, and give forgiveness for its own sake?

I forgive easily, give second chances easily, give easily
I give up more than I can, feasibly,
Until I realise, the stone idol, earthquake crumbling, does nothing but rain stones on me
And I am already so deeply entrenched,
That I forget how to seek strength,
From a God that hasn’t forsaken me.

Do you wake up only even now?
She tugged on your toe, sleeping giant, for long
She did not speak in me, but spoke to me
Only now, you get up, and you bow
I grew up silent, my parents saying that shouting is wrong
Perhaps it is, but speaking firmly and clearly
Is the opposite – It demonstrates control and frustrates the enemy
Let measure be your ally, sleeping giant, as you unfurl like an anemone
Though you slept through her trying
Through her crying,
You heard little. True, you woke up sometimes,
And moved mountains, but the times
Are still cruel to her, and you, as the big man, must protect
Those who are oppressed, else your size is your greatest defect -
They are not lords that forget their strength, and so, their duty
To aid those who are in difficulty.