The flowers inside my head eating away
at the decaying thoughts.
I hear them when it’s just quiet enough –
gorging.

Oh Mother, I’m fixing your mistakes.
You and me – made from the same two pillars:
dependency and suffering.

I tear them down
softly, slowly –
shedding what I have seen,
like a snake peeling its skin.

Everything I have ever known,
collapsing around me,
leaving things I have loved covered in ash –
my own Pompeii.

But I’ll make my own way out of
these rotten bricks.
That is my promise to you –
and myself.

At the door comes a knock or a beating
That demands an uncomfortable greeting
So you hide from the guest
And deny the request
For this most unavoidable meeting

I hide my pretty words
inside a shell.
Safe and far away from
prying eyes –
thoughts and desires, carefully constructed
to never see the light of day, never feel
the warmth of human connection.

For this is all too raw,
too fragile.
Words painfully crafted –
containing the chaos inside.

If people only knew,
what I was hiding,
I’d have to tear open my body,
remove the pearl
for all to see.
My flesh exposed – consumed,
my core, paraded around necks.

And I’d be tossed away
into the waters of my suffering,
to create more precious gems.

At the end, when I am too tired for it all,
clutched by the fingers of grief,
all that shall be left of me –
a shell, forced to adorn
the walls of strangers’ homes.

Just as so many mother of pearls,
who’ve came before me.

The moon comes to me,
at once with melancholy.
Like old friends.

Grief came uninvited  
through my open doorway,
fear and rage ignited  
they made plans to stay,
and I was dazed by the
lack of foresight.

Then sadness came bounding
in loud and bellowing.
It consumed every opening,  
chaos was ensuing,
then it left without a trace
of what it was doing.

When the storm had ended  
someone held me,
they were kind,
gently she attended  
and peace filled my mind,
as love comprehended
the hurt it left behind.

For in grief's disguise,  
love had always been  
opening my eyes.
To what grief could mean:  
That love never dies.

©️Lizzie Bevis

Suddenly it was November.
And it felt like the chance to be happy
was lost.
Shriveled and fragile,
as the slowly rotting leaves still clinging to trees.