I pop open the blister pack and poke the pill through,
dip it in sugar to mimic an advent calendar.
The doors are endless, a childhood dream.

I can’t get used to the lightness of despair.
I’ve mastered depression- damp, bell-heavy,
but despair?
It’s almost ethereal. Fairy lights in the breeze,
a brief twinkle
the wink of a tealight before it concludes.

The children hand me treasures they’ve found in the mud
Forest School, or playing outside as it used to be called,
before everything needed branding.
I smile, another leaf for my hair
more stones for my pocket. Anchors in open water.  
‘Are you okay, Miss?’

I sink into mauve bubbles, not trying to drown
only grounding my weight again.
Lilac shimmers the water and I trickle it over me,
smearing life across sallow skin.
My Rudolph earrings hang florid
tinsel etches my scalp. It’s the Nativity today
and my beaming face will echo that of the angels.
Happy.

Wounded wings of a bird of prey
Perched atop its nesting place
Flightless fear of the mighty proud
Does not betray its fearsome face.

Savage shrieks sustain from gritty beak
Lest the lowly prey start to suspect
The terror hidden by beady stare
Knows the wingless cannot life protect.

High up on tree top, talons grip tight
But to beseech is not to be a beast
The power owned by the bird of prey
Is to hover aloft its menial feast.

But treebound talons cannot the brute sustain
So tucking pride away it pleads for aid
The asymptotes connect but all too late
Unheard echoes of its last calls fade.

Glassy eyed, this mighty bird it falls
From once its coveted place of rest
That helpless wingless bird of prey
Lies now amidst common prey and pest.