I offered you a poem
Hoping it would help you see
The words too proud to speak aloud
A more authentic me

You didn’t need to like it
Never asked you to pretend
I chose to share my heart to bare
To my kind and lovely friend

You skimmed the lines so quickly
Crumbled paper on the floor
And with a glance cast it askance
Claiming poetry a chore

Through the careless criticism
Silence broke my soul apart
I became aware that you don’t care
About the contents of my heart

And so I learned my lesson
Closed our pre-poetic door
And as for sharing souls, my friend
The words they are no more

I am sick of your degrading
Constant constricting critique
You take criticism way too far
Tired of the negative words you speak

So stand there in your self-righteous glow
Throw ugly insults in a slur
The burning words you know I despise
That I am a little too much like her..

-Numbers 1 to 9-

I am happy to be here,
Where I can find numbers each morning.
Sun shining through my window,
I walk barefoot downstairs,
Even though my bones crack
I am quiet as a cat.

With warm coffee I can sit,
And as I nibble on the food
I fill out all the blanks.
My pen is black in color
Just like the ink on paper,
They both match each other.

I recall my resolutions
I made a list just days past,
But writing is so much fun.
I write numbers one to nine,
When they are correct I feel fine,
But some numbers I cannot find.

I have finished all my food,
So I go out to sit in the sunshine.
I cover up my face,
Place the paper on the grass,
I let the noise fade at last,
But I must consider every remark.

With criticism one can be better
But then why are these tears around?
I can’t find seven and eight.
I need those numbers,
I need to make them match,
I need to complete these lines.

A bleak, black, endless expanse
A shifting mass of sand and tar.
It sits there, always there,
never far.

It is inside all of us; it swallows everything
like a black hole devours even light.
A well that can never be filled
A hunger that leads to our plight.

We see it everyday, governing our world
from the shadows - watching and waiting.
It stalks us like a lion stalks a deer,
ready to pounce as soon as we give way.

We give way when our hearts let in the darkness,
the refusal to believe in other human beings as kind and real people.
It is like a grave we have dug
for ourselves, a grave made
out of forgotten but unforgiven heartbreaks and amply overused ashtrays.

It is that armour which we wear to
ward off emotions, that misusage of
our soul akin to mending a bullet wound
with a bandaid.

It is the hunger felt by the stress-eater,
It is the feeling of disgust felt by the bulimic.
It is the beatings from parents or siblings,
It is the rationalisations and the excuses by the victims.
It is the space which is left
After a part of us dies along with someone else.
It is the trauma, the fear - the void
IS, and always will be, here.

And it's terrifying.