Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Aah, I love the cold
Almost harsh, or really harsh
Winter months
I love walking then
Walking alone
For miles and miles
Minutes and hours
I could keep walking
If there weren't parents
To reassure, a family,
A warm home to go back to
A dragging commitment
That is binding in every
Single link I've ever made

I could keep walking otherwise
Just a light jacket, hardly appropriate
For the weather, the temperature
Numbed by the chill
The soles of my feet sting
My feet wrinkled, grated against
My sandals, hardly sufficient
Completely dry skin, also cold
Almost too numb, maybe too corpse-like
No socks, no scarves, no gloves
No caps, no protection
Because protection is only needed
When there is an enemy

I could stay like this forever
A thought strikes me while I walk
That maybe this hopeless love
Exists solely because I am the closest
The closest I can be to being me
As I walk, and hide, and revel
Maybe even reveal Me

I silently lose myself in contemplation
Because the days are shorter
There is more space, more time to hide myself
Under warm blankets, comfortable clothes,
A cup of hot chocolate, in the cold starry nights
The sting on my cheek
That I lightly touch, can be disguised
Explained away as the caress of the cold wind

This loneliness that grows inside me
It is already so tired
Of seeing people walk away
That it is too tired, too weary
To talk to anyone, so it hides
Underneath the surface,
Appearing so much more closer
Than it ever has in these few months

I am raw, almost bleeding,
Waiting for the stars to come out
Just so they can shine on me
Over my head, down on me
With me, maybe even communicate with me
I'll pick up my drink
Acknowledge their presence
And drink to them and their beauty
Their unimaginable beauty that Always,
Without Fail, takes my breath away
My self rubs against my facade
So raw but it doesn't even matter
It is the closest to the surface
As I raise my drink and almost imagine
Myself in this lonely cold urbanscape
With all the scars, every **** thing
Not a thing out of place,
I almost imagine myself beautiful*
Revitalised but then this self withdraws
Back insideinsideinside
My facade still rubbed raw

Ah, but what a beautiful time
The cold times on the terrace
The chilling walks down nostalgia lane
No more brown leaves
Just a mere peak here and there
Like a little troublemaker
Waiting for me to go away again

*Winter is... truly one of my favourite seasons
Merry Christmas to everyone. :)
There is not much of me now, my Northern Light;
I hath been too torn to tell of my deeds,
I am a broken soul now, emerging from an invisible pit;
I hope the sun shall clear though, that I can but delight in belated rain again.
Rain, on thy forested land, that I hath begun to long to taste;
Coming to me like a five-year-old nymph: a succulent playmate,
Shadowing me but in cheerful grins and tireless haste,
What funny terms t’is little creature makes sense of!
Ah, a little one that brightens and salutes my days,
With lyrical giggles often stunning the entire forests of glee around me—
And taking my breaths away in dozens of waves of fierce smoke
That I often pause my breaths, feeling privilege and triumphant
Amidst its innocent odors, smudged with green hues and damp visions.
I feel comfortable then, as my pulse speeds and moans with delight
Spilling onto us from the brave storm above, as I always do.
Tasting rain, I shall twitch and sway around again with laughter, wisdom, and patience
That were undeniably stolen from me; leaving me in a deafening whine of tears.

They but told I did not belong, I was foreign, and so were my streaks of song;
My justice was but not their equal, I was a liar, I was wrong.
I was too humble to notice, I was too unarmed.
I was too innocent to be their companion—improvident and reckless beings!
No delicacy flashes across their eyes, neither do sympathy or softness.
All I could see was scorching hate and heat, shimmering in a blinding, officious smirk.
I was ample and blused oft’ with shyness—how come they came and stole my tranquil peace!
How ignominious and disgraced the whole nation is, who believes
that our own skin shall save us, unmerited and soulless!
How immature, timid, and vile; imbeciles that inherit only rainbows of sarcasm.
And what told they of my poetry, in such recursive envy and hate;
With disgust they said to me; ‘tis not my beloved, nor my fate.
They claimed I lived one life—and three souls too late, that I understood what life meant not;
They thought all was but a wealth of infamy around me, and I was rife with unseen disease.
I was a creature not to fall in love with, I was a disgrace;
I was ungodly, a shoddy strand of leaf to be killed unborn.
They figured I smelt like the withered summer weather;
Not a fit for their chilly smokeless air!

The air there smelt fondly like their absence of love;
And though it was silent, they were silent not,
It was a joy for them to ****, and to see my blood spill,
They said yet I knew not how to taste and feel.
It was as if I could not feel my own blood,
Nor that I could locate my gut’s instincts.
And what thought they of my ****** story;
For my presence was a nightmarish joke to all,
And I was a meaningless and too joyous of a little bud,
A small lavender which poorly knows its enemies and their fetal tongues,
That roses can sting and steal one or two of its crescent seeds!
Ah, and I was that degraded bland-smelling little bloom,
The mindless bloom t’ be plucked in their spring garden—harvested before my time;
That I shall cry and weep my blood out of me, in burning pain,
Destructing all my jutting illusions once again, without knowing why,
And finding my fierce heart, the next second, lying still!
That I think of my Immortal no more, and his face accusably so white and lean
For he has been forgetful of the love he once sustained;
His love, dimmed by the greed around his whole figure
Unsupported by the angered nature about him—which he barely sees.
Hungry for flesh, he is a snake of untold regret and hate;
Powdered with deadly lies only, in his season of love.
Bathed in austerity, and in his own madness running;
Running into the nowhere of my dreams, and dies finally, as I wake from my sleep.
I saw no compassion in his eyes, on those last old days, and after I left,
All that was dead not I deep buried,
I oft’ dream of him burning and rotting his own scattered life,
Melting his own flesh into a rogue wave of sins,
Questioning his divinity with rage that he himself be ragged before he knows it.
And so unseeingly he curses and is consumed by his own karma,
Gathering his own bulleted skins and fleshes by a knife,
But in doing so betraying his own domain of conscience,
Depriving him of ample wan pleasure, tumbling himself vehemently into death.
Scorching death that feeds but from our departing shades of life,
And shrieks in agony when no ferocious air growls at midnight.
Ah, at my dismantled nights in England but I once gave thought of thee;
Thou wert there in my perpetual mind, but not so inquisitive as my English journey was.
O, Northern Light, I was but all shivers upon their first mention of thee!
And so there was I, unknown to the English world but heard fairly of thy name;
That I, at times, thought of the Northern Light, aside from my streams of cries and desperation,
And the noble autumn on its land, when in my fluorescent night slumbers,
I’d love to dally on top of fall’s rebellious moors—and ah!
I can see my love, flapped with his native pride, storm down the maroon roads.
I can see his wait for me, encapped by forty feet of snow on a mountaintop,
ready for my warming fingertips and embrace whenever he thinks of me.
Ah! Though there is sun not on thy lofty linen land, my Northern Light;
I am grinning with joyous tears in sight of thy snowy night,
My dreams have finally drawn me to thy visible lines,
And soon, I shall have to renounce my weary sunshine.
I want to break free, enormous with youth and vibrancy;
With affluent rhymes and delightful vibes that come in time.
Poetry, for it has become one of my salient features;
A concise concoction of my soul, that I love in laugh and hate.
My daydreaming has not been too bad, for I have seen the fun once more;
I was too selfish to open my eyes and see its truth.

Come to me, my Northern Light, and shall I have to perish later along with age
into blue nothingness, I shall not die inside out;
For I know thou shalt come to help my toil
And relieve it of grease and oil;
filling my light up before it turns out.
I, who hath been consumed and decried within two sad springs;
I, who was made to survive an agitation and pain
Only by a jug of comforting cold,
Hath now left my past with a single shrug;
And so I hath dreamed of bouncing back into thy arms,
Thy arms that are too cold at first—to my fragile feet
And swim into thy hands that shall all but know me to well;
Blame me not for the fateful pairs of stories of mine, to tell.

And who are they anyway, to enjoy poetry whenst they see not?
They, whose shadow is to fall into death within the first three days—
But acknowledge the slim presence of death not, among us.
They, whose ******* glisten with envy, and a displeased countenance;
Haunting every guileless soul, dancing over their dismantled beings
Although they bear no trace of hate towards their very eyes.
All I see of ‘em is a beast, that encaps and murders decisively within a short breath;
None of them is eager to touch the deep,
Nor to be kind and set their hateful souls alight,
They are a boastful ally of the devil, far in their forest’s central gloom,
A hell by the deadly babbling brooks, sending water into every undying leaf
That all shall die within the unstable touch of their hands.
They are a bunch of strange apparitions that mock every treasured sight;
A rough incubus, waiting for every foreign man’s headlong fall,
They live only to scorn, ****** and fight,
Penetrating every fortune’s secrets, poignantly tearing their kind walls.

Not seldom that I began to wonder, in all my recursive roamings;
I wanted to see and listen to thee, ah, what a warming sound of thy Eolian lute there was!
All was in vast vain, for I was conceited to hear of my own vision;
Nor proceed my learnings, I was stupidly void of hearings, and rich with shortcomings!
My conscience was too thin, that I wrote when I heard not—and drew
when I saw not, ah, I was unable to hear thee, my love!
For everything I could see was but, in my red dreams, thy roads and their unspoken lines;
Telling me that I was dreaming and all wouldst be fine.
I failed to see though thou wert but very, very kind!
All was a parade around me and ah, yet I could see not,
Its loudly thumping winds but made me blind,
Squinting into the gust, all but myself I could not identify;
My whole soul was absorbed by its minutiae of unbearable pain.
Belligerent and poisonous, the circle was bitter as dread;
Sordid in life, uncivilised and mortified in death.
Aye, how I struggled hard to break free myself, from those violent thorns!
Finally all was clear, and I saw the vital path to light; ah, my Northern Light!
Now I can see again, I am grateful for having not capitulated to my desires.
My poisoned desires, that once retained me;
I am thankful that I hath wriggled free.
Ah, Northern Light, it seems that thou hast so much to tell;
I do not know, yet, how it all shall begin.
I shall dwell on thy grounds so well;
the grounds so beneficent and keen in the first place.
I have not heard of thy sweet voice;
I have known but thy cherry-red stories.
Stories as original as my love;
Willingly given to thee, should thou lift my heart away
and within one saturated breath, amaze and steal which from me.
Stories with red kisses plastered over its blushing pages;
Stories with a shy tint of love; that love of ours that demands recognition.
Stories with hugs and passion that are yet still unborn;
waiting for the frozen night to become known.
Oh, we all should seek the tremor our loving hands hath caused;
And a newly replenished joy, yet, that they hath so lovingly unleashed.
A new, formal joy, that delights both in giving and returning.
My Northern Light, I may love thee and seek delight within thee only;
The fire of thee has consumed the living of me violently,
and I have begun to see my other living side,
cheerful and jubilant may I be, on my front days.

Come to me, my Northern Light, lure me into thy sacred idle night;
When the time of our fate washes ashore, and all the wrongs shall turn right,
And all the fires grow into rain, multiplied by the benevolent immortal knight,
Who shalt fly as King of the Skies, whilst burning out the prejudiced sunlight.

Come to me, my Northern Dawn, moisten me with thy Victorian dew;
Draw me closer to thy sonatas, a realised romance written by bare hands
Bringing another vigorous pleasure to our reluctant bliss
And removing the worries of our juvenile present, marking it as the new Truth.

Come to me, my Northern Dusk, flirt with me like thou didst not with one;
Wish our hearts luck, and fight so our triumph be won,
Thou shalt **** hate with thy sword of victorious words,
Satisfactory to our chests, infallible to the sniggering worlds.

Come to me, my Northern Lamp, tempt me into the army of curling winds;
Rub my shoulders again the beguiling sweet rains, charm me away,
Far in the dark I shall be generous to thee, calming like wine,
I wouldst love to fall into the sky by thy wings again.

Come to me, my Northern Sky, envelop me in thy starlet dawn and blanket;
I want to embrace thy northern grass and tulips, and paint some rainbows,
To read some lullaby beneath the benign sky, and its amulets,
To write some poetic words, and sing them today and tomorrow.

Come to me, my Northern Sea, may thou enjoyest thy grounds’ cold clay;
That my wondrous script shall touch and place upon it a play,
Announcing my ragged arrival on the harmonious soil,
Adjusting myself to the convenient steep hills.

Come to me, my Northern Song, may thou be blessed without and in the unknown;
May thou remember the words of my late vow, o my attractive love,
May I in abundance love thee more, after my formative alone,
May this love grow strong, undeniable, and tough.

Come to me, my Northern Sun, bewitch me once more and entrap my mind;
That thou give birth but to a revitalised summer, young and free,
That this immortal joy shall last, like the oblivious moon,
Held hostage by thy beauty, whose half thou hath shared onto my soul.

Come to me, my Northern Rain, make me rejoice in the swirling autumns;
When the greens turn red and all shall die and wake again,
That we shall remain friends until tomorrow and delight,
Delight, that comes to us when we are united fellows.

Come to me, my Northern Grass, be dry and wet and tickle with pleasure and again;
Fulfill my heart with lithe atonement, for my graceful sins,
And by thee, I shall neither be dangerous nor unchaste,
I shall be a ******; my moonlit quest is just about to begin.

Come to me, my Northern Guide, heal my wounds and lingering past scars;
Scars that are immortal and once tormented my dreams,
I hath forgiven them with my tender cares,
Releasing them back prettily, into their domestic jubilees.

Come to me, my Northern Moon, in the merit of haste and run;
Nibbling thy water lilies as thou pass, and flying through the floating grass,
Thou shalt find me within the cheeks of Jakarta, in my cornered walk,
Moving around with unease, void of any candlelight spark.

Come to me, my Northern Star, thou art as warm as thou art cold;
My reason to keep on longing, and hold on to thy unmolested warmth,
That the cruel Coventry can thaw me no more;
Neither shall its herons fly over my untouched shore.

Come to me, my Northern Soul, so that I can be free;
Let me not be engulfed by the breathless dawn, and twilight,
Slide me free from the strain of tropical grief and sunlight,
I want to feel cold once more, all through the day and night.

Come to me, my Northern Tale, and hear me over the shrieking winds;
Let me steer my journey to thy mortal land, unite us as we have been;
Live inside me and feed my blood, make me known and beguiling;
Scoop me into thy arms, picture me asleep and welcoming.

Come to me, my Northern Poem, make me hear what thou couldst promise;
Make me twitch with delight, and shout pleasure within thy hands,
And sign that very night as my time of rebirth;
Pleasant and pure, free from the past sins and filth.

Come to me, my Northern Love, make my ****** soul glow green again;
Find thy way to me by my marked boughs of love,
My journey and love hath but not ended yet,
Thou shalt breed and unite with me—in our timeless breath.
Ripples in the water
Roses in the bush
Rainbow views
Raindrops and *****
Remedies for the soul
Reminiscing,
Relaxing times
Reflecting, wishing
**** Red dress
Revitalised mind, richly defined
Take me there...
Another one off the cuff, with some inspiration from irthlingborough lakes.
Stanley Wilkin Dec 2016
I feel I have to make my defence
Regarding those who over several millennium
Believe they can speak for me;
I do not need to name names, do I? You know
Exactly who I mean. What can I do?
I speak briefly to someone once and, before
I know it, we’re ***** buddies-they claim to
Know my inner-most thoughts,
My opinions on every subject from what
Clothes to wear to who to marry.

Do I not have more important things to think about?
The well-being of an entire universe to evaluate
On a daily basis?
How you treat one another is your concern-
Just keep me out of your bigotry and spite,
My name out of your books, my voice out
Of your heads. I am not who you claim me
To be; I am far better and, at certain times, far worse.
I am both nothing and everything!

You can nevertheless be assured-
I do not lead your armies, support your murders,
Sanctify your suicides, bless your hatreds.
I do not inhabit your words,
Your statues, your art, nor am I the knowing
Voice in your head or the gnawing pain
In your heart. Own what is yours!




Originally, I was a small-time local deity,
Lord of the mountain, brooks and olives.
Benevolent, ***** and shy.
Nothing special! One god amongst many
In and out of pantheons, attached to this
Goddess or that. Sometimes I was el of the
Desert, sometimes the family god in
The corner or staring out of the tent flap-
Inauspicious and insignificant!

I was happy then. I had none of the obsessive
Responsibilities of a universal god. I seduced
The local women, fathered thousands of mixed-children-
Part deity/part human-received the flow of eager
Sacrifice; the few remaining aurochs,
Bulls, deer and first born. The smoke always revitalised me!
Children’s flesh was always particularly nourishing!
For such extensive insurance for my continued interest
I protected each group who so honoured me, destroying
Their enemies, as well as their friends.
(But, oh, not now! I’m expected now to exterminate entire neighbourhoods,
Nations and cultures! Now I’m expected to be the murderer,
The sole master of death!)

I was without ideas! I accepted everyone, loathe to judge!
****** peccadilloes I found interesting, fun.
Adultery I saw as an aspect of marriage,
Homosexuality, the absorbing antitheses of the endless
Production of new life, from its sterile cusp
Seeping forth new ideas and artistic burgeoning.
I created beauty, adoring it. I danced to
Lively music, sang to beautiful songs.

In Egypt a disgruntled warrior-priest arose, preaching violence,
Preaching conquest. I trembled in his angry presence,
Shaken by his bloodlust. An excitable poet sang of his adventures,
Turning a 100 followers into thousands. The poets used my name-
One fashioned in gentleness-to encourage war.
Then, from the confusions of statehood, prophets emerged
Spreading their misery through my authority,
Grinding my benevolence under soiled sandals,
Telling others what to do, as if the words were mine-
Engaging in genocide with pitiless intention.
They flail my soul with madness!

And so on and so on; numerous messengers
Shouting of sin and retribution,
My voice reverberating with their words,
As I stand in the shadows like a serial killer,
Frightened of lamplight. With nothing
More to do, conforming savants
Described rules for life, a non-existent heaven,
Transcribed my thoughts from their own experiences
Created another reality, ignoring their own.



I am now terrified of my name
(EL, YHWH, Allah) Terrified of what it represents-
Burdened by its acquisition
By the bombastic and cruel.
I, who was once a god, now
Am captive, a prisoner of recitation.
Where once I had priests to beckon, they
Now beckon me. Where once I pronounced on
Goodness, I am now too alarmed to speak.
Where once I was the object of sacrifice
I am now the sacrifice itself.
George Krokos Dec 2010
With man's endeavours however great or small
there's an underlying meaning behind them all.
What appears sometimes to be useless not making much sense
is very often the start of one's labour and cost of some expense.
Everything has some value depending on what it's used for
and regardless of what it is, there's potential in it to be sure.

Man's mind is a great instrument which no one can deny
a vast storehouse of many ideas into which he does pry.
Some people seem to have the knack of accomplishing their ends
which is usually after the exerting of much effort one comprehends.
Analysing the steps to be taken in the direction they need to go
taking one step at a time brings the goal closer to them you know.

Overcoming their own inertia is one of the main obstacles faced along the way
and by visualising in their mind's eye a picture of the goal is all they have to pay.
Learning by experience is the most rewarding and the best course to take
with the skilful loving help of a true teacher much progress one can make.
Possessing the ears by which to listen and the eyes by which to see
and holding onto that ideal set before them realise what they can be.

There is something else more than this which is there all the time
it's only after we clear our minds of that which is gathered grime
we'll see that which is really there as the integral part of our being,
everything else is a hindrance until we realise the truth in daily living.
And then everything  is made plain enough for each one's eyes to behold
becoming as if new again regardless of what it does appear as or how old.

It is somewhat like another rebirth within the same body and mind
that have both been revitalised and given a new lease of life in kind.
The secret of life is the truth, hidden within our being of our existence
and is the reality behind all this we have created for our subsistence.
So everything has come forth from us, out of our being we've brought all this
yet the greatest treasure still lies deep within, the source and essence of bliss.
From unpublished book "The Seeds Of Life" - compiled in 1996
Ariel Taverner Jun 2016
A memory of a man
Suspended from the coarse necklace; a punishment for his sin.

Motionless weight, dead weight.

Silky tufts of trembling silvery hair;
The only sign of life's abandonment.

Gently as the blissful breeze blows it's protest-
An empty gesture of grace-
His once young locks...revitalised.

A thought; even a pitiful gale would fail to summon but the swaying of a blue headed pale bodied dead man.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2016
i don't know whether contemporary writers
appreciate the fact that, well...
(a deep take of breath, and a hmm with added
pff flaking)... yes, today was a most horrid
day... a hangover... an oddity for me,
can't remember the last time i had one:
headache included - it just came out of the blue
with that melancholic bile seeping through
(hyphen? oh, the hanging punctuation?
i know, unlike the ..., what do you call that
if not a prolonged pause?) -
i'm blaming the heatwave - sticky sickly honey
goo of the sun... i don't know how or why
they managed to colonise south america and Africa...
i couldn't stand a day there, i Kenya i was
doing the opposite of phototropism: whiskey or
brandy in hand, in the shade, at one point
sleeping on a deck chair while the sprinklers drizzled
me - sure, i could have been abducted by Sudanese
or Somalian pirates: out in the open like that on
a holiday resort at night, but **** me, the heat was
just too much to bare... i'm pretty ******* sure
a lot of anger and banal human brutality comes from
heatwaves, or just the heat... i'd colonise Greenland.
like i said before, fair dos to the theory of evolution,
but i have a different way to approach it,
i call it the Scandinavian model, not the Anglo model;
the difference? shorter timescale, beginning with
monkey vikings, and reaching social democracy and
no rabbit ******* instinct of the Chinese and the Blue
Indians... that's manageable (that sort of timescale),
ah ****, someone should really buy my a navigational
system so that i don't digress;
so here i am, revitalised by a whiskey sharpshooter
(ratio of whiskey to cola... probably 5:3 or 5:2, never mind -
i'm going to start a petition, to get those two words
compounded, but first the appeal will have to begin
with sending those two words with a hyphen preliminary
concern, i.e. /: never-mind - before the digital dictionary
doesn't underline it in red) -
                                                  what i'll finally
say and say it with good faith... you pick up a 20th century
artefact up, in this case a book,
then you turn on the computer, and start typing,
you turn back to the book, and would you
believe it? you end up saying the words:
******* antiquity... and that's about something from
the 20th century... the 21st century is when
history became exponential, it's not as it used to be,
a slight increment day by day... the thing's gone
wacko on an exponential scale...
back in the 20th century i'd be writing,
and getting rejection slips...
now it's like the American Wild West all over again...
i'm pretty sure the majority of people
don't appreciate this fact... and we kinda are
saving the Amazon rain forest by enlarging the digital
bank... honestly, the freedoms we are experiencing
have never been greater, even reading 20th century
books feels like reading Plato, or the Epic of Gilgamesh,
as i said already, but to repeat myself for
the citrus relish: ******* antiquity.
Michael King Jan 2019
What is a racist?

Wow,  you are so wrong on so many levels.

This is just another hater account. Your
words drip with nothing but hate,  and not
even the pure hate which rots and
corrupts. You speech slander which so
many have already turned into a
monotonous cliché, and the strength is
broken.

Like the ticking of a broken clock,  it needs
to be thrown away... the hands of the past
revitalised and used to smoulder love and
passion to change the worlld for the better.
Not for anything which has already come
before so many times like a domino effect.

Your mind seethes... That is a strength I
could use,  but not in the robotic symphony
you so currently speak in mindless refrain
over and over like a badly written chorus.

So I ask you this. Is hatred what you really
seek?  When what you hate is a length of 1
millimeter deep,  and what really shows
through is the heart behind that darkness...

But is it the darkness you really hate?  Or
do you fear the strength of that dark skin.
Do you fear that the new day,  the past
slave becomes the future master? It seems
to me what you really fear and hate is not
the colour of a black person's skin.

But really the cage the white man fell into
when he enslaved them in the first place.
Excitement bubbling deep within
A plan finally coming together
Sounds that have been dormant
Vibrating ‘neath the surface
Breaking through the storms I’ve weathered

No longer shall I be silenced
I have rhythms to create
And words to put to music
For it’s never too late

The wheels are in motion
Dreams to be realised
Awakening from their slumber
And aspirations revitalised

Each day I take steps
To bring them to life
Dates in the diary
Ideas rife

Excitement building
A swelling tide
Bursting at the seems
I’m braced for the ride

A waterfall
Cascading down
The heavens having opened
Ideas abound

The cosmic flow
Depositing opportunities at my door
I grasp them all
I am blocked no more.
Anne denada Mar 2020
Accepting we are not perfect
Allows us to open our cracks
Weaving wider shinning light
Black sacks becoming bright flashes.

As we grow and mature
Stain glass windows beautifully glow
Grounding in forests through sunshine beams
Seeing sunlight change into sunsets pink.

Dawn arises with new possibilities
Rested, revitalised ready to sparkle
Happy to dance and sing with the birds
Spreading love and light for all to receive.
AMarie Feb 2021
john redding
traveler by sea
upon death
revitalised a breath
inside of me.
a short story
shortly, but surely
kindling a desire
for the waywardness of a
vagabond
Jane Jul 2020
soundtracking my summer, soft and wistful
a teen nostalgia time capsule
of angst and wide-eyed innocence
simplicity wrapped in pastel softness
sugar mice, 99s, Boys Like Girls - how fitting
as thunder rolls in to clear the skies
for sunny promises and late night kisses
undiluted joy with barely mixed ***
sweet on my lips and salt at the waistline
warming our skin through windows
as gulls pepper the soundwaves
how magnificent the glory days are
reborn, revisited, revitalised
with today's knowledge
and back then's hope
danced and tiptoed and sprinted through
to songs of child hearts and dreamer tongues
Jane Dec 2020
I have nothing profound to share today. I'm sitting in my dressing gown and fleecy leggings, trying to ignore the cramps (because I couldn't possibly end this tumultuous year without heavy bleeding and ***), scrolling through celebrations of wins, the grief of losses and the hopes of a new year ready to overshadow the last twelve months. My thoughts vacillate between the joyous relief that comes with January 1st in which we feel renewed and revitalised, and a sombre heaviness with all the hurt and loneliness and suffering and continuing oppression we carry through regardless of the date on the calendar.

It has been a year of learning and unlearning and community spirit and crushing disappointments and turbulence of a kind I don't think many have endured en masse and simultaneously alone and which threatens to stretching on indefinitely.

My greatest hope is my greatest fear - change, and not enough of it. Our systems are broken and our governments' failures continue to rip at the fabric of our society and, as always, our most vulnerable are taking the brunt.

I hope for mobilisation, for everyone to find the issue they commit to help build a sustainable solution - be that food poverty, climate change, reproductive justice, abolishing the police or community welfare. This year has proven our collective power and the overwhelming need for us to act - and revolution will be ours. It's beyond time to dream bigger, listen better and work smarter (not harder) towards a fair future, building for our most vulnerable and capturing everyone else more fortunate along the way.

Our individual power is unique; our ability to change minds and create solutions and unite our families, friends, colleagues - our communities - that's where we're most valuable. Not every action must be bold and break new ground. But coordinated networks build movements - we've seen this. We need to learn from those who came before us and recognise the depth and severity of the cracks in our systems.

None of this is profound, or new information, but it doesn't make it any less valid. I hope next year brings you what you need, but I also hope you'll look beyond 12 months and build for a future we can all enjoy. Because if this collective suffering continues at the hand of individualism's ideals; if we learn nothing from our months inside, isolated, in pain, what promise can the future hold?

— The End —