What would love do?

Love would find a way to tell him
Find the time to see her
Love would give you just enough
But not so much it hurts

Love would deal in forgiveness
Breed understanding and empathy

Love would send you to bed on time
And wake you up with a smile
Saying "Welcome!
You have been granted a bright new day
And in it you can do whatever you choose!"

Love would guide you towards happiness
And hold your head through pain
Calm your fears
And free your worries from your shoulders

Love would see past poisonous words
To the child behind the bitterness

It would welcome every moment
And every man and woman in it
It would embrace everyone, separate no-one
It would not differentiate

That's what Love would do

But I am human
And I still say the things I shouldn't
And I still want for what I wouldn't want
And I learn and I grow and I know now
How to apologise and that.....

That is also what Love would do

I love you

I love your love

This city hasn’t changed
I’ve got a new hat
But that’s not what’s different

The streets are all the same
They had me smiling yesterday
In their showery sunshine

Today
You’re gone
I’m walking alone and I don’t know how long for

There are friends to meet
And I’ll smile again
Our laughter and love will be sincere
But you won’t be here
And I don’t know anyone else
Who knows me like you do?

This tea’s too hot to drink
I’ve left my comfort curled up at home
Life feels duller and less do-able

It will pass
Like the woman with her beautiful roses

I’ll dye my hair and move on in a moment
But this moment has sent me again
To tears
To memories
Of millions of happy times
With you

My wonderful friend

Ready?
No.
Terrified.
It’s time to right.
I’ve been walking the streets of doubt for so long
Now that clear is here
It’s bringing more fear than my feet can rest for

Shame.
Shame is its name
I called it a while ago
But it’s carried on responding ever since
Every day
It never went away
When I thought it had gone
It’s been here so long I’d forgotten it existed
And now, after all that I resisted
It arrives
Unlocks the heavy-chained heart
And I am doused in some odd relief

Disbelief, once again
As clarity dawns
In the guise of a conversation about someone else
Seen through the eyes of a caring man
With healing intentions
Mostly unhindered by his own baggage
And more able, as a result
To reveal a little truth to me
About myself

I’d like to marry him
Not him, you understand
But someone so very like him
I’d like the man I marry
To be the kind of mind
That I feel unforgotten about with...

Shame.
The shame game.
It’s been playing me.
It’s been running me.
Time to take the reins back in hand.

I am here, I fear
More scared than sorted
More dandelion than burdock

Scattered silly
Metaphorically muddled
Mine's a messy mind
Attempting to arrange
A lifetime's files
In an hour

Each and every hour
Of every minute
I'm remanded in memory
A willing prisoner
Of the past

My hands are cuffed in air
There is no key
But me
And what is left
Has lost all recognisable arrangement

I'm pulled down deep
But holding on to stones
They keep me grounded
Drown-ded

Letting go will all but **** me
All but do me in
Everything but that

Letting go for Life
Shake it off
Your clothes are all wet
But you're not made of sugar

Your tears will not melt you

Your heart will not break

Let it be

The silence I doubt is mine
The noise I have created
Casts a long shadow into quieter days
Where brightness might have found its place
Had the sound I basked in
Breathed out
Brimmed with
Not displaced the stillness of pooling thought
Sent it rippling
Murmuring
Whispering
Bouncing neon light into dark dusky spaces
Blinding subtlety and safety

I heard you speak tonight
You bared your soul
In a private space
And you saw me in you

Do you know?

I couldn't find the words to say
That I understood you
That you had described my life
My wanderings in this world
So accurately
I almost didn't recognise myself in you

You looked so scared
So strong
So beautiful in your battle
So confused by your own mind
And you broke me down

I had felt so alone in my conviction
That everyone else thought these things
And won
I hadn't imagined that anyone else
Felt the way I did?

I thought I was surrounded by aloneness
Until I heard you
You made me see that it had just been me
But I was never on my own

You hovered at the end
Then left
I'd wanted to say what seeing you meant to me
But I couldn't clear my mind enough
To let you know how much you'd helped me

In your hour of need
You gave me the strength you were searching for

I hope I can tell you to your face
Some day
That you changed my life tonight
In that way
That only chance meetings can

Quickly
Quietly
Beautifully

Thankyou, my unnameable knight
You do not know your own strength

But I do

Hello person whose smile I have recreated in my mind’s eye a myriad of times
Hello gentle voice whose gaze I have grown under and gathered untold strength from
You, who are more than friend, more than equal to family
You, whose calm and kindred energy repletes me
With thanks I sit in your beloved company
And drink in of our friendship’s nearest repaired distance
You sit across from me at last
And all is well again