I Stand Roadside

I stand roadside
holding paper and rhymes
reading for you and me.
I jeer at drivers,
sneer at children
glare at elders.
Post-it notes
crumpled in my pocket
been through the wash
a dozen times;
ink runs down my fingers
words washed and bleached;
your photo torn
on the floor
pen stabbed through your eyes.
See me now. See me now!
You run away. You run
so fucking far away,
and I stand roadside
holding paper and rhymes
reading for you and me.

Dogs

Dogs - they shit everywhere
and leave their masters to pick up after them.

To be with

I'm in the park. There are people basking in the sun, sat on picnic blankets.

I? I'm sitting on a bench under a willow tree. Carved on the bench is 'George Pope 1910-1988'. I'm alone today with just George to keep me company.

Children totter by with their parents and company in tow, oblivious to me watching them from under the tree - oblivious to how much I wish I could have the company of loved ones that they had.

The sun is out but I'm getting chilly. The people and their miniature counterparts are leaving - and I think it's time I did too.

Lost in love and inevitably, in loneliness.

My Room

My room harbours
possessions and thoughts
and me; dark at night
it swells like nightmares
and thunders like hell.

Vignette #5

Waiting for delayed trains on a sweltering day is never fun - it's a subjected neccessity. A neccessity because I need to get home, regardless (I'm tired and feeling unwell) and subjected because I never asked for this.

As the day progresses beyond the specified time in which the train was meant to come, I become more lethargic and I find myself slumped limply on the station bench. I just want to go home.

In my idleness, my mind wanders off. I think about where I am now (a graduate, unemployed and still living off someone else's income); I think about what I am going to do (more years of training to become only half of what I want to be); I think about who I am (a frustrated train passenger waiting for her delayed train to arrive); I think about you.

My mind's whirring now, intoxicated by insecurities and worries. I take a deep breath amd find my chest tightening - all this just at the thought of you. I think about how loneliness was once my subjected neccessity.

I had been abandoned by someone I thought I could depend on and in my loneliness, had to nurse the wounds this person left me with.

Subjected because I never asked for this. A neccessity because it was a valuable life lesson I needed to learn.

I feel sick. The insecurities of abandonment and rejection is making my head swim. So much so that I almost didn't notice the train that whizzed by at full speed. I look up, startled. I can see the many faces of the passengers it contained but I couldn't focus - eveything blurred and swayed as I tried to look at the train - but then it passes...and the train disappears into the distance.

I kept looking at the point in which the train last left the platform - it was gone now, no doubt still continuing it's journey through Surrey, through a route which I wasn't taking and I thought about where those many faces I saw were going.

When my train pulls up (twenty minutes later and an hour late), I have almost forgotten about that fast train which made me jump. But when I did finally remember it as my train began to depart, I spared it a thought...and then I thought about you, about how you came not at the right time, but at a time after a life-jerking startle and how you could have to bear the burden of someone else's past. I don't want that.

As I get off the train, I feel better and make my way home. I leave the train which was bound for Central London and think no more of its contents. I am finally back in my flat; I can now relax and forget about today...and plan my tomorrow.

Battle Scars (in the Form of Memories)

Nights like this are plagued with unwanted memories and wandering minds. I think about...

What I think about isn't important actually. I should be focusing on reality. In reality, I'm lying in bed embellished with the clean sheets straight from the wash - I can smell the fragrance of chemicals which so harshly attacks my olfactories (that's 'nose' to those of you who failed Biology in school). It's.comforting to know that they are sterile.

To my left, in this reality, is an open window which, in the height of summer, serves neither to cool nor to let the light in (because my room faces south). So 75% of the time, I am plunged into a stiflingly hot darkness.

To my right is, well, a wall which is just as blank as my imagination. It holds no photographs or memories of anything good or bad. All of these pictures and memories obly exist in my head, rightly so, because some of these memories should never be visualised or discussed.

In reality, I am a beaten individual who, by no stretch of the imagination, can be fixed. In reality, I bear the scars from other individuals and the scars I give myself. In your reality, however, I am okay, fine, doing alright etc. But in my reality, I can see how I am broken inside.

Rain

The rain brings a heaviness;

it's tropical and torrential

breaking new light in the wake of its leave

relieving and refreshing

bringing new life to young eyes