I am more
​
than this / than you think / than you say / than you can ever imagine / than just me / than my trauma / than my art /
I am more than I was
We must speak of what's underneath
​
layers of the onion
even if it makes us cry.
There was once another painting
a girl with wings
and dark brown eyes
it was too much responsibility to bear the weight
of that gaze
which spoke only to me
of things that others must not see
and yet that gaze said it all;
bewilderment
and a certain hardness
but I am soft and ripe
the weight of my body is a warm fruit
my heat shimmers in the night
I am different now
blurred around the edges, but when is a person ever
fully formed?
it feels more right like this.
It feels more right
and my heart is still the same
wrapped in warmth and sparkle; a safe net of woven gold
cradled over the waves.
Once upon a time there was a girl who liked red dresses and flowers, who wore her heart on her hand. She liked to be out and about in wild weather, and she offered her heart to a stormcloud. One day a great wind rose, thunder trembled in the clouds, and lightening struck the little girl, burning her wings. From then on, the little girl was frightened of the thunder, and somehow, it was always there, echoing in the roiling darkness of the stormcloud. From the shadows, the stormcloud did not seem so dark, and the distant lightening could be bright and beautiful. In the meantime, this girl had become a woman, and one day, she tore herself away, clawed herself away, and once out of the shadows, she saw just how dark and frightening the stormcloud really was. She grew stronger, and her own dark wings grew. Soon, she would fly again.
-Diary-
Sometimes I have a need to write
to render things, somehow
right
and the tears that trickle and drain
or gather and drown
the light
are nothing more or less
than a gathered sense of rightness
sadness, tightness
released and lost
a lake of tears forms a mirror
a glaze, a shimmer
it shows
that I am untouched by those
who shake their fists and shout
what I am all about
is shining bright.
I'm climbing and finding
new ways to fall
when the tired fighting and frightened hiding fail
all these ways and means are a maze
that seems quite vicious,
and frail,
I clasp and cling and crawl
they are tricksters all
I live in a fortress of whims and words, with a blue doorway to guard me from those who do not knock and those that knock too hard because if you love me, you know not to knock at all and that is all. I need to trust you and let you in but for now, I am hidden and books and branches shall cover me if needs be and I am strong and calm beneath the tree where the shade feels safe and cosy enough for a cat to stay and cuddle, because here, in the books and the rubble, the cuddles are all that count, and they amount to the love and power in me that keep me warm and strengthen me- don't ask me how but if you come angry I will smite you down!
I've fallen through a window
nothing but sky below
and I am spinning,
swimming
I, a woman,
an open wound in an open world,
the great blue void I'm in.
I'm shedding layers of skin,
shedding layers of girl
until, frail and trembling
my body touches the water
and I am born, like a daughter
born into a violent sea
and yet it is home to me
I am mother of pearl,
and the world is my oyster.
​