Steady
I wonder if I was a cat in a past life
Staring at the birds
Lazing for hours
Except in this life I don’t pounce on prey
I devour those darting movements, those transparent beams fighting inside
And I’m too rapid as I eat
As they repeat
Again and again
I can see my habits reflected in distractions that carried me here
And are those distractions working?
This cycle, drawing up soils I’ve neglected for 35 years knows little of the answer
And these worms I found, would they have satisfied the cat I was
Would the seeds I planted grow into life that nourishes me and my babies
I shrug, as for now
Being the human I appear to be
Am hungry
Not because the soil isn’t fertile
But I’ve boxed time so neatly that no root had a chance to bed a home, to spread
I can be still for hours, like a lioness
But once I move
It’s violent
And I may have forgotten where I left my cubs
So for now I roam alone
Until I remember that the rain can find me better when I grow tall, steadily.
No life wants to hide away from the sun.
My Favourite Fairies
Last night in my dreams
I climbed high up a tree
And I spoke to the fairies
Who live higher than me
Their wings were green
And were brighter than bright
I could see them coming
In the darkness of night
They whispered they’d heard me
Before I could ask
And I couldn’t believe
They knew my wish so fast
And with that they went
Before saying any more
I frowned and felt cheated
Then fell to the floor
“Those fairies are rubbish
They don’t grant wishes
I should have gone to the water
And asked all the fishes”
But as I walked home
Bare foot in the woods
I was stopped by some wolves
Faces shaded by hoods
I screamed to the fairies
“You know that I’m scared
Why send me these wolves
If you really cared”
I froze from the fear
And awaited my fate
I’ll be tasty I’m sure
On their wolf sized plate
But all fell silent
And I opened one eye
The wolves they nodded
And passed me by
I laughed to myself
Oh fairies, you’re wise
You sent me my wish
In a hairy disguise
As to you I had prayed
That I’d live my days
Driven not by fear
But in courageous ways
Wings
Because the birds can fly
It makes me question things
Why was I born a human?
When I dream of having wings.
I would take off everyday
Hearing nothing but the breeze
No toes to break anymore
Nor more grazing of my knees.
Never wishing I was someplace else
As I’d soar across the sand
I’d be free to coast the ocean
And my garden’s where I land.
Stranger
Im not sure if I wasn’t looking hard enough or that she hadn’t been there until now.
I’ve stared out of this bedroom window more times than I can count but I’ve never seen a woman sat under the eucalyptus tree before. If I had, maybe I missed her because she was wearing a brownish bark like dress that blended with the tree, however the more I think about that, the more I begin to doubt it.
She’s a little wild looking, not that I can say I know exactly what wild should look like. People say I’m wild because I was the last in my class to shave my legs. It’s not my fault my mum never owned a razor, she told me that women were born with hair for a reason and she wasn’t going to argue with the order of creation.
She’s wearing a pink dress, although I can see a few psychedelic colours gatecrashing the pastel party. It looks a little like she’s wearing an oversized version of the tie-dye hanky I made in crafts. Her hair is as messy as you’d imagine messy hair to look like – I reckon a bird could mistake her for a beech hedge. The tone of her curls are a deep copper colour. She’s quite beautiful actually.
She’s sat with her legs crossed and her eyes are focused on something. Should I call the police? I don’t think its ok for just anyone to come and sit under the tree in a garden, even if it is communal and I’ve certainly never seen her before. I’d remember if I had.
She looks nice enough I guess, I could go and talk to her but what would I say?
“Hello there, may I ask you why are you sat here under this tree?”
Wait… I have to think about this. Firstly, I don’t know where such an incredibly formal question came from, I don’t think I’ve ever talked so proper to anyone. Secondly, asking her why she’s here could lead to a long and open ended answer, she could be one of those hippy types who never answers a question with a definite conclusion. I know this because my mum was a hippy. Not an outwardly self proclaimed hippy but everyone knew her as the ‘wacky’ one. She knew it and she was absolutely fine with that. I didn’t inherit her confidence.
Also, to ask someone why they’re doing something could lead to an answer I don’t want to hear. Maybe she’s waiting for the right time to kill someone. She could be a super sweet looking serial killer. I don’t think there are particular rules as to what a serial killer should look like, although I don’t think they’d wear a pink, tie-dye dress but then I’ve never met a serial killer before.
What if she’s waiting there to die?
Oh my god, she could have taken a million pills and is waiting for them to slowly decompose her from the inside out.
Ok, so her being there could be nothing related to death. I do have a tendency to let thoughts of death run riot inside my head since my mum died. It’s normal. Not normal to think about death all the time but I’m assuming its normal for me, a girl who’s lost her mum who was also her best friend who was also her guru, who was also her everything, to think like this. Besides, I have no idea how else to think.
My aunt Gene wears black everyday, I asked her why. I wished I hadn’t. To cut a long story short, she doesn’t want to be the focus of anyones attention and black is the most accepted colour in society, according to her.
Gene’s hair is grey but she wears a black woollen hat. I remember her wearing one during May when she came to visit us last year, before I was sent to live with her. I’ve not lived with her during the summer months, not yet anyway but I’m hoping she doesn’t wear wool in the heat. She smells funny as it is.
There is a chance this woman who’s sat under the tree could just be sun bathing, but why in a garden that isn’t hers?
I’ve only known this garden for the last 9 months. I think I only visited Gene two times before the crash, mum and her weren’t the closest of sisters. When she came to visit us last year it was because my dad had run off with a French woman. He’d met her when he’d gone out to buy some chick peas that mum wanted for her vegan casserole. Dad came back three hours later and said he’d met this woman who was selling her river boat and he was interested (yea, now I know exactly what he meant by that!). He called her, they met up and the rest they say, is history. Mum was devastated.
Mum wore every colour of the rainbow and loved warm days so she could stare at the sky and watch the clouds. Gene wears sunglasses, everyday. Come rain or shine, Gene is there with her prescription sunnies. People are funny.
Rainbows are a sign that death has happened, those were Gene’s exact words when I saw a rainbow the day after mums funeral. I bet Gene kills bed bugs just by sleeping in the bed they live in. Poor bed bugs!
There is a slight possibility this woman is hoping to see a rainbow too, her stare does look pretty intense.
Right, thats it, I’m going outside to talk to her, how bad can she be? After all, I do live with a devil fearing woman who kills bed bugs with her breath.
Before Me Now
I wonder who I was before me, now?
What if I’d been a tree before I was a human
Or a decomposing leaf
Or I was the tree, the leaf, the rabbit that rummaged amongst the fallen leaves and the soil on the rabbits paw
What if I was the field that the rabbit dreamed of
Every blade of grass and dandelion
Or the roots of a weed
Or the bacteria that lives on the root
Or the worm that travels underground
What if I was the bird that ate the worm and so food that feeds her babies, could have been me too
Or the dirt in her nest or the twigs she collects
What if I was the shell on the beach that breaks when stepped on or the blood that trickles into the sand
Or the sand itself or the seabed
Or the crab or the jellyfish
Or the seaweed that dances on the surface
Or the salt in the sea
What if I was the pepper ground to a powder
Or the potato cooked to perfection or the metal of the fork before it was moulded
What if I’d once lived in the intestine of a whale
Or a shark or even the creatures we now find in fossils
What if I’d once lived on a meteorite which plummeted to this planet
What id I’d been every colour of the galaxy
Or a spark in the big bang, present at the start of beginnings
And endings
Recycled over and over until I got to be here
What if I’m ancient and my soul is so old I’ll never remember exactly where I came from
Or know where I’m going
What if I grew out of nothing and thats where I’m headed
Or I’m the smallest of everything floating within the infinite of nothing
I wonder who I was before me, now?
No Longer Asking
Spirit, lead me someplace to find you
I ask them to make themselves heard
And make it bright, with flames I’ll see in the mist
I waited, for a day or two
Their response I’d so clearly plotted
To which I believed they’d ignored
I prayed to the moon
Clasped within a wishbone cage
“Am I to ask you instead?”
Sunk are my pleas as I notice nothing
So I tug at myself, limbs that entwine senses
I must find a place to curl into these wonders
Surely the fineness of these landscapes know something?
And with broken tissue, I fight on
Nothing came
But soreness, buried
How am I to know the order of this chaos?
The beginnings of inquisition, I cannot remember
But I do remember answers, logical
Yet still the questions poured
And deeper I clawed
But the crawling, it hurt
So I cry to the clouds
“You impersonal temptress!”
Enough is enough
I’m too tired for this precision
Instead, thank you and goodbye
For your love is swollen
And I’ve no time
Thinking time is all I have to waste
But darn it, it was me
Holding on for instruction
And I am bursting at the seams with knowing
Harnessing needs
Silencing birth pains
And thank god, spirit transcends suffocation
I asked for forgiveness, for the blaming and taming
But not before my cells resonate
With the unfolding of bestowed blessings
Mastery in motion
To see myself as that
In the dirt, with blood on my knees
And pimpled skin and bones that ache from dancing in the dark
Brilliance is what I am
I am the perceiver of every sign I need
And I’ll dance as one
With those I’d once requested reassurance
No longer asking
But thankful to know already.