#poemsbyah

[poemsbyah]

gooseflesh on the inside. skin crawling; chaotic. i am in limbo. floating in the unsettled place – please just do as i ask. just do as i ask. just do as i ask; tendrils of time snatch. curl. pull. devour. let me move forward. please. i beg you – just let me move forward.

[poemsbyah]

the great lake

the edge of a lake. a body of water that breathes with lungs made of pumice and rock; sedimentary, my dear. and everything else you could imagine set in stone. a tiny piece of time passing; evidence in the palm of your hand. layers of history and wonder — i wanted to share it with you. combing the bay with wide-eyed picking up fragments eroded by waves on a saltless shore. Taupō-nui-a-Tia; the aftermath of destruction and power, now a sheet of glass as rain creates mist in the distance. i found peace here. briefly. for a time. in a place born out of fire and rage — perhaps that is why my soul rests here. a heart calling for something familiar because i too am a dormant volcano wearing the face of a great lake; devastation disguised as a peaceful body of water. my shores telling stories that crunch under the weight of my boots. my time etched out in layers of stone; trauma creating the caldera of my life that is now full of something clearer — evidence in the palm of your hand. a tiny piece of wonder, shared with you; taken gently and with a smile. just as i would like to be.

[poemsbyah]

#metoo

Despite your humble intentions, the suggestion for me to go for a walk on my own was like pouring gasoline on an already raging inferno; as if the murder of Grace wasn’t the match that started it. Such an innocent suggestion, really. But a reminder nonetheless that, no, I can’t just go for a walk on my own, what are you thinking? Are you crazy? I could get attacked. Or murdered. See, as a man you wouldn’t think of this, but I thought at least as a therapist you might. But you didn’t. And that’s fine. I let the fire die down a little, to nothing but a smoulder, and I know — I know! — what sort of life is lived if it’s one lived in fear? Well, let me tell you: Barely a few steps out of the building that day and I was cat-called by two men. The next day at the supermarket as I was trying to decide what bread to buy, a man thought he could come right up to me, a woman on my own, and talk like we were familiar. But the only thing familiar was the clench of my jaw, and all I remember thinking was how I just wanted to get out of there. Much like wanting to get out of my skin, because every time I look in the mirror I see Woman. I see Birth-Giver. I see Property of Men who don’t give a shit; I admit, “Not All Men,” tee emm. But enough men. Enough hands up my skirt, hands down my shirt, hands in slow motion. Enough eyes on me as I walk the streets. Enough voices shouted from cars, and halls, and bikes, and windows. I say, “Enough! men.” Because a Woman in your life will have a poem like mine hidden under their tongues; the fire in their lungs snuffed out, their voices turning to ash as they speak. She will have scars; memories that run vein-deep, skin scrubbed raw that will never feel clean, and if that Woman in your life is me, Her rage will rise on the occasion that any man suggest She simply go for a walk on Her own like it’s nothing. Because I was taught Fear before I learned how to ride a bike; a little girl told to avoid strangers on the street, if you’re going to wear a skirt wear it down to your feet, and now that you bleed remember that boys will be boys but it’s up to you not to get pregnant. But where are the lessons for the little boys who are now men? The ones who never learned that to touch a Woman without Her consent is a violation, the ones who coerce little girls with “we’re playing mummies and daddies”, the ones I grew up thinking it was my job to save — that all he needs is my unconditional love and he will be redeemed, no matter what he does to me. And maybe if I was taught to love myself in the same way I was taught to Fear, I wouldn’t be stifling flames ready to engulf a man who has been nothing but sincere. I digress, the damage has been done and the trauma is there. I’ll stand up to say “me too”, but I also ask, “where to from here?” Definitely not for a walk on my own, no matter how humble the intentions.

[poemsbyah]

Metamorphosis

These wings are unfamiliar to me. What was once a different body, stretches limbs that aren’t my own. What was once the safety of a chrysalis, is a wide open world full of things that don’t see me, but something new.

This is the change I had been expecting, and yet the wind moves me in ways that I find uncomfortable; crumpled and weak, my wings struggle to catch the wind. Everything is alien to me now, but I feel like I should know how to fly by instinct.

Almost like it’s in my DNA to fly, despite having spent most of my life grounded. I am but a crawling thing; a creature of the Earth. Do not put the expectations of the Sky on me, I do not want them; too heavy for my frail wings to carry.

Perhaps it is best to wait a while. To let my wings dry off; grow accustomed to their existence. I need to learn how to be this  new version of myself, but do not worry! I will fly at some point. Do not give up on me. The flowers will still be there when I’m ready.

[poemsbyah]

day moon piece of night in bright blue darkness brought to light dragging demons to fight i appreciate you day moon piece of night in bright blue

a.h.

[poemsbyah]

ghosts

these ghosts haunt me like memories floating through purgatory. they were feelings, once. feeling my way through a dark corridor and suddenly i get chills down my spine, as if someone has walked over my grave; one i dug for myself so i could become a ghost and a memory, or both. aren’t all ghosts memories? aren’t all memories ghosts? nothing like white sheets, they linger as a lump in my throat, or stones in my lungs. these ghosts, slipping into my mind every so often, pulling me under the waves i’ve been fighting against for weeks. where am i now? no longer able to trust my own thoughts, i cower. afraid of my own shadow or rather the thing that casts it. sometimes these ghosts inhabit me and for the briefest of moments i become them. again. the rage and the heartbreak and the pain; i feel them all. and then they are gone, wandering on endlessly, leaving me with the faintest echo of what they once were. i watch them go. almost peaceful. almost as if these ghosts weren’t devastating once. but they were. i have the scars to prove it. harmless, now, but always hounding me — a reminder that some emotions leave marks. some emotions become ghosts. and some become memories.

[poemsbyah]

What is Happiness?

It would be a poem, where you’d see the words before you heard them. It would be yellow. It would be blue. It would fizz and crackle and pop. It would shine. It would radiate the warmth you get from your mother’s hugs, and the pride you get from your father’s approval. It would be butterflies in your belly and a spider’s web in your chest. It would be the thump, thump, thump of your heartbeat when you tell someone you love them for the first time. It would be stars. It would be the moon. It would be the gradient of the sky at sunset. It would be the smell of the earth after rain. It would be walking into a lake on the eve of a thunderstorm. It would be someone, not your father, telling you they were proud of you. It would be hard work paying off. It would be art. It would be your favourite flower. It would be the smile you get at the checkout, and someone thanking you for letting them into the queue in rush-hour traffic. It would be an open highway. It would be music played loud. It would be singing along to the words even though you’re rubbish at singing. It would be laughter until your sides ache. It would be your first morning coffee. It would be the person you’re thinking of right now. It would be the person you’re thinking of right now, but dressed in yellow. It would be the person you’re thinking of right now, but dressed in yellow and holding a puppy. It would be unfamiliar. It would be doubt. It would be fear overcome. It would be fear, period. It would be strength. It would be peace. It would be peace at last. It would be a good night’s sleep. It would be dreams. It would be waking up in the morning and not wanting to die. It would be getting through the day, and doing it all over again, and it would be wanting to. It would be enough, I think. Having enough. Being enough. Feeling enough. It would be enough.

[poemsbyah]

Goodbye.

A word that the tip of my tongue is all too familiar with; scalded by ‘coffee too hot’ people. Goodbye looks like I’m pushing people away again. Goodbye looks like abandonment, which means I’m pushing people away again. Goodbye is a gift that I pretend to like but I put it on a shelf and try not to think about it. Goodbye is an offering of me letting you go but hoping you’ll come back to me one day. Goodbye is a wish that I didn’t have to say it. Goodbye is a song I’ve played to death; sick of it by the hundredth time I’ve heard it but unwilling to take it off repeat. Goodbye can be like a sunset, sometimes — in the sense that I know I’ll see the sunrise. Other times goodbye means knowing I’ll never see the Sun again. Goodbye is a wilted flower, the only reason it’s dying is because I selfishly plucked it out of the garden to make my kitchen look nicer. Goodbye is muggy rain and tea gone cold. Goodbye is a broken promise. Goodbye is pleading please don’t go, I don’t want you to go. Goodbye is lucky; lucky to have someone mean so much that it makes saying goodbye hard. Goodbye is a privilege. Goodbye is a keepsake taken from my lips and locked away in a pretty ornate box. Goodbye is a pop-up notification of heartbreak; one I didn’t need to be reminded of. Goodbye is holding on and letting go at the same time. Goodbye is hope that I’ll be loved and left softer; fingers crossed, eyes shut tight — please just this once let goodbye be good. Because it sure as Hell beats the alternative of not being able to say anything at all.

[poemsbyah]

Anomaly

I’ve been thinking about disappearing. Not that I have any plans to kill myself as such, it’s just that I want to drive my car until it runs out of gas and once it does, I want to keep going. I find myself wanting to be nowhere, because nowhere seems like the right place to be, fitting well with the constant state that my soul is in. See, the electricity you feel in the air before a storm is similar to the friction I can feel between the molecules I’m made up of — all vibrating at the frequency of non-existence. I am a black hole. I hear the words you’re saying, but as soon as they slip softly from your lips they cross the event horizon and then they are gone, never reaching their destination. I am an anomaly; something that’s not quite right in the Universe; sensing it as deep as the marrow in my bones — so much so that correcting the anomaly would mean my demise. I don’t want to upset anyone. But right now I feel like I am living only out of guilt, living only for other people, living only for the convenience of others so I don’t make anyone else sad by not living. Yet no one seems to understand that by living, I am sad. I am so sad. And it’s getting to the point where I am speaking over and over; words falling from my tongue like lead laced with that heavy sadness I’ve been storing in my chest but instead of being held, they’re sinking — to the bottom of an ocean made up of words that I just cannot seem to get across. So, I’ve been thinking about disappearing. Not just for a moment, but all moments — and I’ve never been more sorry.

[poemsbyah]

Dread

It’s back again — the thing with claws and horns and ill intent.

“Is it behind you now?”

It moves with me — a shadow that whispers things I try to resist.

“Keep moving.”

It takes my hand. No need to tell me where we’re going — I know because we’ve walked this path before.

“It doesn’t look very agile.”

It wears my skin. Excusing itself while it slips into something more comfortable — my body no longer belongs to me.

“Don’t think you are alone.”

It doesn’t like that. Rallying around as it sinks its teeth in — a dagger concealed to strike when it least expects it.

“Where is it now?”

It’s choking me. Fists made of bark curl around my throat — restricting my thoughts of survival.

“You’re holding still.”

It’s looking right at me — with its hollow and dark eyes. There’s something in there though.

“This is a memory.”

I think it’s here again. The sinking feeling in the centre of my chest — chaos within the confines of my ribcage.

“Keep breathing.”

I know what it wants. To drag me back into its melancholic pit — fighting back only makes it angrier.

“Don’t be afraid to look behind you.”

It terrifies me — the way it slips between my thoughts like water through my fingers. Tainting each one it touches.

“Nothing will hurt you.”

It wants to hurt me. It opposes the very idea of my existence — six feet under is the only plan it has for me.

“You’re safe here.”

I'm never alone — as I set out to find some kind of monster, but all I find is a frightened child.

[poemsbyah]

attachment is difficult // a.h.

[poemsbyah]

barbed wire words.

there are words kept under my tongue too heavy to let pass my lips, so i keep them in my mouth to try to swallow but they’re made of barbed wire; i don’t even mind the blood. i don’t, i promise. because these words — these sharp, painful needles in wide eyes crying — they don’t even matter, really. just forget that i have them sitting under my tongue and ignore the way the red drips down my chin as i try to convince you that i’m okay. i’m fine, i promise. a little blood never hurt anyone, except maybe the one whose blood was spilled, but when was the last time i mattered, really? i’d rather these barbed wire words tangle themselves in my throat than get caught in your hands as you try to hold them. because my life was in your hands and you struggled to hold even that so what good would you do with a bunch of barbed wire words anyway? it’s fine. really, i promise. these words will stay inside me, consumed with my rage and heartbreak; bitter pills i’ve been made to swallow. swallow all the way down until they’re forgotten; all the way down until they are nothing, just fragments that i must digest, churning in my stomach along with those barbed wire words. there is so much blood. blood that i thought was just mine but i don’t know anymore. i don’t mind the blood, i promise. i will bleed and bleed and bleed and then maybe i will die, but i’m fine, i promise. forget about those words and bitter pills, the ones that make me bleed. they aren’t important, after all. and neither am i. really.

[poemsbyah]

silence moves between us // a.h.

[poemsbyah]

(i) conflict.

you told me once that our time together was only one twenty-fifth of my life, and i remember standing there thinking that i used to be good at math but i can’t work out what that is in a percentage. as if a percentage will mean any more than a fraction. as if a fraction means anything at all, which it doesn’t. because there’s a clock on my bedroom wall that doesn’t have numbers and it doesn’t even tell the right time anyway so for me the length of time means nothing. i’d like to think it’s how the time is spent that really means something; like money spent from a last pay check, or, effort spent on making someone a nice gift, or, time spent sitting across from someone for one hour, one day a week, for approximately seventy weeks and i used to be good at math. it’s either four percent of my life, or fourty-two million three hundred and thirty six thousand seconds of my time. i had to google both of those numbers. and at the end of the day that’s all they are but not really. i can clumsily calculate how much one twenty-fifth of my life is in a percentage, but how do i calculate how much someone comes to mean to me in that amount of time? they didn’t cover this in my year twelve calculus class so when you tell me that our time together is only one twenty-fifth of my life, i smile and shrug.

my time to you is only about two percent of your life. half of what you mean to me, if we’re still talking about time. i’ll come and go in the space of a heartbeat and maybe i’ll matter as little to you as that clock on my bedroom wall does to me and maybe that’s why you said it. perhaps i’m afraid of walking out of your office for the last time, and our time together will be nothing more than a number. my file will be closed and my time slot in your week will be filled and it will be as if i never existed at all. and i wouldn’t, either. exist, i mean. not if you hadn’t of spent your time sitting with me while i was suicidal, so, it has to mean something, right? even if i leave you behind and end up dying you still get paid so what is one twenty-fifth of my life to you?

i remember for the first few months after we met you kept mentioning how it was my goal to be here for as short a time as possible and maybe that’s why i never imagined i would be here today, one year later. only expecting to stay the minimum six months, not foreseeing myself sitting here after a year questioning a damn attachment. isn’t it funny, what time does? time can convince you that you know a person. time can put people on pedestals and promptly take them down again. time can teach you new ways to love someone. they say time heals all wounds but each day that passes is another puncture through skin i had to grow thick over time; an armour i’d only just gotten comfortable taking off around you and now in the back of my mind i can hear a little girl crying.

one that only wanted to ask you a question and now she never wants to ask you anything ever again. every time i see you i envision myself standing between her and you. i never thought i would have to protect my inner child from you. not you. not you. and so now i’m left questioning our time; how i could ever build you up to mean so much in the space of a year, only to have it demolished in a few seconds and how i’ve spent two weeks sorting through the rubble, picking out the remains of whatever faith in you has been left intact. i have thought myself into a corner of rationality and yet i am still left wondering. and now that i’m too afraid to ask you questions, how will i ever know?

[poemsbyah]

Bulletproof

It was over in twenty minutes. I woke up two hours later, and I didn’t want to die anymore. I was skeptical at first; the pain was a seven out of ten, but my body felt like it belonged to me for the first time in — ever, actually. My body felt like mine. My body felt like home. A secondary diagnosis of unwanted fertility and for the first time in my life my body felt like something I could settle into at night; no longer lying awake dreading the mornings where I’d have to look into the mirror and hate what I saw, because what I saw was a woman. And as women growing up we’re conditioned to hate; every curve, every bump, every part of ourselves not magazine perfect but what I hated the most was the predetermined idea that because I was a woman, I would be a mother. Even now as those words leave my mouth, I am ashamed — because God has given me this gift and I’m looking for the receipt so I can politely return it. I see me at nine years old, bleeding for the first time, and being told that now I would have to be careful. You want to instill fear in a child? That is how you do it. Unable to comprehend that what my body was capable of was, in fact, a miracle of life; but instead, I was terrified. And so for the next seventeen years that terrified girl spent her life thinking that there was something wrong with her. That she would find a boy who would change her mind. That all of this self-hate would one day be fixed once she decided that she just wanted children. Fuck that. After seventeen years I can finally tell that terrified little girl that her worth is more than her womb. That she will find a boy but he won’t try to change her. That reclaiming her body will mean digging her heels into the ground through blood and pain and tears and she will have to fight for it — there will be an invasion before there is salvation but it will be over in twenty minutes. She’ll wake up in recovery barely able to string a sentence together, but after that she will feel invincible. Powerful. Bulletproof. A week later and it’s only just starting to hit me; I’m no longer dictated by expectations. No longer feeling as though I was the problem in a story everyone else had written for me. No longer feeling like an unwelcome guest in my own skin — instead, I can build on the foundation that I am worth so much more than this. Because against the odds, I did reclaim my body. It is mine now. And there will be a day where I no longer dread seeing my reflection in the mirror because I am a Woman. And I am more than just my ability to have children.

[poemsbyah]

Missing

They told me this was normal. “Missing a therapist when they’re gone is a completely valid thing to feel.”

Transference, they call it. Transfer my feelings for this person in my life to you. And while you’re at it, transfer my insides right onto the pavement because that’s what it feels like.

I didn’t sign up for this. This gaping hole in my chest because you’re gone for four weeks and I have abandonment issues.

I’m not angry at you, I promise. It’s just that I didn’t expect this - Having to pick up pieces of myself when you’re not here and then realise that some pieces are missing.

Honestly, you’re just my therapist. But in your absence I realised that I wished my father had been as kind and validating as you are. And then I hate myself.

It feels ridiculous. I’m blindsided by the intensity of the sadness and the vague feeling of gasping for air as I’m sinking in wishing you were here.

They told me this was normal. “Missing a therapist when they’re gone is a completely valid thing to feel.”

And I think, eventually, I convinced myself just that.