Raffi's Wings

You have wings to take you soaring
You have had wings all your life
Everyone saw them on you
They shone in your smile
In your laugh
A bright, vibrant

Those wings have been waiting for you
To take you softly
Gently
To your home

None of us, not even your wings,
Expected you to travel so soon
They tripped over themselves
Brushed our faces

As they came to sweep you up
You are safe in them
As we sit here in the rain
Silently listening for your wingbeats
You are held, peaceful, safe

Love ties you
So close

You will send wings to your daughter
Your husband
So they can hold your travel a little more lightly
So they can hold each other
So your wings can be wind instruments
In their grief

The wings you send them reminding them gently
That you are safe
You are held
You are precious, beautiful, loved
Your wings will be around them always
That when it is time you will meet them to
Help them travel safely,
Your wings grow from heaven to earth
To hold us gently
To let you sing softly, as you are loved, celebrated

As our hearts grieve knowing you are held
In God’s wings
Nestled in those spaces
Where we are never alone
Where we are never apart.

Needle and knife

I might fall apart today
As I choose between
The bright of the knife
And the bright of the needle

The knife knows how to open
To dig
Carve out worms and rotten flesh

It knows how to placate me too,
Sings me a song of work to do
When it and I have learnt to
Survive on my blood

It sits on my belt
Satisfied that even though
I never sharpen it
I will always weaken back into it

The needle knows how to close
To sew shut and let heal what
The knife has opened

When the knife has cut out the worms
In the wounds that won't grew trees
The needle sighs gentle stitches
That only sting a little
That sing, rather, old marching songs,
Lullabies, composed just for me

Last night I chose the knife
Today I choose the needle
Touching my tongue to the sun
I thread the needle with light

I will sew up the places I opened
Sew closed the places that hurt
Unpick the the stitches locking me in

Bright stitches will mark my journey
To the bright of the needle
From the bright of the knife

Thin rain (zoloft, seroquel, epitec)

Thin rain
Fills the space between storm and drought
I don’t notice it, really
But it is rotting my flowers

I float between drugs
Finding a space that is not empty
Not closed

I inhale
Searching
Scared of losing myself in the grey
Surely that would be better than losing myself in the dark?
Surely the bursts of colour are not worth the terrifying
Free falls?

I don’t notice it, really
But it is rotting my flowers

precious precarious

One day
I will not be transformed by a kiss
Or a gentle word
Or gesture
Or caress

Into this
Simpering, needy thing

Who dances so hard
To make sure I make the right foot
Prints to spell out love in your language

Who reels and twirls
But summons the wind to hold me
Just so I can look steady in your gaze

Who knows I am not steady so
Who gushes waterfalls of words
Hoping that somewhere in them
You will hear what you need to

One day I will be fierce
Drinking black label in my blue leopard print jeans

Red lips for the fire in my skin
Converse so I am always run-ready

in this fierceness I will be calm
Collected in myself

Allow you to want me or not
Not hang my whole precarious
Precious
Existence round your neck

I will have grown my spine up
tall, spiky, like tree in my garden

Strong enough to hold me on my limp days
Spiky enough to warn people
Before they try to envelop me

Then you can love me like sunshine
you can leave me like mist
I will not crumble, feel I cannot breathe without you

I will smile, star teeth
stick my tongue out- mine
Into the night

Until you sing

Mourn, child
You were not born for this
Not born to be on the other side of
Fists, slaps, choking hands
A dick that does not know who you are.

I know this will make you strong,
But the truth is that it will make you weak, also
It will make you scared
Want to hide,
More likely to slip into puddles
You would have been able to jump over before

So mourn, child
You were not built for this
To be whittled away at like stone
When he does not see the statue inside
He just wants to make you small

Mourn, child,
Because you loved him
You love him still
He is still something your huge heart can wrap around
His shape inside you

Mourn, child,
Because that love was not broken when he hit you
That love was not broken when he threatened you
That love was not broken when he nearly killed you
That love was not broken when he raped you
That love was not broken when you sensed that,
somewhere down the line, your life would be in danger.

Mourn, child
Weep
For your self, and your soul, and for his too.

You do not have to be strong through this
You will survive, of course
Survival is always a puzzle-game
How many pieces you can put back together

Mourn, child
Let us weep
Let us weep loudly
Let us weep loudly enough that we find each other
That we may hold each other

Let us weep so loudly that we do not have to
try and be strong

Strength will come from weeping, eventually
Because we are not made for weeping either
But if we do not weep ourselves empty
We cannot see what puzzle pieces we will find
to rebuild ourselves
If we do not weep ourselves empty
We will never be light enough to jump over the puddles again

Mourn, child
We were not made for this
We were made for singing
And for fire battles

Let us weep until we sing

Yellow brick road

I must mourn you
As if you were dead
You are never coming back.

I sift through the remnants of you
In my spring clean
My heart trying to hold you still

With you I was sliced open,
As bloody and delicious as
a December watermelon
You spitting out my pips

With you I was as in love as a
13 year old with a boy band
As an 85 year old at her partners
Funeral

I worked harder with you than
I thought possible
To the horizon and over it
Into the dark

I felt safe with you in warm moments
Of half sleep

I felt brave with you often
Until my knees gave way

I was awed by you
Floored
Amazed by your dimensions

I was terrified by you
Feared for my life,
My sanity and
My future

I was so hopeful in you
For our future
The future worlds you hold

I was enraged by you
Tears hot down my face
I wished I could make them weapons
Find some way to escape you

We found each other in gentle moments occasionally,
Secretly

I was broadened
Stretched by you
Through you
To trying to survive you

We will not walk together again
I turn to see you
yellow brick road burning in my heart

I put all the love and rage
Hope and desperation
In a letter on our last brick
I turn to face the sun

crazy #decemberpoetrychallenge

Crazy

Used to be a thing that was sexy
When I was 16
Be crazy!
Be unusual, think out of the box
Dress weird – but sexy
Drink.
Get crazy!
Kiss boys – but not too many.
Make sure the crazy drunk
Helps you kiss
But forget the nights things went too far.

They never mentioned
When I was 16
That crazy was something I should grow out of
Not into

That when I was 30 drink would be a crutch
Crazy would be a label stuck on my head
Making me undesirable
For anything long term

Or would make me tie myself to
Be dragged along behind
Other types of crazy that would
Tear me to shreds

Crazy is sexy on a night out
Crazy is scary in the tears the next morning

Crazy is me blowing out my cheeks and saying no
When there doesn’t seem an option
Crazy is me shrinking back from a yes that would
Trace me into less than

Crazy is not a choice.
It is not a pair of jeans I can step into and out of.
It is a lifetime of bright and dark and pain in my chest.
Of learning to pick my way with broken glass in my feet.
Of feeling more than.
Of seeing.
Not choosing.
Just being.