poetry

The Chest

rubberbandsandchewinggum4 Comments

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Oh good gracious me!!! I stumbled across a huge word file on my laptop today when I was looking for some writing I did around the time my dad died (it’s the anniversary of that horrid event this weekend). The document I actually found was writing I did 6/7 years ago during my NHS therapy with Em. It’s painful to read what I wrote then but also amazing to see how some things have really moved on and how other issues remain stuck. Therapy is clearly a long trek for me! I might get round to putting some extracts here eventually if I can bear the shame 😉 But for now – here’s the piece of huge cringe that I wrote to Em after my last session with her back in 2013 (and proceeded to send her in the mail!). The plan had been to see her in private practice after three months of ending in the NHS but it actually turned out to be three years before I got back into the therapy room with her… and last week was the anniversary of three years more work… I’m surprised she ever agreed to see me again after my teenage self clearly got poetic! Haha.

The Chest

The dust of half a lifetime lies thick on the lid

Carefully, I trace the words ‘KEEP OUT’ with my finger tip-

Those words roughly etched into the surface

during in a time of past desolation.

 

As though it were some mystical chest

I gaze down and wonder at it

 

But I know this box

The one I keep my secrets in

Does not hold treasure

I know too, that finally, it must be opened

 

The lock.

Cold metal.

Sturdy.

Still holds firm.

Even after all these years.

 

I look away…

turn the key…

The bolt gives way

 

Hinges creak loudly and the cool air

rushes in

to fill the dark, silent space within

 

Deep breaths.

 

Staring down

At the clandestine hoard.

It is not quite as I remember it.

 

Some items have been neatly wrapped and carefully placed inside.

Difficult to handle things, thrown in in haste, are strewn untidily.

 

Slowly, slowly I begin to unpack

each individual fragment of a memory:

disappointment

anxiety

inhibition

rejection

abandonment

loss

self-doubt

self-hurt

 

A broken heart

A broken soul.

 

This jigsaw requires careful handling.

 

Piece by piece

one at a time

I free these parts of myself from the mausoleum

Some are so fragile they threaten to disintegrate

Others razor-sharp and still poised to draw blood

 

Little by little

the picture emerges.

 

Tentatively I hold out my hand,

“Look at this”  I say.

I half expect you to run screaming out the door

I know I want to.

 

But there you are- still.

And for that, I thank you.

Therapy Break – 2 Weeks In: Lost In The Ocean

rubberbandsandchewinggum3 Comments

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Therapy Break #1

I am not in your presence

but, oh

how painfully aware of your absence I have become.

 

Time and distance

stretch

out

endlessly

between us…

 

You are so far away.

 

The holding place in my mind

struggles hard to keep you whole

 

Are you merely a figment of my imagination?

A hologram, perhaps?

*

Even when within my reach

you always feel so very far away

 

I can see you,

feel you, but

I cannot touch you.

 

That small space

opens up like a vast ocean

I stand on one shore

you on the other

 

You beckon for me to join you

promise to be my guide

and to witness the lessons of the Self

that only I can teach

myself.

 

For the longest time I have waited

warily watching

assessing the dangers that might lurk hidden

in the deep.

 

I believe I will reach you –

eventually

(is it misplaced confidence or simply wishful thinking?)

and so I begin the swim.

 

My muscles relax into a familiar rhythm.

The hardest, aching parts of me begin to soften

as the distance between us lessens.

 

It’s farther than I thought, though, and

sometimes cold

sometimes silent

sometimes strange –

The horizon keeps shifting.

 

I tread water a while

rest and catch my breath.

I look up and discover that

I can no longer see you.

 

Panic.

 

a sudden shiver

a lightning bolt

 

Both sea and sky shift rapidly

calm blues now rage-filled greys

Angry, turbulent clouds roll heavily in

raining hot tears down like shiny silvery bullets.

My fear rises alongside the storm-whipped waves

 

I am exposed

I am scared

 

Is there still safety on your shore?

I can’t be sure.

But it’s swim or drown

and so I keep moving.

 

There’s no going back.

I must have faith in what I feel

And trust in what cannot be seen.

 

***

I’ve posted this poem at the bottom of a blog post before. I wrote it last year when on Easter therapy break. Right now it completely sums up where I am at (again/still!). I haven’t got much time to write at the moment. Time off with the kids is full on. I am putting on a good show on the surface – doing lots of activities and outings but inside/emotionally I feel stuck in that horrible place, stagnant and numb but underneath it’s only hanging together by a thread – not even my usual rubber bands and chewing gum. And so right now I don’t even know what to say in a blog post.

I will find my way out of this fog eventually, so long as a I keep swimming. At the moment I have lost sight of both shores and am tired, cold, and want to be rescued…. and there’s still two more weeks of this break to go. Ugh!

I hate therapy breaks 😉

Oh woe is me! lol!