Silly Little Poems, vol 2

Words cannot express (a writer’s least favourite predicament) the gratitude I felt after sharing the first collection of my poems. They received an overwhelming amount of love and, for the first time, I felt like I had a place here.

It’s difficult - I’ve never really belonged anywhere at all. I’ve always felt out of place, like someone who exists on the periphery but never a core part of anything. And the same can be said about my time writing. Perhaps it’s a type of impostor syndrome. Perhaps it’s a learned behaviour from years of feeling this way.

And so, the (extremely loose) theme of this week’s instalment of poems is exactly that - isolation, introspection, and familiarity with oneself - of course, with a few fun ones sprinkled in for balance.

Winter

Visible exhale,
a
mindless glimmer
upon the trees.

Oh cloudless sky,
late-rising sun -
do you possess powers
to break this?

Self

See me
for the way in which my conversations
are spiderwebs of ideas,
not coherent, logical stories.

For the ways I tease and poke fun
as a form of affection,
and for how I have never been able to choose
just one hobby to stick to.

For the very particular way
I manage to overthink almost everything -
my mind a chaos of thoughts,
yet somehow,
I notice everything.

For the way I absolutely have to be right-
because I am right -
and will not let it go
until that is accepted.

How I feel intensely,
how I cry when I laugh
or when I love deeply.

For the way I ache,
wanting to be allowed in,
to belong,
yet still I refuse to shrink.

Please,
see me,
for how I love you,
not for the ways in which
I serve you.

Socks

So worn are my socks,
that they now know
upon which foot
they belong.

Aber

There is a tree beside the road, near Aberystwyth,
standing tall and wide,
her branches dipping low
as though offering a quiet place to climb.

I cannot say, exactly,
what first drew my attention -
perhaps her ever-changing nature,
the way her colours shift with the seasons,
or the stark silhouette of her branches against the snow
in winter.

I don’t know her name -
if she’s an oak,
an elm,
or someone else.

I know nothing of her history:
whether children ever clambered
up her low-slung branches,
or if couples once picnicked in her shade.

I’ve never gone to her.
I know nothing about her,
except her beauty,
and though she doesn’t belong to me -
part of me
belongs to her.

Performer

How dare you
appear in my dreams,
pretending you are but an
innocent character
in someone else’s
play.

As if you did not
rip out my organs
or slit my veins.

Or burn down our house
with me
still inside.

Contours

In the quiet,
the still,
the after.

After everything is gone,
I trace your contours
as if I’d mapped them before.

Somehow, I know I have.

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