Let's take a breath
I thought today I would take a break from essays and instead share a new poem, an old poem, some art and some photos! Sound good? Dope! Let’s start with a new poem:
When my Mother says ‘It’s not too bad’
I panic the way a flowerbed does
on lawn mowing day.
I evacuate my heart and attempt to save
as many people as I can before disaster hits.
I try and account for everybody in my life
and think of the last words I said to them.
I reminisce about all the phone calls
I have entered with an escape plan.
The ones I have left for the silence
when there is still so much to be said.
I ask myself
how many times haven’t you said I love you?
I count all the way to two hundred
before I round it up to ‘a lot’.
I ponder on all the spaces I left empty
instead of filling them with worth.
Years ago, I told my nephew
waste time, not space
and only now am I understanding
what I was truly saying
maybe one day
you will understand too!
I picture myself saying ‘we trained for this’
but I know, deep down, we ain’t trained for this!
My mother struggles
to divide the agony.
Convinces herself that she
is strong enough to hurt for everybody.
This is the only way
in which she is selfish.
If the world was ending and the sky
forgot how to define gravity
my mother would turn off the TV
she would close the blinds
She’d wipe away the rubble
and find a smile
She’d stand up and she’d take a breath
and she’d say
Okay….
I’m going to put the kettle on.
Below is a book cover from a book you’ll hopefully read in 2025. It is the third in the series! It is called ‘I am now an alien’.
And this was a dumb starry night image I made a couple of years ago and I never shared it but I still think it’s great.
Here is an old poem:
THE STREETS WERE EMPTY AND THE BARS WERE CLOSED BUT IT STILL FELT LIKE A PARTY.
I remember on this street corner, we danced to the busker who after a little persuasion and a little bit too much money played us his own songs. And for the first time in forever, I understood that being homeless was not about the home at all. When he wrote homeless on the cardboard in the worn-out marker what he was really saying was, there is no life left in this body and this guitar is all I have and I miss that being enough. And we danced to his songs, didn't we? And I hummed them all the way down the street. And this was back when the bars were still powered by the people and when closure signs weren't in trend. I walked with Dave, the man with a catalogue of undiscovered gems, straight into the bar and I knew the manager and I said, let him sing and he did for a little under an hour and then I never saw him again. But he sang so good the bar shined like it never shined before and became a lighthouse for the lonely. And right now the world is sleeping and we didn't know silence like this until this year but I just walked past that very bar and it was dressed in darkness but the ground was shaking a little bit and Dave's voice was still echoing and I smiled and even though I was alone this time, I danced and I sang his songs and I prayed he was okay with my moves and it was then, humming that melody, that I realised that they can turn off the lights and it may look like a ghost town but thanks to Dave, this city, will never know what silence is.
Here’s a playlist I love to listen to when I’m sad or when it’s raining.