I wrote this one a couple of years ago:
Walking blindly into the future
because I loved you
because I trusted you
because you were holding my hand
Failing to recognise that
taking no action is an action
failing to choose is a choice
staying on the path is a direction
Taking so long to learn
that every second is a decision
that not changing is a choice
that my future is my own
Walking blindly into the future
I looked back at the past
I saw all my decisions
and I
let go your hand
I wrote this one a couple of months ago:
Looking back at the darkness I used to contain
and realising that somehow I walked into the light
without knowing
somehow I overcame without knowing I was fighting
I swam to shore but didn’t know I’d been drowning
coming alive moment by moment
so slowly I couldn’t tell
the slope so gradual I thought everything level
the dawn so imperceptible I didn’t know it was day
and now I am light as air
floating like a feather on the breeze
flying towards the sun
and yet
underneath
the fear of falling back down
down into darkness
Another brand new poem:
i tumble, bruised, to the ground
my limbs betraying me
a moment of inattention
a moment of weakness
something twists, that should remain straight
and i fall
kind/strange hands lift me up
and i limp onwards
the big clock strikes, late, late, behind me
and i limp on
battered
to my destination
Literally just finished this one:
you think my gender is written on my body
a text for you to read
but you’re wrong
it’s written deep inside
somewhere in walnut curves and sparking neurons
and merely displayed on my body
a work of art
subject to interpretation
what you see may not be what you get
and that is not my problem
but yours
for failing to understand
that this is more complicated than x and y
m and f
a curve not a point
people are always more complex than you think
Didcot! Sunny Didcot! Home of electric power!
Oh! Watch the steam rise from every cooling tower!
As seagulls call mournfully in the clear summer sky
All the little streams and ponds are once again running dry.
Didcot! Rainy Didcot! Home of six charity shops!
Bewail the lack of butchers to sell pork or lamb chops!
As happy children splash homewards through the pouring rain
The orange Tappins coach is speeding by once again.
Didcot! Chilly Didcot! Home of Tesco’s superstore!
Oh! Feel the cold as it strikes into every pore!
As trainspotters watch the Intercity speeding past
Doen their necks the winter wind will blow an icy boast.
Didcot! Lovely Didcot! The home of several pubs!
Don’t forget Rotarians and sundry other clubs!
As the last light of evening fades and dies away
A shout goes up ‘Didcot! Didcot! Hip hip hip hooray!’
A pig is pink a pig is fat
I wish I had one on my hat
I think that it would be quite nice
To feed a pig on fried rice
A pig is pink a pig is large
I think I could fit one on my barge
Yes I think I probably could
But do you think I really should?
A pig is large a pig is pink
And pigs really do not stink
I think that pigs are nice
Have I said that once – or twice?
A pig is pink a pig is clever
A pig would not betray me – ever!
I think that pigs are really cool
Don’t look at me like I’m a fool!
So just because a pig is fat
And you can’t fit one on your hat
Don’t think that pigs are not nice
I think I’ve now said that twice!
This is another old poem.
There are no tears that burn enough for me to cry them
There is no pain that hurts enough for me to die from
So here I stand I stand alone
And there’s no way to help me home
Out of the cold into the warm
No way to keep me safe from harm
If there were tears that burnt enough for me to cry
There’d be a pain that hurt enough for me to die
There is no star that shines for me
There is no flame whose light I see
So here I am in the dark
Tears locked in my aching heart
When there are tears that burn enough for me to cry
There’ll be a pain that hurts enough for me to die
Content note: cancer, discussion of ableism
It took me a long time to be willing to call myself disabled. Longer than it should have, really. I kept finding reasons why it wasn’t true – I don’t use mobility aids (until I did); I’m not “officially” disabled (as though that matters – my chronic pain certainly doesn’t care that I don’t count as disabled under the Equality Act); I don’t want to presume to call myself disabled when other people are much more disabled than me (and yet, I’d furiously disagree with someone who told me I wasn’t queer enough). But that was all a veneer papering over the fact that I just didn’t want to be disabled.
I wanted to be like everyone else (but only in this one way). I didn’t want pity, or special treatment. I told myself lies about how I wasn’t different, that the things that were becoming difficult were things I didn’t want to do. But really, underneath, it was pure internalised ableism. Subconsciously, I thought of people with disabilities as being different from everyone else – and I wanted to be part of the everyone else. Ironic, really, since I’ve never wanted that in any other aspects of my life.
And then I got cancer. Which made all my other symptoms worse. And during the course of cancer treatment and the aftermath of that treatment, I was finally willing to accept that I am disabled.
I’m sure I would have reached that conclusion eventually: my conditions were only ever going to get worse, after all. But cancer definitely helped to speed up that realisation.
The root of my resistance to labelling myself disabled was that I didn’t think of it as a positive identity – unlike being queer, or non-binary, or mixed race, I didn’t see any positives in it; it seemed to be an identity consisting solely of losses. But of course, that’s the ableism talking.
I came across the social model of disability a while ago, which helped to clarify my thoughts about disability: it made so much sense! But I still didn’t feel comfortable using words like disabled to describe myself. I felt like I didn’t have the right to those words at the same time as not wanting to admit to myself that I was disabled. I felt like embracing the label of disabled would be giving up on the possibility of becoming “healthy” again – even though I knew full well that there was no chance of a cure. My dodgy joints will remain so, my chronic pain will never disappear. The best I can hope for is to minimise the effects of both.
I’m still not part of any disabled community, nor taking part in any activism, but maybe that will come in time. For right now, I am just accepting that part of myself, acknowledging its existence, and recognising that it’s okay, that I am still me, that this aspect of my identity is just another part of myself that I need to come to terms with.
There’s rage, not mine but inherited,
Passed on in the blood
Handed down from untold mothers and mothers of mothers
Tapping deep into my core
At the centre is fire flame lava
Burning melting destroying
With memory
With knowledge
With awareness
With everything seen and heard, felt, lived, experienced
Fury feeds itself
Turning out and in
(More often in than out)
And someday must make a change
Out not in…
Since the first version seems to have mysteriously vanished from the previous post, here is the reconstructed version (similar but probably not identical to the original) – this will teach me not to keep copies!!
pain spikes
an indrawn breath
a shout above the background noise
needles through my flesh
and I
breathe in
enduring as always
waiting
for it to pass
Random Ramblings 