Candle Stub
“Too sad,” they say as they turn away
asking if I ever write anything happy
Aren’t poets told to write what they know
present to people pictures
painted with their words
of places most are too afraid to go
Should I censor myself
because it may cause some discomfort
to reveal my reality
the cruelty I’ve been subjected to
from almost the moment I gave my first cry
just after three in the morning
on the twenty third of May over forty years ago
for them to feel for a fleeting moment what I do
after all that I’ve been through
Would they expect me to stifle my screams
if I shattered a bone
had been stabbed in the gut with a dagger
before being thrown in a ditch like rubbish
Would they demand I cover the wound with my hand
concealing my viscera from their sight
as I smile before stumbling home
to tuck it all back inside again stitching it closed
with nothing more than a needle and thread
the same I use to mend the holes in my clothes
by the light cast by a candle stub
all I was ever given to find my way in the dark
the flame flickering from the fickle wind
that constantly changes direction
as I pray to gods I don’t believe in
that it doesn’t die
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