I am the prisoner of my own.
My heart, the dead worn four walls,
My mind, the voice burying me deep.
And my eyes, ashamed to look at me.
Love had measured me down,
Kindness stepped out.
Care abandoned me long,
Respect never came home.
I am the prisoner of my memories,
Of the times when cruelty was a stranger,
A prisoner of guilt I am,
A shadow standing taller than me,
Constricting me down deep,
No way out, just endless darkness it seems.
Oh I am the prisoner of my own.
My voice, it forgot my name,
My arms, refuse to hold me the same,
And my soul, locked away, far away.
my heart raced in rhythm
when you and I became one.
In between our happiness,
a sadness emerged
it's poison embraced
our love.
constricting, killing
our relationship.
no more mornings
watching the honey and rose
twilight together,
sharing coffee.
I've simply learned to find comfort
in the unspoken morning
gathering my thoughts for the new day
When everything is torn away from you,
when the tapestry of your life is unraveled thread by thread,
what is yours to hold?
Your name,
the one with a cultural meaning that has become heavily shadowed,
is not yours anymore.
That was one of the first things they replaced.
Your native language is not yours, either.
Seclusion and shame are now the price to pay for speaking your mother tongue.
Your clothing is not even yours,
all garments of a foreign land.
They are constricting and unfamiliar.
Your education is no longer yours,
as they've changed the school system to only serve them.
You are left with nothing and cannot hold on to anything.
The tapestry has been ripped to shreds and is thought to be beyond repair.
How could you maintain your sense of identity,
when they proclaim it's not yours anymore?
The moon would be a dull, gray rock without the Sun's light.
An opinion would be a thought without one's voice.
A man would be useless without a purpose.
So, all the men that stand before me are nothing,
as they brandish their swords;
squeezing the hilt like my throat,
constricting the words from it before they're even spoken.
My men were tethered to Earth,
they tortured themselves daily for fleeting escape.
My luminous glow was their temptation, their envy.
As I was the moon;
a quiet beauty that spoke volumes.
My men chip away at my craters, their shadow swallowing the Sun's last rays.
I am now a rock;
Stoic, rigid.
Ruthless. Ruinous.
The light drained from my now-hollowed features.
A merciless wreckage pounded into rock, hollowed from its light.
scuffs in the pearl white floor
when she leaves the room,
for empty hospital hallway memories,
haze of sterile gloom
like snails, the chronic men
each slowly wear away,
their minds left to trail behind them,
their faces falling into decay
the grey walls with snake green stripes
always constricting them,
the dim fluorescent flicker of the fate
to which they have been condemned.
Hermit crab human scuttling about
In my new life. Ill fitting suit.
Like wearing your mother's clothes -
Clip clopping around the kitchen...
High heals filled with little feet...
And dreams of an old lady and her children.
Have I wandered too far into the fiction section.
My old life discarded on the floor
It no longer fits. Too tight. Constricting now.
Still warm with memories as I nudge it with my toe.
Now there's room to grow -
rather baggy if truth be told.
I twist and turn in front of the mirror.
Trying to imagine a time this feels like home.
Trailing clouds of glory do we come
Until by the end we are left dull and glum.
How it all came to this
We are responsible
For being so remiss
The magic of our early moments
Emblazoned in our minds
Fades and disperses with every pressure
Our world brings to bear upon our pleasure
Exams, bills, targets, workday worries
blunt our perceptions
And drive them undergound
Occasionally to spark alive in a dream state
Eluding our grasp
once we come to our senses
Wide awake and once more blind
How to recapture
And to resurrect
That rich inner spirit
Which came with our birth
That should be our aim
Too many earthly concerns
Within our clay
Must take the blame
For that loss of courage
To break free from the constricting frame
Forcing us
To forget the beauties of the day
To play the stultifying economic game
The stifling straitjacket of life
Keeps us playing
“Truth
a distraction”
the media pouts
Constricting
those voices
trying to shout
Dumber
than dumb
brain dead by degree
Digging new graves
for the few
— still left free
(Dreamsleep: April, 2024)
Enchantment
Love is not the opposite of hate
that fiery passion
which turns against our heart
like a python through the blood
constricting life
love is what we yearn for
to create delicious selves
the flavouring in our lives
it is a thief that creeps upon us
or steals us from the start
of all the humours
love believes itself supreme
the drug we cannot do without
we are joyful in its midst
or a victim of its curse.
Do you ever feel like you are dying
Like someone is sitting on your chest
Constricting the flow of oxygen
feeling the shortness of breath
Pressure that threatens to steal your last breath
I'm not dying
Although sometimes
I wish I was.
I feel like I'm drowning, gasping for air,
As if the weight of the world is too much to bare.
Life feels like a chokehold, a suffocating embrace,
Leaving me breathless, struggling to find a space.
The air grows thin, my chest tightens in pain,
As if I'm caught in a constricting chain.
The walls close in, the pressure intense,
Leaving me feeling trapped and defenseless.
I try to fight, to break free from the hold,
But the grip is strong, and the struggle is bold.
I need to breathe, to find a way to cope,
To find a glimmer of hope, to find a way to elope.
Life can be a stranglehold, a crushing weight,
But we must find the strength to push through the gate.
To find the light that shines beyond the dark,
And breathe again, with a newly found spark.
For though life can leave us feeling strangled and bound,
We must keep fighting, searching for solid ground.
And though it may take time to find our way,
We will keep breathing, and keep moving, day by day.
Every emotion is free, and all encompassing.
When I awaken, I feel restless.
Rather than restful.
I toss the blankets aside.
As if they are constricting me.
It’s morning.
And I’m questioning if I actually slept last night.
Or if I just assumed I did…
Either way, I think I was dreaming somehow.
I must have been.
What had just made sense in my head-
Is now uncertain and starting to scatter.
Well, there will always be the next night.
Until then, I’ll just stumble through the day.
Feeling fuzzy.
Feeling like the universe is caving in.
It’s night.
And I’m questioning if I was actually awake today…
Tomorrow left abandoned
with every choice I make
Constricting all potential joy
and limiting my fate
Each short term indecision
restricting unrestrained
My future playing out of tune
a timed and dull refrain
Most often I have missed it
when no outweighs a yes
For temporal gain my judgment strained
—an orphan in regress
(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)
Moorings anew are easy as thought,
Vessels tethered, fixed as weather,
By an anchor, a person, or an idea,
Sure to shore up evidence of defense, of itself.
With every wave, memory fades soft as morning fog,
Providing wet hiding and reinforcing ties,
Binding us together, on shores of security,
Like seamen seining a weir of our own making.
Forgetting respawns our willingness,
To be encircled again, within a radius of safety,
Ropes with a constricting reach, endless limitations,
As far away as the unmovable horizon in view.
Then we float into the final harbor,
Less grounded, ethereal anchorage more stable,
Rites of arrival unknown, moored in others still,
Slipping in, your past adrift, reborn under a new gable.
Right now
covered in wounds
you shed the dead tight skin
that has been constricting your breath;
Newborn.
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