I Am Loving Her Now

Just sit and be still;

Meagre sounds compete with massive silence.

Giving myself to it in a different way now,

Yet tinges of teenage angst touch me with cold, sad fingers,

And I need to grieve for her,

For the self who ate to feel love,

Then purged to rid shame,

Over and over and over.

For her unwavering measurement of worth

Taken in the flatness of her tummy,

As she cast her critical eye in the mirror,

And carefully counted out 200 sit ups.

Her daily prescriptions created control,

With love nowhere to be seen.

And I am loving her now.

I am opening my arms to her,

Telling her,

Showing her

She is enough,

Loved,

Worthwhile,

Wonderful,

Creative,

And I love her.

I love her awkward shyness

And her brash, loud ‘big I am’,

Her need for solitude

And to play childish games,

I love her intelligence,

Often missed at school,

And I love her big heart that still can love the people who hurt her,

That ability to empathise,

And imagine;

I love her desire to be markedly different,

And her longing to belong,

Her ways of experimenting with clothes,

And gentle rebellions.

And I love her because there’ll never be another like her,

So my heart squeezes tears from my eyes

When I see her try to take her life.

And I whisper to the family dog,

Who wakes up the parents,

Who take her to hospital,

Where she is stitched up by a nurse with no compassion.

And I gently blow love into her

And walk with her all the way to now.

We are together.

Together we sit 

And ease ourselves into the massive silence.

So Much More

I wish I fitted into my brown trousers comfortably.

But I don’t.

I wish I could love this fat body.

But I don’t.

And who is the I in this case?

Small I soaked in patriarchal values.

Sexist.

Racist.

Ableist.

All the ists exist in this I

That has narrow eyes,

Pursed lips,

Calculates and demands,

Constructs beliefs from spurious evidence

So it can fold in on itself with narcissistic glee.

A smirk twitches the corner of its lips

As it caves into itself with denigration.

The other I watches,

Curious,

Loving,

And sees without judgement

The games played,

The means manipulated,

And utters a simple phrase,

“That makes sense,”

As her gaze

Casts wider 

Into the contexts

That pattern themselves restrictive

For all involved.

She breathes deep and long,

Appreciates the battles

With self,

With others,

With the world,

Feels the sharp sadness spike her heart,

Sheds soft, soft tears

That roll and tickle their way

To her throat

Where a hatch opens,

A tiny hand reaches out

To catch the rain,

So beautiful in the sunlight

That dapples into the darkness,

Touches the pipes

That begin to warm

So she can make the sounds of love.

She sings

Of warmth

And beauty 

And rage

And soon the I’s are soothed into remembering:

There is more than this.

Always.

So much more.

Loving You is Beautiful

Being with you is beautiful

However you are

Whatever you’re feeling.

I love you.

I welcome you back.

Together we navigate;

I couldn’t do it alone.

We are strong together

Sharing what we know

And what we don’t

On the edge of 

Finding things out.

I see you.

You are not what happened to you.

You are beautiful.

You did what you could

And your body

Created splits

Like rivers forking

All part of the one

In their fractal

Roaming of the earth.

It’s wonderful to see you

And to love you

And be loved by you.

We are not broken.

We don’t need to be fixed.

What we need is presence

For our parts to be mixed.

I wrote that before I really

Knew what it meant.

But I felt it in my being.

The whole of me knew its truth,

Grounded in a desire to mingle

And know each other,

No longer hidden.

Sometimes it’s easy to see

What we need to look at

And sometimes we hide it

From ourselves.

I’ve often said don’t go digging,

But create the conditions

For it to bubble up naturally.

Defences can be high

In everyday life.

Altered states take them away

And with them

They carry away shame

Leaving just the memories

And a sense of love

For the part that went through that.

It’s so freeing

And loving.

There’s a tension between

What’s legal and 

What can help billions of people.

I feel it in my heart:

The yearning for

A loving society

That cares

And collaborates

And chills

And plays

And weeps

Together.

The Birds and the Dragon: Fear and Love

Pink Dragon, 28.7 x 21 cm, acrylic, oil pastel, ink pen, and colour pencil on paper
Continue reading “The Birds and the Dragon: Fear and Love”

The Wonderful Long Term Effects of Practising Compassion

The Wonderful Long Term Effects of Practising Compassion, Pigment pen on paper, 16 x 16 cm
Continue reading “The Wonderful Long Term Effects of Practising Compassion”

Heart Womb Room

“Seriously,” said Sandra, “if you feed it, it will grow.”

“What shall I feed it?” Said I. I didn’t quite believe her yet.

“You’re the only one who can answer that,” she smiled and a tiny dimple stroked her cheek briefly.

“But I don’t know the answer!” I felt hot and the words left me quickly. She smiled again. I shook my head, then stared at her. Silence.

Then, “what?” She laughed.

Continue reading “Heart Womb Room”