Thousand Yard Stare

When you looked like that,

Your eyes seeing another time and place,

I knew.

Soft brown somehow turned black,

Pupils blown,

And I knew.

Something had to give,

To pay for your service to the Queen,

When you weren’t seen.

The troubles affected your mind;

I knew you would turn to me.

I’d listen for the creak in the hallway,

Late at night,

When all were asleep,

‘Cept you and me,

Though I pretended to be,

Arms pinned rigidly either side of my body,

Duvet trapped,

As I barely breathed,

Heart thumping in my ears,

Fears rising so high they might shatter into shards in the next moment.

Fists clenched tight against my thighs,

Tense stillness mixing hope and listening, 

Listening…

For your almost silent footfall.

Mouth arid but a desperate swallow,

Frightening in the sound it makes because

Any

Tiny

Noise

Could cause you to attack.

But it wasn’t that, was it?

Not me,

Not my body’s natural urges to move, no.

It was you,

What happened to you,

What they did to you,

What you didn’t express.

Couldn’t.

What you couldn’t express.

Locus of Evaluation Part 2

In Locus of Evaluation Part 1 I wrote about how I believed my art teacher, Mr Yates, when he told me I wasn’t good enough to do art at ‘O’ Level (equivalent to GCSE), and my journey to becoming an artist in adulthood despite that. In this post I’m going to write about why I believed Mr Yates so readily, and it may (or may not) relate to your own story about locus of evaluation.

Continue reading “Locus of Evaluation Part 2”