Eye Catching
We caught each other’s eye,
When she started talking about the relief she felt,
Now that the earthquake was over,
We spoke silently,
As she explained how she’d felt it building and building all week.
We agreed how wonderful she was,
And how amazing,
And how much we loved her,
Though if that had been an argument you would have won.
I tried to tell you, and failed, (because eye to eye is never good with specfics
although we are quite practiced at it.)
That I was relieved,
That this earthquake had been physical,
The earth shaking,
And not some emotional matter,
Not another case of rocks sliding beneath our feet,
More metaphorical.
Instead, you kept on glancing at her,
And telling me,
Just how special she was,
This fey girlfriend of yours.
I shrugged, metaphorically this time,
And let my eyes agree.
Fixed
When did I become so fixed?
So needing of the fixed?
And so like a rabbit in the headlights of change,
When did the exciting become scary again?
When my home changed,
And I knew I count not count on anyone again,
There may be nothing to come back to.
Paranoia
When did it happen that I felt so,
Scared?
When did that happen,
When I was wrong,
When the unexpected threw me.
‘A true gentlewoman is never surprised’
oh gods but I was and it was he who was right.
And now,
I’m scared.
I’m not used to that but I am.
As if the earth were going to slide again,
And I was going to ride again,
Only not enjoy it this time.
Making Tea
I like to take my time over making the tea,
I love to peer through the little round window,
Looking over fields of sheep,
Whilst I’m unscrewing the jar where the teabags are kept,
And as the kettle is boiling, see the cars as they speed past,
I return to the dull blue cubicle, and my computer as if I am free,
And sitting again to type hear the sound of the train as it rumbles past.
I type and I type these meaningless words,
But truly my heart is free,
For my head is with the train rumbles,
And my soul is in the cars as they speed past,
The kettle boils again,
I pour the tea, still peering through that little round window,
Over the green fields of sheep, at the cars speeding past.
Trails Of Ivy
For that briefest of seconds I half believed that the trail was not there by chance,
that objects had been place, entwined and twisted,
deliberately for me to find.
But there were only two leaves, my bike must have brushed against them somewhere along the ride,
and my mind, longing and lonely for those eyes, was seeing patterns where there were none.
My island home has tilted and quaked,
leaving me rushing down to the sea.
My island home has, in some midnight shake,
left me pouring into the sea.
This cannot be,
this thing which has the earth in a state of upheaval,
my home, my home, my home,
is somewhere else,
somewhere that seems suddenly unknown,
and I am left,
my self tipping into the sea.
And it is there for me.
I am swimming, embraced by the sea
as my home continues to tilt.
To swing all the earth away from me.
I can feel the sea pound,
I can feel this bedrock slowly crumble neath our feet,
and suddenly we’re swimming
though it felt at first as if we would, surely drown,
because it tilted,
sickeningly.
I can feel the sea pound,
I can feel it’s rythmn thumping at your feet
and it is our pulse,
and it is our moment,
eye to eye, trust to trust,
suddenly we’re swimming,
and the doze has almost gone, though we know it lasts forever.
Suddenly we’re swimming and the sea pounds loud,
and the sky begins to rain as we lose each other in the grey-black of the storm,
Swimming through the waves that are sixty times sixty feet high,
and no one knows which way is up or even why we’re swimming through this storm.
Until we’re suddenly becalmed.
Here on a beach, which is tiny,
ready to be swallowed by the sea,
and we doze beneath the palms as the blue of the sky fills our sight and we can see nothing more than that.
Becalmed and suddenly swimming,
knowing only what is never said,
knowing only what is eye to eye,
in the moment.
The ground moves.
Suddenly we’re swimming.
Safe Place
Solid and wrapped around and I turned around into,
that safe place
and I didn’t need it,
but the place came along looking for me,
and it was there
and it felt as if it wanted me.
Turned around and was wrapped around
and it was solid,
and it felt as if it mattered to be me.
Turned around and solid and so wrapped around and good,
I felt as if there was no where else
that I should be
and nowhere else I wanted to be
and nowhere else I could be
as I turned around and walked into
somewhere solid, safe and good
and completely unexpectedly found.
I would lose my home and lands,
walk distances untrodden,
to see you stood in that bareroom together.
To see him turn from the window and meet your gaze.
I would walk away.
Because I know that the path would be mine alone,
and because that path is untrodden and unknown,
I cannot go.
Lose my home and lands for you to gain such bliss,
is one thing,
lose them to find you and he,
stood in that bareroom, backs to opposite walls,
would be far, far worse than even this.
The point that all this span from,
the reason I wish I wasn’t here,
suddenly seems to be the moment,
when I was told that
he wasn’t on the bus tonight
he was running his hot love towards
a cold and chilling front.
Everyone knew he’d be shot down,
except me,
and all at once I wished he would.
And he was, and my wish was neither here nor there,
except what if it had been
and I had wished the other way,
what if she’d said yes
and all of this had unfolded without me,
I had been a world away.
luvlymish
Mish's Quick Kisses 