Category: feelings

Butterfly wings

Paper thin and fragile she’s observed the butterfly wings
That adorn and illuminate her being
Lights in her eyes fresher
Once or twice maybe more the gossamer threads inside
Were cut
With thoughtless abandon dashing a heart
To pieces in her breast
The scars are healing,  fading away to silver
The pulling at her shoulders feeling like boulders weighing
Heavy cumbersome
Sunlight reflects in the pool where faeries play
Showing the wings of rainbow hues at her back
Delicate yes
One thought the proof of existence as they wave on a breeze
And she is ready to fly
Go where her heart takes her and she has control
Of her soaring destiny

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Thoughts of safety

She’s floated behind the wall built of solid thought
Strength beyond concrete
None can break through and she’s unsure how
Or if it’s too late
Was it left so long that solidity flowed away
In unnoticed rivulets
She’s wishing she hadn’t made a castle to guard her
An unwanted prison
Of a way to escape her own blocked exits
And repair some things
But she’s unsure if she got left behind in her fortress
And it’s too late
Looking for a chink in homemade armour
Her prayer is that there’s time
Before the sand timer runs out.

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Different truths

Your eyes, your lips speak different truths of their own

The lips if they want to issue trite statements cherry picked from magazines

And the eyes glaze in boredom that the subject isn’t you.

When you talk the story has to say you are a martyr of your own life

Blame for things lie elsewhere, and your doorstep is scrubbed clean

You don’t notice the stains you have made lying there

Shielded from the beginning and never learning to grow or give 

Though you congratulate yourself on your generosity  

You are as transparent as a window pane 

With a memory as murky as a puddle where it suits 

So carry on and drink 

Salute yourself as no one else does 

And you cry into your coffee cup at the lack of understanding  

You aren’t appreciated for the things you might have done 

The world is always the same speaking a different truth 

To  your own sacred song
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleypoetry 2016

Gorgon to dust

Through the crowd they appeared to her
the tormentor
Every nightmare a walking flesh wound dealt, felt
It was then she decided to face it
Head on
Though her heart beat so fast she feared it’s escape
Facing this gorgon of her waking hours
Who held every dream and tried to crush it
To dust
Smile painted on she greets the night fear
The terror of every living hour 
Deciding a fake grin and a proof of life after
Are necessary
Even if the arm pulling her away wants to avoid
She has to face down the power to destroy
It once had
Watching it as it squirms under a level gaze
No longer
The frightened child willing to believe in half truths
Blatant lies or dusty fables fed to kill her
The girl has demolished the demons power
No more running
Her mind given new life, finally.

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

You didn’t , you……

You didn’t you say, that was someone else 

Who felt for you 

They put your words into a real neat line, you didn’t because 

I don’t see it 

The boredom of writing your soul in blood on paper, you? 

You’re not a person who tells me 

Everything 

And if I didn’t see then it can’t be truly you 

Why share your heart in its smallest pieces, or when it’s 

Bursting? 

You don’t, you didn’t ,you couldn’t ,you can’t 

Because I wouldn’t and I want a newer copy of me in you 

That’s all you should be a replica 

No way you believe I could, I would, I did 

I am.

You may have closed the door to realms of possibility 

I mourn it’s loss for you 

I hammered my doors and windows out from their frames 

To be anything I want.

I did. See it or not, I do.

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Wise woman

She clears her mind of the thousand thoughts
That tumble like dandelion wishes
Scattered to the wind
And as the canvas clears she is told where
The definitive guide tells her when to stop
Imperceptible to some the slightest change
But it’s there sensing
Heat where none should occur
Her lips move in silent prayer asking for the healing
To change things to a better state
Her hands tingling fingertips afire unable
Unwilling to remove herself unless she has done her job
The one she was compelled,  called to
do
But she must do in secret
As who would believe in a healer?
Would you?

Ailsa
© AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Work with me

You asked her work with me any time she’d dissent
Eating her inside the guilt for poor you
Excuses for your actions
Reasons why you didn’t and should
Till she’s sitting on a virtual powder keg pent up, spent
You still say work with me and miss the bitter smile
As she closes the door quietly
So she can rage within her head
Looking through and into the heart of the storm inside you
No longer wondering how to help you quell it
But seeing you keep creating it for yourself
So you can keep her in chains
Made from cobwebs of an old life
Figuring how to break free of you now
No longer excuses that are able to wash
The stains on her memory clean
They are wrapped up in neat boxes weighted by bricks
One day her words will free her mind
And she’ll pity you no more

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

The walls were greyish

She kept them that way to avoid thinking about the colours

That she might like if she looked 

But it was easier to just keep everything as grey as always 

And then nothing could dim, or tarnish. 

The walls of the cell were greyish.

He asked if painting the walls pretty colours with patterns and things 

To make it a place of freedom and dreams 

She looked at him with bewilderment in her eyes 

And told him sternly to leave then because they are 

The walls of a cell which is always greyish. 

He gave up puzzling about this and dreamed of field of golden barley 

Of hills and beautiful sunsets 

She repeated an oft said phrase with more vehemence 

The walls stay grey because they are as I say 

Always destined to be greyish 

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

River of expression

She’s careful in choosing her words and expression
For they can give too much
Away or not
Enough
And usually the latter she’s been told often
She tries hard to remain inscrutable a blank canvas
Only wanting to give away a little
Not knowing that if you watch her a while
You need ask no questions no words needed
To see her simmering eyes blazing hot embers
Anger in her measured strides
Though she’s busy trying to be a nice girl
Who doesn’t complain and says things are
Fine, no really …..
And sometimes she crumbles and cracks
The furious tears flowing like a river
That’s worn through the rocks finally to reveal
Just a glimpse of the force behind that one day
Will flood out and leave devastation in their lava like wake

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Unfolding fear

I watch as things unfold slowly, deliberately  

Can feel the newness like putting on brand new bed linen 

The crispness, feeling like nothing there has been sullied  

Stroking things to see how they feel, if they bite 

Or just caress me back 

The familiarity rubbing softly against my cheek 

Like a soothing hand stroking  

The fear tried to sink in its teeth slowly 

As it did once before and it was jubilant over me 

This time I turned giving chase so it skulks in the shadows hoping 

But it knew another me  

One whose fear was of being enough of everything to everyone 

A more alive me knows now that I should push back 

Unless I do I cannot hope to get anywhere  

I beat the unfolding fear with songs of my own 

It’s are drowned by my out of tune happy noise.
Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016