Tag: People

It only counts

If you don’t know him well and he makes you hurt
Then it counts
If you hold her after and tell her it’s okay because you love her
Then it doesn’t
If you buy her something pretty to make her smile
You are entitled
To do as you please and no arguments can be made
Is your justification
When she cried out for you to stop it was encouragement
A mere enticement
No a simple form of encouraging you to carry on
The assault doesn’t count
Because you tell her you love her in between events
And then you were shocked
Weeping and wailing to the world of your confusion
How badly she treated you
Crumbling like an old castle in public places
Silent calls,  or threats of harm
Chameleon you colours change as they suit
More afraid the truth will out
Thinking still of how it was just her being dramatic
It doesn’t count,  does it.
It does. It does.

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Skimming the surface

Reaching in she pulls the paddle over and under trying hard 

To remove the scum gently  

If only she can be gentle enough with more time or patience her inner voice says 

It will be just as it should 

Again she works to remove another cruddy layer in determined silence 

The other voice tells another story 

Walk away abandon it, save yourself it beats a stronger rhythm than before 

A clang awakes her from her reverie 

Nothing clings to the paddle at her side so she checks the waste bucket at her side 

Perplexed at its emptiness of anything solid  

Realising that all along the shift was something she thought she was doing 

But she skimmed the surface of an empty barrel 

What she tried to perfect , put right is nothingness and just how she wonders 

Could that ever be done? 
©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016 

The beautiful lies

In the bubble of pretence your smile shifts
Like a ever moving desert sand
Picture change to suit the current story of the day
Pick through the rubble that is your mind
Mask slipping
Rubber stamp on the opposite page
So you can slide back into the rhythm you never had
A dream which didn’t happen
Though if you wait long enough then it might
Drop through the door you watch
You say do nothing and it’ll all work out
Don’t push for your dreams
They’re meant to fade with the light of day
Be like everyone else who asks the question of how
They can change things then accept
Learn to live with the same as the hordes before them
Swallow the beautiful lies like nectar from the gods
It’s a slow dawning till you realise
That bitter taste,  yes that one!
Is the taste of your own dead dreams sucked into eternity
So far out of reach because you deceived yourself
Into thinking you had to follow where you were told
The lie is wrapped in colourful splendour
Don’t breathe it
It can turn you sour slowly curdling like cream left in the heat
Walk,  run, escape the cat calls
Telling you that nothing different can happen
Run towards your hearts whispered wishes
Far from beautifully crafted lies

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Understand no dreams

It’s a childish thing your expressions say
No words just a twist of the lip
Curled in distaste and what you assume is knowing
Your vision doesn’t want to go beyond the garden gate
So you make the outer prison walls pretty
But liveable
Any new experience of mine has you
wondering what if I have gone
Too far this time and I’m falling on my face
Making a grotesque clown of myself
With childish dreams that should be in a box hidden
From sight,  thought and deed
Hide you whisper,  close down your mind
Dreams are not for living
Only thinking
You will me to give it up before I begin
I never could stay in the boxes designated for me
And you tut tut silently shaking your head
As I start to build not a castle for long dead lives
But a home,  simple and without barriers
No fence to imprison me
Or pretty garden to disguise it’s true meaning
Just a place I am at peace and home.
There is no grander a wish for me
Than understanding a dream can be real.

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Ice in the blood

She’s lying there feigning sleep to escape
Another discussion
One sided as always but he terms it a fair exchange
Same old start strokes her back
And whispers words in her ear in tones of love
Chilling her bones to the marrow
I always wanted to kill someone just once see how it feels
Racing heart she tries to calm
Know you’re listening you went rigid (chuckles)
She feels sick as he tries to nuzzle her neck
Moving slowly out of grasp
Almost
Ice moving through her blood so cold at the thought
Of what is beneath the surface beside her
Is he made of ice,  stone or just a monster
Masquerading as man
She dreams fractured dreams of smashing ice to tiny shards
Not cutting herself
But he won’t harm his words won’t wound
Seeking only a reaction from a sleep fogged mind
Yet yesterday she heard him telling a man
She’s a force to be reckoned with
Supposing that nodding and doing all the right things for him are
Then she must be
Except that deeper person hidden away tells her
Be the person in his smudged brain
Or pretend and let the spirit of the strong one inhabit you
Until the real you can step forward
Go on it urges for survival
The decision is made to obtain freedom
Ice crystals cool her blood

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Offering nothing more

Laid out is the offering the table well laid for the party promised 

To attend but failed 

He’s sat there watching her over an hour now 

Thinking her too stupid to know he is there in the shadow white night 

Snow tumbling down covering car and its tracks in white 

Disguised in his head parked just to the left 

Of his usual spot where he’s noticed straight away  

For he needs to be noticed by adoration or pity 

Overall it’s attention he needs and craves like his crutch 

Does he feel anything for anyone she asks 

Her anger is boiling and bubbling like oil in a pan 

Starting to lick into flames 

Tamping them down she tries for this day at least to ignore the dark anger that bides 

Like a being in her chest as she feels disgust start to reign 

Tiniest spark ignites to light her way forward 

Showing her there’s an end to his tyranny in sight 

As something goes flying when he can’t get his way, feeling disgust at what she sees 

No more wanting to help, pacify, or excuse 

The narcissist who’s out to destroy piece by piece  

Each last atom of self respect that she holds in her hands hidden from view 

He slams out walking away like a threat 

Slithers down the wall till she’s sitting cross legged as a child 

Listens to words of friends playing on repeat 

Walk away while you can, make the parasite leave and stop leeching your life  

She lets angry tears flow as she walks to her lonely room  

At herself for this lasting so long 

Never again will she allow herself to be under this kosh 

How it happened she’ll never understand .
Ailsa 

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

All very convenient

When you pick the memories you’d like to have happened 
Then forget the ones that did
Telling everyone she was carrying on with someone else 
Who she never even met
Because it’s all very convenient

When you threatened her with harm if she walked alone at night  
Then tell the world you’re afraid for her
Make sure you turn up where her family go to see crocodile tears
Say she’s left you in ruins 
Because it’s very convenient

Some people ask her if it was true your routine so worked out
All the things they said were they true 
I could have answered and defended myself
But I let them take their own ideas away
Why should I explain what they choose to believe? 
For a penny’s worth of gossip so say naught and become branded
Because I don’t believe it’s that convenient
At all

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Acceptance of anything 

Your eyes roll as she tells you she can’t take the burden on her 

It gets heavier daily 

You’re not on your knees yet is your retort 

Snarling sarcasm oozing from every pore to poison her mind 

Against herself 

Agreeing she can accept more, a little longer 

Wishing at least one promise comes to fruition though it won’t  

Your words twist like a rusty knife leeching poison 

Through her tired veins 

Someone who has seen it all before makes her promise to ensure this 

Is the last time that she gives because 

She has nothing left to spare this sucking insect without destruction   

And finally although she’s told him just a little longer 

Everyone still fooled by the tearful lines of being misunderstood  

Calls her up and begs on his behalf like she knew they would 

Her sanity worn to a frazzle, because she’s drowning 

But that last fight you have before you sink is always fiercest 

And she forces herself to the shore where he no longer resides 

Leaves the ghosts of the past to play at unhappy families  

What does she have left he taunts her……

More than I realised, more than you wanted for me, just more 

It’s called life not perfect, but I can make dreams 

She has begun 

Ailsa

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Behind the mask

Could see you thought it was amusing,  clever even
To stand her there on the spot
Making her watch the baying crowd ordered to hate
Told give her every ounce of nasty you have
Because I will know and if you don’t
This is your fate
Evermore
She brought me no gift only knowledge and that
You spit hatefully is not good
I alone have power and it’s all mine to choose your fate
You giggle cruelly piggy eyes narrowing to red slits
So if you make a punching bag of her
My eyes will see nothing
Slap her hard to ram home your point
Carefully check to look for tears you want to see there
White with anger at none
She’ll never tell you she cried at night to mask fear
Smiled and tried hard to hide by day
And you with the label teacher hated her for facing you
In abject terror she masked
Hating herself for not just giving in to worship you
Like the rest
She saw through the monstrous mask and refused to give in
How many more would you break if she did? 
How many after?
Only hoping you were found out for the monster you are
Behind the mask

Ailsa
©AilsaCawleyPoetry 2016

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016

Shades of a person

The shutters down as he tells her it doesn’t hurt
To try that again
You do want us to be happy don’t you?
Know I won’t harm you really
She’s beyond any fearless answer wondering
If she ignores it this time
He’ll get to see the others he says hurt him
Have got no sway
Casually mentions that he doesn’t mean to harm
But if she just didn’t get so
Goddamned mouthy
She’d not need to hide the bruises if she didn’t fight back
Or say things he doesn’t want to hear
Her insides are dying she feels withered and shrunken
Her world is closing down
Like a store gone bust departments closing
Some parts dark
One place holds out to the grasping fear
Telling her survive or….
What
There is someone else to protect here and rage eats her
Explodes like the ticking time bomb it always was
Anger bigger than herself
She shakes inside as she spits boiling venom
Ordering him out in measured words
Burning and trying to keep a lid on the fear of intensity threatening
Fight,  fight,  no more flight
No tears to shed just bile to cool
Self hatred to lose
And she sends the curtain crashing down
On a stage he thought was assured
Exit stage left the cabaret now the audience is no longer fooled

©AilsaCawleyPoetry2016