Just Turn the Volume Down!
They come out in
their loud strip bouncing a great big ball
to play their game
on my pitch, without my permission
as if it’s okay. I
bet the thought never enters their heads
that it isn’t. I
don’t even like the game.
No coin is
flipped. They just start and score goals I cannot save.
They win all the
time. They don’t decide to, they just do it –
it must be a
biological thing – and they love the roar of their crowd
with that regular
thumping in the stands, like a heartbeat
that overtakes my
own. It’s threatening in a primal way.
That must be why
it hurts so much.
It’s game over as
soon as it begins and no free kicks for me.
That referee must
be blind and deaf. Why doesn’t he stop the game?
It’s what I need.
I’ve read that predators can smell weakness
and yes, I’m
sweating but it’s just not fair.
I pay the penalty
for being quiet and considerate.
They kick their ball
through my wall
and they literally
kill me in every corner.
I’m shouting die! die! die!
and they ask why? why? why?
Prunes and Prisms
She is imprisoned
in her own time.
Daylight steps
through wrinkled glass
to point its
coloured fingers at her wall.
She remembers the
primrose bouquet
and its scent
unlike her heavy garments,
thirsty for clean
water. A drying fruit.
Sadly sewn buttons
have replaced a bow.
Gentle lines are
drawing themselves
onto a face that
hides the missing teeth.
No room for a
smile, only a quiet voice
with words that
will make her lips pretty.
Posed to instruct,
poised as instructed,
she is exactly
what they tell her to be,
enrolled between
servitude and family,
with manner and
appearance prim
and behaviour
correct. Nothing else.
In her role, to be
formal is a formality.
She dignifies
herself in happy solitude
where she remains
the property of others.
Her rebel nature
is laced into the corset,
the pain of its
ouch whispering an itch
as she scratches
the slate of young minds.
The lesson has
ended for the day
but she continues
to learn her own.
A pursing breath
puts out her candle
to leave no light
for his broken mirror
and no reflection
of her lips to admire.
Control
Broken claws of
silk, filed into wildness, hear my empathy.
Your blood is
patched onto every branch as you smile
from tree to tree.
Hidden, you have found yourself
and now you show
me where you are. Every
where. Why can’t I
heal? I want to help.
Scratched by
bushes, drowned in pools, hung from trees,
nothing works.
Painless days are my history. I touch you
but no cure. A
slipping grip, grease on my handle.
I am pounced upon,
I look around and see nothing.
So much hurt in so
many strange places.
Why do you remind
me of how sad I really feel?
I’ll wait another
hour and then I’ll eat.
Control at last.
Erosion
A life is
conceived from dust to form a rock, ready for the
roughening breezes
of the wind, the cutting mists
of the rain and
the burning breaths of the sun.
It is small in the
eyes of a sky in a world of
hands pushing and
pulling. Its resistance
bleeds a falling
pebble. Then another.
It adapts to new
profiles, chipped or
smooth. Years
advance around it,
seasons scar its
face. Fracture
follows fracture
into frailty,
until its sinking
strength
sighs into the
dust.
Gone.
Conceit
is so puffed up,
let’s stick a pin
in it
and explode its
myth.
Susan Wilson
lives in East London and began writing poetry following the death of her mother
in 2017. Her poems have been published by Lucy Writers, Snakeskin,
Runcible Spoon, Dreich, Areopagus, Streetcake, Rue
Scribe, Amethyst Review and Lothlorien. Prior to the pandemic
she was a regular performer at “Spineless Authors”,
a local open mic event. Her debut chapbook is “I Couldn’t Write to Save Her
Life” (Dreich, 2021).
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