Six Poems by Debbie Tunstall

 

That thing you have, but always forget it's there

Would they notice the fog

settling, brushed lightly over my punnet?

Maybe if I become older, wiser

they'll buff me finely until I shine.

If I cracked, would they care,

mend me back together with surgical hands?

And if I get stolen or lost

would they look,

Or place me on the shelf 

like nothing,

gathering dust?

21 again

My waist dips in like a cratered zit,

starved from 21st century slimming.

One chunk of chocolate-

clanked between my teeth.

I put on clothes that idealise 

a raging sea,

But no one see's.

No one see's.

At home later on:

I conceal grey hairs

congragating on my head,

every inch of me aging

pretending I'm 21.

How to put pain into poetry

First, you must dissect it.

Slice it open, ( the pain of course )

until you see it for what it is-

RAW.

You must allow it to sit,

fleshy and disturbed.

Next, carefully and meticulously 

place everything back in:

Heart, lungs, skin-

sew and stitch 

sewn and stitched.

Only then can you begin.

Griefs algorithm

It goes like this:

punching walls to the sound of 

the snapping of the bottle,

followed by silence.

The upward trek on hind legs,

the ground sliding beneath them.

Trek quietly, lightly, efficiently 

with smiles stuffed into my backpack.

Upwards, onwards, I go.

I fall, you fall. We fall.

Onwards and upwards we go.

The end

         " Can I borrow that book? "

Maybe there will be something inside it 

that makes me feel alive. I could find it hiding between the coffee stained pages of you and me, where words once read by your eyes, met mine. 

Perhaps then I will feeling something. You will feel something.

And together we will marvel in all that was before, before this world closes the last page.

To the one's that said we weren't

You lit

We burned,

oh we burned.

Remember the phoenix, the ashes, those words? 

The things they said we weren't?

Now we'll burn.

We will burn,

For all of them to see.

Debbie Tunstall is a writer from Merseyside, United Kingdom. She has recently discovered writing and has finally found her sense of balance in life. She is featured in the anthology 'Fireflies' and recently in the ' Hope' anthology. Her hobbies include, reading and writing, inspiring others and a general interest in bettering others and her own mental health. She enjoys writing about moments that are uplifting even if they're unseen in the present, finally being able to see glimpses of photosynthesis beneath the dullness of life.