She had, like so many others, spent her life placing her painful memories away into a little box. It was actually quite a pretty box as she imagined it; painted white wood with red and yellows swirls.
Each time a memory was stored away after a while so she could carry on with her life without constantly dwelling on the sadness in it. It allowed her to focus and surround herself with the good things, to be grateful for those.

This is how she'd survived it all, how she had appeared fine to the outside world and small talk people. Indeed, she still appeared fine. There was no reason to change her personal method of survival. It had worked until now and would most likely work for the rest of her life too.

However, the little box that already contained so much, and would no doubt accumulate more, wasn't always secure. Each experience brought an extra lock, each with corresponding keys and combinations. Only one was needed to open it, and once open, it is hard not to see the rest of the contents, so desparately locked in. It takes years of practise to ignore their cries for release.

But this girl had not had years of practise, not nearly enough anyway. Few people ever feel like they have ever had enough practise at dealing with the hard things in life; a good thing in a way.

It took only a smell or a word to open the box sometimes. Today it was the colour of a shirt she had noticed. There was no reason for anyone in the room to suspect it as a key; no one there was even aware of a box. Even your closest friends will never know everything about you.

Anyone who looked carefully at her then, would have noticed a glazed looked of melancholy come over her, if only for a second or two. In that second however, the memories and all their feelings passed before her eyes: Friends with broken lives, the deaths of loved ones, a grown man crying on his knees before God because there was no one else who could help, the tears she has shared with her lost best friend, the months of happiness she'd had lost with a single sentence, the starving child at her feet, knowing there were thousands more that she could never feed or help.
All these, maybe more passed before her eyes, as I said, we can never truly know a person's complete thoughts.

An instant later, she had blinked and re-adjusted her hair. The glaze had gone, the memories pushed back in. To the people around, nothing had happened. Even for her it was just a few seconds of thought that had passed in one day out of thousands, maybe as insignificant to world as she felt they were.

I was so hopeful
For someone to know me
For someone to share their dreams
I let you in, to my strange world

I let myself believe
I let myself go, to you
You humoured me for a while
Then you broke my heart in two

I tolerated and understood
Maybe you did too
But it made no difference
To your disjointed heart and lips.

I kindled a secret fire
And waited for time
To provide the extra fuel
But thoughtlessly you quenched it

I let myself believe
That you meant everything you said
I let myself go, to you
And tell you things I shouldn’t

You humoured me for a while
Then you broke my heart in two

Flowers

As the flowers on my desk strained towards the solitary light
I slipped away, further into the shadows
Taking my tears and confusion away from the world,

But not so far so that I couldn’t pretend to still exist,
just to a place where I could be detached in peace
Away from people who could desert me,

When they decided I was no longer worth their trouble.
I left the light on for the flowers to have,
as a beacon for if I ever decided to return, and check they still lived.

It was all so sudden, so instantly gone.
In one conversation he set himself free.
And the good memories keep flooding back
Bringing with them a new ache for me.

To add to the constant one that sits and stays
Sometimes bringing anger, sometimes tears.
Work holds little of my attention these days
Staring at walls and playing with my hair.

It was all so sudden
When did you change your mind?
The clock timed out before I was ready.
I don’t understand.

I want to ask him to explain what I did
But he only makes small talk, makes more pain.
Meanwhile the papers pile higher around
While I consider whether to include him in my day.

It was all so sudden
When did you change your mind?
The clock timed out before I was ready
I don’t understand.

you made me feel
Alive
And cared for.

Then when you left.
I forgot.
The feeling of warmth.

But soon you returned
And with the touch of a hand
Caressed my hair.

Thankyou.
For coming back.

Seeing Purple

There’s so much more to all of this, me
But I just can’t tell you.
I lead a double life you see
I’m like the colour purple, both red and blue.

I appear to be more one colour than the other
But you can’t tell of which I have more
Its more complicated you see.
I mix my own colours, swirl then into a blur.

I could never be either red or blue
But people don’t really think about it
They just look at the purple you see.
I would feel strange with only the one.

There are people who are just one colour
But sometimes red moves to the blue’s paint shelf.
They think they’ll have a better life you see.
And over time some become mixed.

They are still red and blue
But people only see the resulting purple.
They don’t fully understand each other you see.
Find it hard to comprehend how they could be both.

So they just see purple.
They just accept that you somehow work.
Few people see the cogs and the wheels you see,
Mixing the paint into that secondary colour.

Blinded by warm evening sunshine,
Her vision was filled with reflections and shadows.
She didn't think on yesterday or tommorrow
Or the Beatles song that was playing with its tin sound.
She wondered how many other girls there were out there
Squinting at the evening sun,
watching a green leaf glow in the light,
thoughtfully placed with the pink flowers.
But she wasn't concerned with patterns and orderly processes
or who had invented the glass that the sun shone through.
Everything is baffling if you think it back far enough.
Eventually no one knows.
So instead she focused on that moment
and on the tiny rainbows created when she narrowed her eyes.
She could try and understand later.
For now she was content with their mystery.

Potting plants in the gentle morning rain.
Calming, wet earth surrounding my senses.
Fresh, cold air through my polluted lungs.
Distant laughter of next door's children.
Earthworms burrow down beneath my fingers.
All around me, I stare at the world through droplets of rain
Slightly distorted.
Slightly happier.....

The shadows encircling my eyes
cannot be dispersed by the sun.
I allow myself to drown in moonlight,
the notes playing on in the dark.
The sun gives up, letting the hail hurtle down,
softening to rain as if to say sorry.
Gusts of wind blow delicate pink petals
accross my tarmac drive.
Doting, loyal eyes watch me carefully,
her uncomprehending tail swaying in the dulled room.
The music carries on throughout,
my brain letting my heart take over my fingers.
The wind and rain fade back into the earth
letting the sun out for one more try.

Today is not the day for dreams or dancing
It is not the day for love or tears.
Tomorrow will not be the day to voice your views.
And it will not be the day to face your fears.

The day to follow your heart
And to smile at strangers
Was yesterday my friend.
Not today

Every now and again, i wake up and feel as though i'm joining in the same game as everyone else, but the rules i know are slightly different. I play their game because that's what everyone else seems to know. Secretly I prefer my version, my rules, but no-one else seems to enjoy it as much as i do; I can only play my game alone. They don't want to abandon the game they know,the tricks they've learnt, the other people playing it.
So I continue to play by other people's rules, playing out alternative versions in my head, hoping that one day, someone will want to join in.

Your dreams are few and far between
passing in and out of shadows that dim their sheen.
Your swirling knowledge is true but frail
leaving your faith to grasp at its tail.

The wings of your angels are broken and torn
they cannot save you, their legs are worn.
So dust off your smile, cloud this mysterious world,
forget your lost faith and use your fear as gold.

Raise your head, and open your ears, your eyes
Obeserve the people around you, have you noticed their cries?
Feel the storms and the calm, use your tears to relieve.
Just let them know you’re here, you don’t have to believe.

Sometimes I picture it like water dripping out of a barrell. No matter how much I turn the tap, it won't stop leaking. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but its always seeping out.
I thought I'd gradually refilled the barrell, fixed the tap...I had. But one unexplainable action, a mistake I suppose, and now the tap is broken again. I know how to fix it but somehow it doesn't seem so easy this time.
Meanwhile, the water drips.

What is it that I talk of?
Self esteem.