Hues

When I was low I used to think of you
And life would seem better, a rosier hue.
Then day by day I had to learn again
That things change, that you can’t be afraid.

Little by little, you closed in on your wish
Convinced of it legitimacy, we went to the brink
Propelled by a haze of jealousy and fear
Disguised by your happiness, of when I was near.

After so much time you still didn’t know
Where I wanted my hopes and dreams to flow.
We parted, but the sorrow was more than that
Because you knew who I should be, but not who I am.

Now my daily world is a little bit greyer
And I continue alone, but you too my dear.
Sometimes I wonder if you’ll ever find your truth
And if you know that life now, has a gloomier hue.

Unaccustomed lungs gasp for unpolluted air
Body weighed down by millennia of tradition.
Precious stones glint under artificial lights.
Each one reflecting a distorted image.

Pampered skin and then her soft brown hands
Intricately decorated by a red-brown paste.
Bathing herself in the air’s humidity
It’s stifling presence clouding her thoughts.

She belongs to neither this world or that
Never quite fitting the available moulds.
Beads of sweat in the small of her back
Duties performed by feet in agony.

A beautiful language flows past her ears
No detail in the conversation’s light and shade.
Hypnotic music kicks up the dust
As a swarm of colours obediently dance.

Heavy clouds linger to release their load
Onto the patient dry earth and dusty leaves.
The same earth she stands on in her other life
Relieved wet grass gives way to the point of her heels.

Her faded hands mark the end of this journey
As an old life beckons her from across the sea.
The ocean so wide, the two lives rarely meet
Leaving her to be an ambassador of both.

When you're teetering on the edge, with concentration you can often regain your balance alone. If someone is there with you, you can reach out to them to steady you. But if you reach out a hand expecting someone to be there, and you are alone, you don't concentrate on balancing by yourself.

And you fall.

Sometimes you offer yourself up to the world.
But it's laughs echo round your heart, all it gives you is it's dirt
Chasing after a desire that drives you on and on.
But it's just a conveyor belt, that everyone else trundles along.

Everyone you've loved has always loved someone else even more.
So you try in vain to let go, to leave your heart on the floor.
You always tell strangers to follow their dreams to their end.
You try and do the same, take help from your friends.

But you know you are strong, can take the rough with the smooth.
So still you pretend and withold knoweledge for them to soothe.
Yet oneday you know the weight will become too much.
And the cracks you hide will widen and you'll be crushed.

Then everyone will see what it means to be you.
That you've been disappearing and no-one knew.
And while looking after yourself has made you strong
You've been fading away and now...

...you're gone.

Snip. The clunk of wood on wood. The mechanism groans into action, slow to react after so long unused. However it was built well, the parts still function. Click, click, click - it's locked. The contents have grown too fragile for public view, the world too unreliable to be trusted. So with a kiss on the cheek to say goodbye, it goes into hiding, protected from the world until it is safe to come back.

Coming home to a dark and sleeping house
Sometimes greeted by a swaying tail
lock up behind you, keep out the cold
tip toe up to your den of technology

Waking up to the voices of strangers
Shuffling their way around your life
turn on the radio for someone to talk to
listening to the woe of other lives

Finding the will to get out of bed
stretch out your body, ready for the day
guess the weather outside before you look
Big toe switches on the computer.

Going to the bathroom to brush your teeth
Stare in the mirror, look for changes
Go downstairs to pick up the mail
There's nothing for you, read the paper

Sitting at the computer to plan the day
connect to the world, check it's still there
msn flashes, fingers jerk in response
faceless chat using yellow pictues.

Filling out forms, think what to write
hard to impress when still in pyjamas.
Rifle through papers that document your life
despair at the mess, add item to tasks

Taking a shower, linger in the heat
brace yourself for the wall of cold
Run errands that your parents asked of you
Work down the list of things to do

Finding a new wind to fill out forms
a dog comes and snuggles by your feet
A second one joins, slumps heavily down
simple needs and simple emotions

Looking at the clock, haven't yet eaten
tempted to leave it, lose more weight
Remember need food to keep nice skin
rumage kitchen for something you want

Surfing the net, you pass the afternoon
try and plan the rest of your life
Scary to have a new way of thinking
wonder if ends justify the means

Racing downstairs, paws slide on the floor
Keys chink as they join the rest by the door
Expensive shoes clunk on the laminate wood
go sit on the stairs, join in the greetings

Asking about their day, 10 minute chat
talk about dinner, look at the time
get ready for work, dinner on the table
Gulp food down, say bye to the parents

Going to sit in the car, too rushed to think
have to wait a minute for the windows to clear
Arrive at work, look happy for the customers
Come home to a dark and sleeping house.

There were times when you thought
You were finally comfortable with life
With who you are and the way you look
and you no longer had to pretend to be content.

Then something flicks a switch inside
And it’s hard to look your friends in the eye
In case they see that something has changed
And they don’t understand the way you work

Momentarily all you want in this hectic world
Is for just one of the six billion to stop and see
To hold you and tell you it will be ok
So you can summon strength to do this alone.

You know everyone has their tracks to follow
That cross and swerve through the rivers of time
So you swim along, building your track too
Hoping you don’t run out of steel.

Closer

I saw you from afar
Heart fell into my stomach
As I flew along the ground
Closer and closer to you

With a smile on your face
You slid towards me too
Your heart and stomach in place
Closer and closer we became

From the corner of their world
People watched with curious eyes
The meeting of two souls
That could not help but connect

But when our skin met
You felt something else
Inner mind focused on another
While our bond melded deeper in

Connected to you, I pulled away
Stretching at bonds so quickly made
But you resisted, I decided to stay
Alone here, while you dream of others.

A Way Through

Fresh air blows through her hair
In the centre of a whirlwind of time
The gods have been playing their game
Brushing his words past her ear

Storing his secrets behind those eyes
So many times she’s tried to find
A way through the words
A door through the time

His travels have been dark
But he’s kept his spirit safely away
The gods have been playing their game
Taunting his senses with her tears

Storing his secrets behind those eyes
So many times he’s tried to find
A way through the words
A door through the time

Fingers entwine as secrets escape
Their tender minds released at last
The gods have been playing their game
Creating a way through the words

I dreamt of your love and the sorrow it caused
When you dangled it in front of me
Like a kitten with a ball of string
Jerking it just out of reach
Taunting me with what could have been
With the chance to step into that otherworld
Of happiness and caring

I wanted someone to dance with on a quiet Tuesday night
To look at with my tired eyes and not feel inadequate
Who would make me feel good and I could reciprocate.
All is through that glass door,
Through the glass door I cannot shatter,
The way you shattered my heart.

It was like focusing on a moving car along a road. Your vision becomes a mass of blurred lines, except for the bit you focus on, that car. In that last year, you had been that car, the thing I could focus on - my reference point.

Events just seem like details in a blur
and you collect your tears in a jar for your friends.
You're tired of your dreams and of hearing the truth
closing your eyes to a velvet black
and opening them to a created reality.

Sometimes you can't dig your nails in deep enough
Sorrow and solitude come your way, hand in hand
Offering you their tears to drown in.
A familiar but dangerous friendship

Who am I?

I am just a fleeting thought in your head.
Another entity carrying on their life
So tenuously connected to yours.

I am mind filled with dreams and despairs
Attached to a body that determines your judgement
And mine when I look in the mirror.

I am a shadow in the corner of your eye
Following the sun and its ethereal light
Wanting, yet afraid to succumb.

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