All posts tagged: writing

Privilege Does Not Always Protect

Published by

Little girls are taught that boys being boys, will torment to show their love.   Big girls will claim that love makes up for bruises, broken bones and split lips.   I am lucky not to have known that sort of that love. I’ve never been struck by someone claiming their heart beats for me while echoing the beating with their fists.   When it happens to a man they are reduced to the weaker sex, because it’s bad enough when a woman doesn’t have the balls to leave.   Without experiencing the same thing I can’t say for certain, but I’ve carried enough fear with me to understand what it is to cling to the things we know.   Privileged, is a tricky word to stick when most of us hide the things dragging us down.

One Owner, Still Very Much In Use

Published by

Someone once told me life is like driving with one headlight busted. You can’t see much but you can see enough to stay on the road.   It sounded too close to destiny wrapped up as a given for those with cars or perhaps even torchlight to stumble on by.   In the moment before the train do you ever wonder… a side effect of an anxious mind designed to keep you from harm by popping ideas in your head with enough force to flinch.   But it’s all unreal  until enough breath is breathed to put steel into the words the ideas that dance like paper on a line in our heads.   New cars have automatic lights. They come on when night falls without the need of human intervention. My car is still old, growing older, it comes with a choice to make.

Past The Point Of No-Return

Published by

The yarn unwound until they were past the horizon, swallowed up by stars and darkness, the rowboat’s oars stirring infinity. ‘We’ve run out,’ said Eli, and when Carter checked he too confirmed that the yarn had unravelled as far as it would. ‘So, we have a choice. Reel ourselves in, return to shore or go on without the yarn.’ Eli nodded slowly, carefully, thumb and forefinger pinched. ‘On,’ he agreed, and let go.

#WeekendCoffeeShare – Submissions, Publications And Getting On With It

Published by

It’s been almost a month since I wrote a WeekendCoffeeShare post so I feel like I’m probably overdue an entry. My last post was January 13th, less than two weeks into a new year, and now we’re chasing towards the middle of February with the same chaotic speed that always comes with being busy. One of my goals for 2019 was to try and get some more poems and short stories published online and continue putting myself forward for writing competitions. So far this seems to be going relatively well. While I didn’t get anywhere in the Write Out Loud poetry competition that I entered in December, the two poetry submissions I made to The Drabble and Ink Sweat & Tears were both accepted and have now been published. ‘Until The Light Gets In’ went up in January and ‘Newborn‘ was published this morning. I’m now in the process of working on my next round of submissions for a few other sites and journals in the hopes that I can keep this momentum going. Aside for …

Man Up And Carry On

Published by

His mother is an echo in the tread of his soles, smaller her steps swallowed up by the forward march of man up and carry on. She sees her own father in the square set shoulders, spine now a rod to be turned into a weapon when sadness finally stews into anger.   He will tell people how he’s never hit a woman, because that is the same as respect. His mother raised him better than to paint a girl’s skin with fists, so he’ll call it love when he uses words to do the same where it’s invisible, and call it consent when he talks the ‘no’ away to a half yes.   When the glasshouse eventually does break, he’ll pretend away the damage. Not realizing that you can’t until the last pane shatters. Bravery mutates into desperation, shame, escape. Nothing else seems to fit when the world is framed that way.

Returning Home For A Spell

Published by

My father had a VCR tape of One Man and His Dog that we could never get to play properly. It’s probably still in the bottom of the cupboard, with the Disney films and MotoGPs that never quite make it across the living room anymore. Some people have got rid of their VCR players these days. There’s nowhere else for them to go but the bottom of a plastic bin so they stay in the dark with the dust and the spiders. That is the way things move on. In October I re-learnt how to be by myself. Sort of. Just me and the dog, and the crunch of autumn on farm tracks. Even the walkers seemed to be absent or perhaps I had fallen out of step with the world. Found the time of day when no one ventured further than their front-door or garden gate. I’d found a time when all of it, all of the emptiness was mine for a while. So I let it swallow me, completely, for as long as …

An Ever-Changing Beast

Published by

‘We should really address the elephant in the room.’ Those were the words you tossed out over coffee, like spare change or old candy wrappers, bits of pieces you were bored with carrying around and deposited on my living room table between the books and the plant pots. There didn’t seem to be much point explaining, your elephant wasn’t in this room, or hadn’t been until you kicked up dust clouds into a grey silhouettes. I kept my silence on the matter, much like you had kept yours until now, too cautious about the fall out, about how you might have to hold me together when all the pieces broke apart and ran for the corners in the skirting, white mice abandoning ship at the first sign of storms. I let you think you were the only one holding out a hand, while you explained why I was sad and how it could all be fixed if I tired hard enough and put in the work. You can learn how to listen to the some …

Not Here But There

Published by

It reminded her of home. The sea mist rolling in onto the shingles. Of course, it wasn’t quite the same. Peat mist rises different. The earth sort of oozes tendrils that simmer and thicken on the low lands. Stretches of green that look beautiful and safe but turn to bog at the first hint of rain. It’s similar enough though. When the mist rolls in and she’s standing inside it, condensation on her cheeks, damp in her hair… she can pretend it’s England. Pretend she’s inland, back where she belongs. It never takes long for someone to wake her.

DVerse Poets Poetry Form – The Rubaiyat

Published by

Snow In The Doorway The snow has not melted just of yet it would appear, crouched on the doorstep the last drift remains huddled here crying itself into the gravel driveway fake by flake, until this winter sun steals every single cold tear.   §§§   Kisses I think I kissed you once before, when we were both young, before kisses meant things like I forgive you, or stung. I think I kissed you because you were there to be kissed and I did not know that your mouth was a trap to be sprung. This week I’ve not written much due to being under the weather. I’ve got a virus that is slow to clear off and it’s making life a bit miserable if I’m honest. However, I wanted to make sure that I had a go at the DVerse Poets Pub Poetry Forms prompt as it’s an interesting project and it’s always good to stretch your poetic abilities with a challenge. (Even if you do just want to curl up in a ball …