Relay shun ships

Mothers,

once were little girls, dreaming of the beautiful world

in which to make their mark

Cuddling their teddy or little rag doll,

not knowing life could be so stark

for becoming a mother gives feelings like no other

in the lightness and the dark

The fear begins at the very beginning

and seems to never abate

the love so great,  hard to contemplate

how to keep you from ever getting hurt

fear of the unknown as we watch you grow

always on high alert

the bonds that they share with the children they bare

is one, only they can know

they prep and they nurture and try not to hurt ya

as they watch their babies grow

into upstanding adults, as they swim without paddles

when finally, they must let you go

They continue to worry, so try not to hurry

just go about life at your best

It’s hard on your mother, to let you discover as

you seek out and fly from the nest

Some, not so lucky to feel this love or have the same strong bond

you may live with another, not your actual mother,

who will love you and hope you’ll respond

for love it can come, in all shapes and sizes

and mother’s can come in all sorts of guises

it’s the love that matters,  no matter life’s tatters

that brings you into the fold

so on this mothers day, all that I pray

is that ‘I love you’, is what’s being told

Redress

What am I?

I ask of you, I ask of me

In the eyes and minds of others, do you see me?

Do we see the trees, in the woods?

The intricacies, the forms and shapes

Each piece, from root to tip

Some of it medicine, some of it poison

What is at the core?

Covered and disguised from and by

Outward appearance

The beauty, the ugly, the refined, the wild

Enclosed, hidden, cocooned, protected?

Still it grows, it lives, it flourishes and survives

It smiles, frowns, laughs and cries

It performs, protects, gives life and reason.

It can multiply, it is duplicitous

It is harmful, outraged, calm

Yet, there is a serenity and purity and no shame or blame

So what do you see…. Me?

Shall I concede, should I?

Is it for me, to redress, to confess the sin, of you, of them

like a virus, I am infected,

I am confident in my trauma

It is cemented in and resides within me

It guards me, it is my shield, My weapon, my curse

My shame?

So please, enlighten me

What am I?

A thing, a tool, a vessel, a release

A scapegoat for your, justice!

Money, a pay check, a sealed envelope to be locked away

75 years

I will be long dead, so tell me

Who is the criminal here?

The long dark despairing days fell on me

On my shoulders, on my soul

Where was or is my protection?

I am here

I live, I breathe, I survived

I will not be hushed or gagged anymore

I will vomit up and release this infection

And you shall set right this wrong

You will hear me when I set it free

Like a bird emerging from the tree tops

Soaring through the air, spreading its wings

Sharing to the world, what I am

I am innocent

I am grown, not a child anymore

I am injured but strong

I am bitter, but I found sweetness

I am cautious, but I am loved

I am not your victim

I am a survivor

I will not be silenced

Suicide and death, I have danced with, entertained and willed

But then you win

I am life, I am loss, I am grief-stricken,

I am decent, I am human

Tell me, what are you?

#abuse #redress#survivor 

#sin#justice#criminal#prosecute

#silenced

What changed me as a woman

Well first we may go back

In time, for many years, no even more than that

For women have always been viewed

As the fairer but weaker sex

But there’s moments in time and history, 

That we can never forget

In times of segregation, so brutal and so stark

We cannot forget the bravery and strength of Rosa parks

A woman of integrity, who knew to stand her ground

To stand against oppression, now that is quite profound

And what of Joan of Arc, a simple peasant girl

She led the French to Victory, but is known around the world 

Faith and determination is what lead her to act

Only to be burned at the stake, convicted of witchcraft

And what of mother Teresa, she cared for the sick and the poor

She took a vow of obedience, when she heard the call

Devoted her life to helping those who were starving and alone

She strived, battled and defeated, and did it largely on her own

Then of course the suffragettes, Pankhurst was the founder

Jailed and released 11 times, but nothing made her flounder

Gutsy women, one and all, they wouldn’t stay repressed

These women and ALL women are equal and certainly not less

So what changed me as a woman, when I’ve been at ‘suppression hands’

Is to rise and stand and fight right back, cos I am equal to any man

So ladies don’t neglect your worth or feel you’re not deserving

Of parity and equality where your value is worth preserving

So yes we are the fairer sex, in many more ways than one

I think the world would be much better if it were equal since time begun

So teach your sons and daughters to respect their fellow humans

Not colour or creed, not gender or status, should determine how to treat us

Take hope and faith, and courage too with fearless and gritty persuasion

To make a stand, to slam inequality down, and banish it to damnation

©  Carrie

#internationalwomensday

#equality#girlpower

How can I describe this ‘state’ that I am in?  It is easy to articulate words, adjectives, but that is not the entire picture.  It’s more than that.  For one little word ‘Grief’, means so many different things.  This one syllable word does not translate my ‘state’ of being.

At times, it is all consuming.  A feeling of sadness, deeper than any crevice or hole and the possibility of crawling out seems improbable, unlikely and impossible.  It is seismic, insurmountable, paralizing, yet ‘life goes on’.  That is what they say, and usually, they are right.  Life does indeed go on, but does the grief go away or does that go on too?  Yes, night follows day, time continues to move, people move and the world rotates.  Grief too rotates and I am at the centre of it.  I am the axis for it.  It changes me, or do I change it?

I am in the black hole and I don’t see you, I don’t hear you.  I don’t see or hear anyone.  I am remote.  I am in my thunderous, swirling hurricane and I am spiralling deeper and deeper. I lock myself away.  I curl up in a ball, I am foetal.  I am helpless.  I need an interaction, a distraction.  I need transient nourishment.    The pain is too much.  I am starving with the hunger of needing and wanting you.  I drink in the numbness.  It soothes me.  It entices me to its open arms and cradles me.  It understands my pain and for a while, it takes it away and I am peaceful, blissful, for you are with me again and we are in each-other’s arms.

I see and hear you as you come into view.  I get so excited at the recognition of you.  It’s the most wonderful, warm feeling and it envelops me.  I know you feel it too.  I see it in your face.  I watch your eyes light up, as do mine, and we embrace.  We hold and try to cling on, but then in a cruel twist of fate, you are gone again.    I am alone again, alone in my grief.

Oh people around me tread carefully, offer me the usual platitudes but I know they are getting frustrated with me.  I see it in their eyes, I hear it in their voices.  Their patience is waning and wearing thin.  They expect me to just accept it, this loss, but I cannot, it is beyond my capability to do so.  This grief is a thief of time and presence of normality and ordinary regularity.  I want that too,  more than anything, more than they want it.  What do they know about it?   They say they understand, but they don’t.  How can they?  They didn’t experience this loss.

All I have now are my thoughts and feelings of you.  My memories come and go.  My mind is distorted, somehow it forgets and regresses and then it remembers.  That is when I wish I wasn’t here either.   I just want to be there with you.  Everything is clear and calm and easy there.  Nothing makes sense here.  I try to reason, to rationalise, but it’s just too big to fathom and understand and that is why I crumble and shout and scream.  I’m afraid, I am terrified of ‘what next’?

How can I move on, just like that?  It is not that simple, it’s too complex.  I cannot get used to it, your absence.  I too wish to become absent, nothing else matters.  I will just submit to it.  I invite it and long or it to come and get me.  I wait submissively for the rotation, to bring me back to you.  It is only there that I know who I am.  When I am back there with you, that is normal, that is home, that is me, in my proper ‘state’.  I recognise myself there and I remember who I once was before this decrepitude enslaved me.  I see me clearly with clarity and I am, once again, intoxicated with happiness.   I, somehow made it back, and for a while I am not grieving.  Then, without warning, I disappear abruptly, with wanton abandon and again, find myself surrendering to grief.