Friends and Words Series III - Holy City

The third and final piece in this series comes from my good friend Millicent. The piece expresses how people can have different experiences of the same situation. It is a poem about embracing the experiences of others and validating them despite their difference from ours. It visits the 'damaged' among us and seeks to find how they got there and how having the right support system can change everything. I hope you enjoy the read

Holy City

When I tell the story now
I do so with the indifference only an old woman who has seen too much by now can be forgiven for
What I mean is I do not forgive myself,
For not doing justice to the space you left behind
I thought of growing flowers in it
I bought them but it was not long before I sat down and saw the hem of the thought I knew lay in the back of my mind somewhere all along
And when I pulled it closer to places in my mind that I visit more often I knew I was right
Lillies cannot pay tribute to your avalanche.
Did you know about broken ciggarettes?
Of broken dirty things you would never touch?
Not to the Holy of you !
But mostly because you did not see how two broken things would heal each other.
Did you know there are people whose bones were made with crevices where broken things can live
Who know broken things kill but they are still the only things they reach for at 3am when their broken places hurt
They place the broken things slowly on their broken places and listen carefully to the two old friends sing an old song
They shake their hands after the song and silently courtsey and the other pushes aside to create room for the other
The song leaves an echo that feels like a slap
Like heavy pounding
Bt they know it all dies down
So they wait for the short period they will know peace
As broke nurses broke
Even if we all know that these kinds of truces do not last
Do we not at least owe it the people who are broken in diffrent ways than us to stop trying to fit their kind of crevices in our own
If we want to create a Holy city out of this pain
Can we not at least start  by creating a shrine of its source?
Did you know that just because you are broken does not mean when your friend says it hurts you can say 'I know how it feels"?
Will you leave with the peace of not knowing? Of trying to truly find out?
Of knowing the kind of pain that can kill a person fast is the kind that people have reduced into an " I know it too" kind of cliche
Will you admit that you did not grow flowers in your broken places because flowers have never done justice to hurricanes
And that if today, in this person, you have met a hurricane.the best gift you can be to them is to not be a flower.

Friends and Words Series II - Never Easy

This is the 2nd piece in the series coming from my good friend Sandra. This piece is encouraging whoever reads it to stand firm, the journey at times may be tough but never lose the faith. Ultimately you will get to your destination. Enjoy the read.

Never Easy

'We have been there' is what they tell me.

Coupled with disgusting smiles of disapproval.

It isnt that I haven't been there,

Rather they fail to realise we took different paths.

Some took the clean tarred little road,

Yet others had the more challenging rocky one.

For me it has never been easy,

I have had to jump over and go under things.

Never was it easy,

Others complain because their path was a little dusty

I am no judge neither am I a jury

There were times I had to pull thorns out of my skin

As they pierced me in mid trudge

Never did I lose focus

Eye on the prize. Mind over matter

Had to carry my siblings

One in each hand, another on my back.

It was never easy for me,

I dipped my hands in pots of honey

Surrounded by bees

But here I stand unscathed, unfazed

I am not were I want to be

Neither am I were I used to be.

Rather grateful I made it this far.

Friends and Words Series 1 - Scars

Kicking off the series, we feature Sue of soulfulmiss.com, a good friend of mine. The featuring piece, Scars, with the double purpose of being the first in this series and  being a dedication to the 16 days against gender based violence movement just felt right. Enjoy the read.

Scars

Every time you open your mouth,

a nail to my cross you strike.

Every word you utter,

like a hammer it drives it in.

Every name you call me,

strips me naked.

In the name of this stupid emotion I stay

Fearing prejudice and discrimination

What would they think of me?

Slowly conformed

Evolved into this new me

The once liberal and free spirit

Now lives for approval

Constantly being told I am not good enough

and every other thing I do wrong

Manipulated into thinking I am nothing!

Should have left when the red flags first came up.

This reflection staring at me in the mirror,

I do not recognise.

Conditioned to accept what is wrong

A soul bearing invisible scars.

The scars  I bear - dead man walking

Friends and Words Series

Poetry is a powerful medium of expression and for the next 4 Fridays of December I will be running a Friends And Words series on my blog were I will be featuring  pieces from some of my friends who also happen to be wordsmiths. I am definitely looking forward to this series and my hope is you will enjoy it. Feel free to share, like and leave a comment. Much love Jay.