Thursday 4 July 2013

The here and the hereafter

THE HERE


Is she falling?
Drunk with ill.
Lifeless legs,
Keep her still.




Joints frozen.
Limbs heavy.
Drowning fast;
a flooding levy.

Aching body.
Pain within.
Subject to
internal din.

Nervously taut,
staccato of toe.
Step by step
of cautious woe.

Wired to scream.
Not to smile.
Scares and scars.
Vicious and vile.

Control; reachless
A no go zone.
An abyss open.
A place alone.

Sunshine bright.
Bright is pain.
Listless, sapped,
laid out again.

Legs won't run.
Can barely walk;
tumble. Jumble 
has replaced her talk.

Is this finite?
Ever repeated?
Can she be free
of a life so cheated?


AND THE HEREAFTER


She turns her face to death
and back again to hope
And asks for hope to give her
a long piece of rope.

And when no one is around
in the middle of the night
A noose she does make
to climb towards the light.

Found hanging the next morn
with a smile on her face,
She'd set herself free
to a pure painless place.

When they cut her down
to lay a body on its bed,
they emptied her belongings 
beside her blood drained head.

They stood back to see 
what little she possessed.
At worst, a stash of pills,
A crumpled tissue, at best.

They found, no hope no joy.
And they looked for a while.
Just grief. Relentless grief.
Her all consuming trial.

And they stared out of her window
to the patch of grey below.
And spied uniformed and lifeless 
- row on row on row. 

No future amid laughter.
No future - none at all.
As they stared out of her window
they heard her new life call.

I'm happy now I'm free, 
there's hope, joy and ease.
My grief has dissipated.
It's left swinging in the breeze.

They realised all they knew
of this tortured bruised soul,
was the fact that she had gone
to a place where she was whole.

A place where she was able
to be at once at one.
Celebrating no more pain
with legs now free to run.


Copyright Emma Oliver July 3rd 2013