Tag: childhood

#PoeticAnswers 73 – When Was The Last Time You Realised You Were Happy?

My memory isn’t quite what it used to be,
It was never perfect because
Nothing ever is
Nothing ever was
I was never perfect.
I am still not perfect.

I am still the bespectacled spectacle of
Unkempt hair and perpetual clumsiness
That I was when I was small.
When I thought I knew it all and
I was the circus clown that didn’t care.
Blissfully ignorant and unaware of
Labels and diagnoses that would
Shake and shape my life.

It was a time when right and wrong
Was trial and error and
The only terror was make-believe monsters
In the closet and under my bed.
In a time where we talked to our friends
Rather than sending a text and being ignored instead and
People were just people and colour and gender was something we would accept.

I miss when coolness was measured in
Pokémon cards and personalities instead of
Drugs and alcohol and dodging STDs
And police cars.

It was a time before the internet.
Before external guilt started to
Carve my body with ideals and abuse.
Before my clothes, my hair, my body
Could be called right or wrong and
People hunted for reasons to
Drag us down to their level because
If they can’t be happy then neither should we.

Now, the trolls have moved out from the closet
And I’ve been forced to move in because
Freedom and expression are only for
Normal people and not circus clowns
Demoted to freak status because
They stood out from the crowd even though
They took steps both back and in.
Because society is a gang that
Only the cool and beautiful people are allowed in,
Like my friends.

My memory isn’t quite what it used to be,
And maybe at it wasn’t the best of times
All of the time but
It was when I was happy.
Because I could be me without
Punishment or discrimination.
It’s only just now that I’m beginning to realise
It was better than this.

Question from Madison N. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 31 – When Did You First Realise Your Parents Don’t Know Everything and Can’t Fix Everything?

I remember being small,
Not emotionally or mentally,
Just in terms of being a child.

When I was sick, my dad
Would make his signature soup.
It was nothing overly special,
Chicken, rice and vegetables,
But it tasted like being better.

When I hurt myself, my mum
Would pick me up and clean my cuts
With the weird white cream
in the non-descript bottle,
Kiss it better and send me on my way.

It was just moisturiser,
And maybe it’s that over exposure
That’s made who I am today,
Soft and gentle,
Not much of a fighter.

But my dad didn’t like that,
I didn’t overly like that
Because boys were tough,
Rough and tumble, branch and bramble,
Carefree cuts and badge shaped bruises.

From boy scouts to black belts,
I tried to earn whatever rank it would take
To feel like I was on my way to
Being the best I can be.
But I wasn’t doing it for me.

Because I still remember
When I was six years old
My dad was rushed into hospital.

A work accident,
He went from tree surgeon
To needing a surgeon
And I was too young to understand
What hemiplegia meant.

Mum’s magic cream cculdn’t make
The pain go away
And he couldn’t get the special soup
Because he couldn’t get to the kitchen
Because the doctor wouldn’t let him.

Seeing this man who’d been
My idol and rock
Suddenly become bandaged rubble,
Putting on a brave face for me
When he knew he might never walk again.

So he would just lie there,
Being strong for all of us.
Like the rock in the river
Just before the waterfall.
Something to cling and climb onto.

Never showing signs of erosion,
Never crumbling to sand to become part of the riverbed.
Fighting time and tide to finally
Find his feet and run and jump the best he can
Because he was the rock on which he built his family.

I never really wanted to fight,
And this pansy-poetical, theatrical life
Wasn’t really what he had in mind.

He might not understand what it is I do,
He might not understand how he’s shaped me,
I’ve got blackbelts and trophies for taekwondo
But he was the one who tought me
What it really means to fight.

We grew up and grew apart,
I learned I am not the people my parents are,
And I might never be what they expected
Because I’m a lot of dirty words to them
But I’m okay with that.

There’s a lot of me that
They might not agree on because
They’re rocks, strong and sturdy,
But they don’t move,
They don’t change.

But to go through that,
They might not like theatre
But it was a performance I’ll never forget.

They’re still the strongest people I know.

Question from Jasmyne M. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 20 – What Have I Done With My Life?

I never accomplished
What I set out to do with my life.
I’ve been in a series of
Mistimed and unplanned misadventures
Which have led me to this
Period of questioning.

When I was a child,
If you had asked me
What I wanted to be when I grew up,
I would have said
“Astronaut or dinosaur”.
Given I’m not yet extinct,
I have failed in becoming a dinosaur.
And I’ll never be an astronaut,
Just because of who I am as a person.

I failed my four year old self,
And I’ve failed every other self that I’ve been.
But this does not make me a failure.

My car crash of a life
Was defined by an actual car crash.
One 2003 Ford Focus
And a series of somersaults
Helped put me on the path that
I now walk on.
I still need a walking stick in the winter.

But in that fell swoop,
I lost all confidence in myself,
My A in Higher Drama
Suddenly meant nothing.
Confidence was a thing of the past,
Years of youth theatre,
Learning support,
And occupational therapy,
Were undone.

I never stood on a stage for 5 years,
But I found strength through music,
Hiding behind a music stand and a viola,
Hiding under the stage in the pit.
Or staying behind the scenes,
Because no one pays attention
to the man behind the curtain.

But in my mind,
I was nothing,
I was a failure to myself,
A failure to my parents,
A failure to my suicide attempts
And the voices in my head
Only served as a bitter reminder to that.

I spent too long wondering
What am I doing, will I ever be something,
What will I accomplish, am I just nothing?
But what’s the use in wondering
When you can’t watch and wait for the future?
Because when you run from your past
You can only go forward.

If you had told me
That at age 25
I’d have a career in theatre,
I would have never believed you.
Because I always thought theatre was a hobby,
But people actually call me for my help and designs for
Lighting and sound.

If you had told me
That at age 25
I’d be on a stage performing,
I would have never believed you.
But now I’m pouring my soul and surrealism
Into performance poems that
People actually like.

If you had told me
That at age 25
I might not be the killing type,
I would have never believed you.
But thirty-two hospitalisations for
Suicidal behaviour later,
I’m still here.

Maybe I’m not an actor,
A dinosaur or an astronaut,
And maybe I won’t die before thirty.
But life doesn’t always go the way we plan.
Sometimes it’s better.

#PoeticAnswers 7 – How Much Does A Teenage Diplodocus Weigh?

I’m sure we can answer this
With simple logistics and mathematics.

If an adult diplodocus is ten to twelve tonnes,
How much would it weigh when it was young?

Now a baby diplodocus would be very small,
Five feet from the ground, that’s not big at all!

But an adult diplodocus, well they were huge
They were bigger than me and bigger than you!

They were ninety foot tall, as tall as the trees
So the diplodocus would eat all their leaves.

But a teenager, what about their weight and size?
Well now we’ll find out, I won’t tell you lies!

A teenage diplodocus is somewhere between,
They’d be pretty tall and they’d be pretty lean.

A teenager would be about two thirds of the size
So let’s use some maths and start to divide

Two thirds of twelve tonnes, well that would be eight
But let’s find the height as well as the weight

Two thirds of ninety, that’s sixty feet tall
So they wouldn’t be big but they wouldn’t be small.

So know we know what a teen diplodocus would weigh,
I hope you had fun, now have a great day!

Question from Alice F. from Facebook!

#PoeticAnswers 6 – When You Were Little, What Did You Want to Be When You Grew Up?

During the misadventures of my youth
I was torn between
“Spaceman” and “dinosaur”.
But when you’re four,
You don’t know.

I knew I didn’t want to be an adult
Because adults were boring
And regularly abandoned me
In this weird room of bright colours and toys.
I should’ve been resentful, but I had toys.

I spent seventeen years
Locked in education,
Gaining the years and transforming.
Gaining and losing friends, sense and myself
But every day I’m still learning, I can’t be grown up

These days, I sit in an office
That slowly suffocates me.
I’m mature enough to know responsibility,
But I know I can’t be grown up,
I still have a Chewbacca bobble-head on my desk.

I’ve definitely grown old
And I’ve definitely grown out
But I haven’t grown up.
I still don’t know what I want to be.
I’m still torn between “Spaceman” and “dinosaur”.

Question from Cat T. from Facebook