Tag: home

#PoeticAnswers 87 – How Do I Get My Children To Flush?

Through a vast amount of trial and error,
I’ve found a way to make
My three foot terror
Flush the bloody toilet.

After many tries to be inventive and
Failed offerings of food and cash incentives,
The little buggers now
Flush the bloody toilet.

And though they didn’t react
When I put them up for adoption,
The little bastards now have no option but to
Flush the bloody toilet.

Now thanks to gravity and super glue,
I don’t have to see their number ones or twos.
Now the only thing that they can do is
Flush the bloody toilet.

Question from Kristin S. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 79 – Still?

You’d think after all this time
That things would change and
I wouldn’t feel the same.
It’s a shame that I couldn’t
Be like you or be liked by you
Or convince you to stay.
But much like the champagne
On our wedding day,
Our love fell flat and lost it’s fizz
As quickly as you lost interest.
Now all I do is invest my time
Looking at these photographs
Of a different life
As I wonder if everything
From the kisses and the smiles
Was just a lie.
I never saw you cry.
It was as though there was no
River of tears behind your eyes,
Just frozen lakes on frozen nights
And frozen in time, fixating
On never changing, fixating
On stopping, fixating on silence,
Building it like a fence to keep us apart
Because it was easier to feel nothing
Than to feel pain.
I wish I could feel the same
But there’s a fire in my heart and brain
That stops me from being as cold as you are.
And no matter how hard I try,
I cannot will my heart to stop,
Despite the torment and the
Blame game you played,
Playing me into taking the blame
For us drifting apart like
Falling stars from the night sky,
Falling into nothing and silence
And out of existence,
Despite your insistence and
The hurt and distance that
Lies between us,
Despite all of this,
Darling, yes.
I love you, still.

#PoeticAnswers 60 – Why Do People Give Up On You When You Move Away?

I can’t believe,
I won’t believe,
That it was actually intentional.
They’re my best friend so
It cant be malice but
With each passing day, I feel more like
Alice in the rabbit hole.
Falling further away,
The distance stretching like
Shadows in the setting sun.
Even though I’m reaching out,
My calls and messages disappear
Like carrier pigeons shot out of the air
But I don’t know if I’d rather it was
Enemy or friendly fire.

This friendship now feels like
It’s paved with good intentions
And sudden turns for the worst,
And roundabout excuses.
And even though I know the way,
The signposts are vandalised with
New tags with your initials and
A name that I don’t know.
I didn’t realise that, apparently,
You were waiting for the right time to quit.
I hope someday you realise that
Your new nicotine patch or meat substitute
Won’t feel the same.
And eventually,
You’ll come to miss me as much as I miss you.

Because I didn’t mean to hurt you.
And although you feel that
I stabbed you in the back,
Please know that the blade was too long
And I stabbed myself in the heart.
And now there’s an aching in my chest,
Now there’s a hole in my heart,
But you don’t care.

Because I moved away .
Then you put the distance between us.

Question from Lexi H. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 52 – Where Is This Train Going?

It’s not quite a one-way ticket,
But it’s not quite a return either.
It’s quite possibly
The vaguest journey to ever unfold,
Because this train tends to
Go off the rails
And meander and roll towards
Destinations and conclusions
That aren’t on a map.

And this train isn’t fuelled
By any standard means
Once the electricity ends,
Once it runs out of steam,
It starts running on imagination.
At which point, it’s less about
Point A to Point B and more like
Pointed to pointless
Endless, listless and aimless.

Going through cities and countryside
On a magical mystery ride through
Memories and dreams,
Riding into the future through
Detours of maybes,
Past purple skies and cities that never sleep
And fields of clouds and streams of whiskey,
Freestyling and meandering it’s way to
No where in particular.

Question from Michael Clark from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 47 – Will You Leave The Door Open?

Will you leave the door open
After all I’ve done?
Will you forget and forgive,
Or does a single moment
Hold more power than
A lifetime of happiness?

Will you lock the door?
Will you define me
By my indescretions?
Will you confine yourself
To our bedroom and
Leave me out in the cold?

Will you put the chain on the door
And wrap it around your heart?
Will you feel like you need to
Protect yourself from me?
Once you’re safe,
Will you let me defend myself?

Will you leave the door open
After all is said and done?
Will you leave the door open
And let me redecorate our bedroom with apologies?
Will you leave the door open?
Will you still be there?

Today’s question was overheard on the streets of Edinburgh. Thank you, stranger.

#PoeticAnswers 39 – What Would Someone Who Loves Themself Do?

They would know that it’s okay
To love themself.
Because the lines of
Self-care and narcissism
Do not intersect.

They would give themself
What they need.
Be mindful of their own survival,
Eat, sleep, breathe and repeat,
Remember how to live their own life
And be care full.

They would give themself
Protection.
Not in the sense of fighting,
But knowing and preserving friendships
And cutting out those who seek to
Wipe the warmth and smile from your soul.

They would give themself
Forgiveness.
We don’t need to be hard on ourselves,
Between the hurt of hailstorms and gravity dragging us down,
We don’t need do any worse to ourselves.
The world is hard enough on us already.

Invest time and money in themself
And appreciate in value..
Plant seeds of positive thoughts
And let them grow.
And know that it’s all perfectly okay.

Question from Victoria T. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 34 – What Do We Have To Eat?

Spaghetti Bolognese: 

A Poetic Recipe for Disaster

You will need:
Positive thoughts,
To be yourself
And denial to garnish.

You will also need:
A tin of chopped tomatoes
Passata,
A red onion,
A red pepper,
Mushrooms,
(If you can get a red mushroom
You can keep the theme going,)
Vegetarian mince (Almost definitely Quorn)
A beef Oxo cube
Black pepper, basil, oregano
And red wine.
Because it’s good for the soul.

Step One:
Have a glass of wine.

Step Two:
Have another glass of wine.

Step Three:
Begin by sautéing your
Onion, pepper and mushrooms.
Realise you have not cut your
Onion, pepper and mushrooms.
Realise you don’t know what
Sauté actually means,
Cut your fingers several times as you
Hastily attempt to cut the
Onion, pepper and mushrooms
Then throw the bloody mess
Into a pot with some red wine.

Step Four:
In a different pot,
Take your Quorn mince,
That beef Oxo cube,
And that pinch of denial
And throw them all together.

Step Five
Hate yourself.
Almost as much as you hate your girlfriend
For making you cut meat out of your diet,
But mostly hate yourself for trying to make it taste the same.
Tell yourself it tastes the same if you close your eyes.
Cry into the pot to give your dry ingredients something to stop them burning
And to add some salt to season.

Step Six:
You haven’t had a glass of wine in a while
Have a glass of wine.

Step Seven:
Halfway through cooking
And thinking everything is okay
And thinking you’re a competent human,
Realise you did not put spaghetti in the ingredients list,
And descend into a perturbing, pasta induced panic.
Take the cold still waters of you soul,
Place on your head and let your rage boil.
Accept this is futile,
Boil a kettle,
Take the kettle out of the pan
Hit yourself with the pan,
Fill the pan with water and place over heat
And question your education and life choices
That have led to this moment.

Step Eight:
Take your slightly alcoholic
And now mostly burnt vegetables
And throw in the passata and tinned tomatoes.
Season to taste.
Discover it tastes awful.
Add more wine.
Attempt to season further,
Throw literally everything in your herb collection
Into this raging ragu
Cry so much that it literally only tastes of
Your salty tears and wine.

Step Nine:
Add the pot of
Meat substitute and denial into the mix.

Step Ten
Empathise with your pasta,
You are currently as drained as your pasta
Both physically and emotionally.
Watch the water drain away
Into the dark void.
Wonder to yourself:
“How did it come to this?”

Step Eleven:
Be disgusted.
With everything.
Observe the mess that you’ve made,
Realise this is a perfect metaphor for your life.

Finally:
Give up,
Order Domino’s
Have another glass of wine.

Question from Justine F. 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 14: What Is A Home?

A home is where the heart is
And the wifi connects automatically.

A home is what we built together,
Because the moment we met, we connected.
There was never a weak signal or
Stone walls in the way of our love.
You had my heart and I had yours,
Our bodies wrapped around each other
Like scaffolding conducting the
Heat and beat of our hearts.

A home is where the walls keep you safe,
Your arms were my walls and
You had my heart and I had yours
The foundation of our love was stronger than
Any form of bricks and mortar,
The fire in our hearts
Resonated through the walls and floors
And the echoes sounded like roars
In the halls of each other.

A home is where I expected us grow old
But all we did was grow cold to each other
Because there were cracks in the walls
That we covered with duct tape and paint
To keep things looking like they were okay
Rather than take the time to
Work together to fix it like we did before.
You put up doors and locked yourself away,
Leaving me wondering what mistake had I made?

A home is where there are no secrets,
But you built a nursery all on your own
And bolted the door to keep me out of your life.
The only time it was open was when you slipped away at night.
I thought we were in this together,
I’d have built you a wheelchair with my bare hands
To give you the support you needed,
I’d have built a crib with my bones because
I would have given everything to keep both of you.

A home is where you left our daughter
And now she’ll never know the value,
Of unconditional love.
Now there’s an empty hole where
Our heart and her bedroom should be
I’d have broken down everything in my way
If it meant I’d know the truth.
Because she would have been the only person
I could love more than I loved you.

A home is what you used to be,
Now your eyes are double-glazed over
And the warmth is already lost.
Now you’re an empty room with
A door I’m afraid to open.
I still keep the embers of our fire going.

Question from my friend and cuddlebuddy, Arzoo.