Within I am Home
3 February 2016

I killed it
The doubt that ate me
Swallowed hard
In pain’s pangs
I breathed out pieces
Of what we had been
Summer’s taunt
A blue lake’s sadness
Flight no more
An option
We cast memories like faint rocks
They sink into Time
You spoke not
Our mouths were sewn tight
With regret
In corners
Where dark spent itself ageless
When the years forged light
Forgery
Copy of feeling
The kneeling
Unheard knight
Communication’s lost road
Works to his delight
Lost glory
Unspoken wisdom
It sings harsh
Like a clang
When pianos once smooth then rang
Strident melodies

Forgotten
Your traits wrinkled cringe
Like corpses
Found bloated
In waters that have lost strength
Of their deep sources
I squared roots
Hit on triangles
They chimed shrill
Like pain’s wave
I found my death in a cave
Where hunters wrote life
He points shoots
The gun in my hand
Mere witness
Blue porter
I usher the tools of death
Slayer’s assistant
Mouth flippant
Heart in between lips
I spit out
The venom
Deep it runs so low it hums
Slight it overtakes
I am gone
There is a place lost
In my mind
Where I roam
Alone and blissful at peace
Within I am Home
Reading of my poem:
This poem was inspired by a small exchange about abuse and how difficult it was to understand the victim’s stance. I therefore thought I should shed some light albeit in a poetic way from my own experience of how it happens and why one accepts it for so long. I guess it is simply the safe havens that we create which allow the experience to last, some sort of dissociation from what is happening in reality. I was not sure I should add this comment but I realised that the perspective of the subject of abuse seems really hard to grasp and readers don’t seem to have understood what this poem was about mainly. Perhaps my writing is too cryptic sometimes.
Just to reassure you, I am no longer in that kind of situation anymore and usually now smell abusers from a distance. In the self-preservation mode now, I have also severed relationships which might have been good but my principle has always been if he cannot control anger, bitterness or cannot handle stress, that is -even though slight and even though it may absolutely not be directed towards me – an indication that he has the potential of an abuser and I shy away even from that potential these days. Peace, kindness, compassion, humour and love are the only baggage I am willing to accept in any relationship and those who have not worked on themselves enough to have developed these traits are a total no-go for me, except in the cases of a friend in need of course.
Midge Ure – Fragile
Breathe me – Sia
Midge Ure – Breathe
Kudos for writing such a powerful piece… 🙂 I especially liked the ending…
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Thank you Maniparna. I liked the ending too because actually the safe haven created might have prolonged the abuse beyond the time it would normally take the mind to call for it to stop but it also created a whole world within and a source of creativity
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You are a brave soul, indeed, to be able to write about something from the depths of your own terrible experiences. I read that opening stanza over and over because it is perhaps the most important one for anyone out there who may need encouragement to leave an abusive relationship. Overcoming that doubt you had is what really put you on a better path. Bravo to you and to all women who are able to pull themselves from abyss of abuse. Bravo to you and any other woman who can stand proudly and speak to it and all it by name. Hugs and lots of love to you, my friend.
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Thank you Thomas. As I was responding to another comment, I consider myself lucky. Even in such an experience I was able to come away with something very positive as I healed eventually from the abuse in my childhood which was too diffuse to remember properly. I think just that fact was worth the whole experiences because since then I have only experienced growth and peace. Besides it had unlocked in me an actual healing capacity for myself and others that I did not know existed before.
I do hope women are able to realise when they need to come out of abusive relationships. Unfortunately for many it is also a question of absence of financial freedom which makes them stay in such relationships. Society as a whole should be doing more to help women break from abuse.
Sometimes I feel sad that people, women included, rail against the women who continue to live an abusive relationship blaming them for what is happening to them and saying they should get a grip. The situation is so much more complicated than that. It is not a question of just snapping out of it (in the same way that some people are silly enough to think that someone suffering from depression can simply snap out of it). There is a whole web of reasons and mental blocks which get triggered within a person who has lived abuse and at the basis of it all is the illogical reasoning brought about by the reduced or lack of self worth and these could trace back to early childhood so are not so easily dealt with.
What I can say for sure is that a woman who is victim of abuse really needs continued support as well as counselling to get to the roots of the problem of lack of self worth and once that is done the person herself will emerge from the abusive relationship (provided financial freedom is also available to her). Just sheltering such a woman without providing her the means of getting to the root of her problem (the abusive relationship most often only being a symptom and not the cause) will only make her go back to the abusive relationship as soon as she gets an occasion to do so after pacifying herself on the legitimacy of doing so.
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You are welcome, Geetha. I absolutely agree with all of this. Abused women need the support in many forms in order to be able to remove themselves from an abusive relationship and that continued support once they are finally out.
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You surely are a brave soul dear friend! To be able to write such lines about such a frightening past is because of the finery that rests within your beautiful mind!
Love to you my dear! and lots of hugs! 😀
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Thank you Dajena. How utterly sweet of you. Lots of love and hugs to you too. I consider myself lucky for I have three lovely children who are growing to be beautiful human beings. Besides I have grown tremendously thanks to all I have lived through and have learnt to love myself. It helps me to love others too and try to not judge, to be always willing to look behind appearances because I know best what hides behind a tranquil surface. I have truly lived the saying what does not kill us makes us stronger
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May the rest of your the days be covered in love my dear!
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Thank you and yours too dearest
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😀 thank you!
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The perfect piece about the subject we have discussed. I also loved the paragraphs you included in the end. “Your traits wrinkled cringe” Absolutely loved that line. This was truly amazing.
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Thank you Andrew. I am not sure it has come across that way but when I say your traits wrinkled cringe, I am talking about myself in a situation looking at the mirror after an episode of abuse that could have left me sleepless and not recognising my own face because when you have been up all night and crying your face looks completely different, all puffed up. I find it funny now but back then it seemed so tragic. I am not sure what you understood with that sentence.
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You’re right. I took it as something totally different. I took it as his traits have transformed as in no longer being the lovely lover he portrayed himself to be. Honestly, I read this thinking of everything we discussed earlier today. Thus the poor interpretation. It is hard for me to imagine a beautiful woman so intuned with herself ever experienced this.
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You see me today as someone who has overcome that strange place. I have done a lot of soul searching, delved deep into my dark and come out on the other side. I know and love myself and accept my apparent contradictions. The last relationship had actually allowed me to work properly on childhood issues. Writing has also been such a therapy. I am grateful for all I have lived; it has not only allowed me to help other women in similar situations but it has also helped define what I want in my love life and I am willing to stay alone until I find it. Settling for a pale copy or for something that leaves a bad taste is no longer an option. I am content with myself. If I could have my close to perfect partner it would be great, else there is no need for it 🙂
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That is wonderful. It is better to wait until the right person comes along. That is the mistake many people make of rushing into another relationship. I am glad that you worked out your childhood issues. Now, you are ready for a loving caring relationship.
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Yes, thank you Andrew and I have a sense it is about to materialise well in a few weeks 🙂
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You do?? That is wonderful. I hope it does.
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Your explanatory paragraphs were helpful. I am glad you are home
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Thank you Derrick. I am glad too 🙂
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The last stanza gave me a lump in the throat. I don’t think there is a better way to describe my feeling about this. ❤
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Thank you Eric but actually it is a good place to be in, provided one does not stay too long there and forget the world ❤️
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Agreed. ♡
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“There is a place lost
In my mind
Where I roam
Alone and blissful at peace
Within I am Home” — I hope we all have a place like that. A beautiful finish to an intense poem of searching
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Thank you Melinda. I think we all do. Usually we are in that place mainly when we write. For me it is a safe haven when the reality becomes too stifling. I have a lovely atmosphere at home but outside there is so much pain, so much going on that is hardly bearable
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You’re welcome. Yes we all have a refuge from all the pain that is outside. Wish there wasn’t so much pain and struggle in the world.
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True and thank goodness for that. As for the world, either it will come to terms with itself or we will.
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Or the devil’s wife will ask her hubby to intervene 😉
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Ah ah ah. I would say she keeps him for tougher occasions that she really cannot handle herself 😉
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Ooo do tell! 🙂
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You’ll find out in the next chapter 😀
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😀 that makes a crazy Thursday better reading that!
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Thank you xoxo
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You’re welcome 🙂
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I have to say that I have discovered a new pleasure. read your poems while listening to your readings… An amazing experience. An I also love ‘Breathe Me’ since I listened to it during the final six minutes of, in my opinion, one the best TV dramas ever, HBO’s Six Feet Under. Probably the best series ending ever…
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Thank you José, what a lovely compliment. As for the series I am not sure I ever saw it. I have not watched TV in almost six years and even before was not an avid TV fan except when I was a young girl or woman doing homework
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That is a very clever decision indeed. Most of it is very boring. I only watch some series, but once in a while.
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