I Still Survive

I survived a drunk father
Who tried to beat me to his will;
School bullies tried to knock me down;
But life found me standing still.

I wondered at my difference then –
But I knew it couldn’t be a flaw;
If I was honest with myself,
Who cares what another saw?

I saw the death of those I loved;
Life tried to crush hope from me;
I stared death twice in the eye;
So she smiled and let me be.

Still she had her due and
Yet she takes; but I know now:
While life rests in my heart,
She’ll stay content on my brow.

So I give in to life each time
And i let love love him so;
And death reaches in deep
When he watches love go.

I survive the parting.
I digest all of the pain.
But I know I am human;
And it’ll happen again.

So, as the sadness envelops,
Every fibre of my being,
I know I still survive, for
It’s in me I’m believing.

Reeling

Most nights I find myself wide awake!
There is this end of a world feeling
That takes over sleep and suffocates rest
And sends my mind reeling!

Thoughts and memories of what we were:
A tantrum thrown; a mock wrestling match;
A joke on shorts; a song we called our own;
A kissed bandaid put on a scratch.

I become Taylor Swift, who narrated
Personal loss, pain and bullet holes;
Or Adele’s soul, in royal Albert Hall,
Proclaiming love’s future goals.

When night passes and morning comes to spite –
I quietly shut the windows on its face…
I switch on some numbing porn, or maybe
Write a poem – to fill the sleepless space.

These lonely nights make me think and yearn
Of how he (probably?) is fast asleep,
While time holds me in such a fucked-up flux,
Wherein I can’t feel, much less laugh or weep.

Shirt Sleeves

Maybe it is in the nature of love
To fall away like autumn leaves;
Yet I wonder before you step out now,
Who helps you roll up your shirt sleeves.

I reckon you can live all by yourself
And you no longer need love’s aid.
When spring whispers in after winter dies,
Maybe then fears shall be unmade.

Now, as the rain falls and memory cries,
I remember enough to mourn,
And, in a darkened corner, my heart tries
To piece back life this love has torn.