Commentary: Vase Heart

Vase Heart came, like many of my poems, from a self-reflective state. The poem grow out of the understanding that I am a sensitive soul and the vase heart in question is essentially mine. When I was younger, at times, I struggled with being sensitive. On those days when I felt my heart was unsuited for this world, I would imagine what it would be like if I were to maintain the same state of perpetual apathy I would see displayed in others. Would it be better if I were this way? Easier? I’d asked myself and, thankfully, the answer has always been no.

To be sensitive, to have the strength to feel the colourful spectrum of emotions that make us alive, that make us human, is a gift. It is so important to stay soft, to stay loving in the midst of the cruelty we are faced with in the world. There is strength in this. There is power in this.

The poetic voice in this poem is the ideal lover for the sensitive soul, a lover who honours and respects your sensitivity and learns to love you through it. It forms as a reminder for those who need it that this love is out there and is worth waiting for.

All in all, this poem is about loving with intention and grace, the way God encourages us to love, the way God loves us.

My Body, My Protest: After Mon Laferte

In silence, I stand

Nipples bared and bowed

To the bravery of the stolen

Of the forgotten voices

Of the raped

Of the tortured

Of those killed in the name of freedom

 

I bare my body

I surrender this suit

I plaster truth

I carve it into the bones of me

Until the world hears

 

En Chile torturan violan y matan.

 

“In Chile they torture, rape and kill.”

Commentary: My Body, My Protest (After Mon Laferte)

The story behind the poem My Body, My Protest, begins with me stumbling into bed at 4:30am, slightly (or not so slightly) intoxicated after a night out dancing. I was doing the habitual scroll through my Instagram timeline when I came across an E! News post detailing the events occurring at the Latin Grammy’s. This is where I first saw Mon Laferte’s political red carpet protest moment, where she completely bares her chest to strategically raise awareness of the grotesque acts of police brutality taking place in Chile right now.

Chile is currently experiencing a season of political unrest as thousands exercise their political right to protest. Protesters are taking to the streets to express their fury at the establishment and are demanding social reforms to address the high levels of inequality the country is experiencing.

Here is a useful link for more details on what is happening/has happened in Chile during the protests:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-50512093?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c452lzylemmt/chile-protests&link_location=live-reporting-story 

In summary, 22 people have been killed as a result of excessive police force, while thousands have been seriously injured, tortured and/or sexually assaulted. These are absolutely abhorrent acts of injustice and I was profoundly moved by this whole situation, compelling me to write something about it then and there. I deeply admire Mon Laferte for using her platform to raise awareness of the human rights abuses that are happening all over the world. Mon Laferte reminded us all that our bodies are not merely sexual tools, they are powerful vessels – holding, giving and supporting life.

Here Mon Laferte chose to use her body to express a significant message. She utilised the power of the naked female form to highlight our human right to protest, to challenge norms, to shake systems, to change the world.

Seasons Change

You were my climate

I would bend & yield to your slightest variation

When you were my sun, I would dress down for you, all skin, melanin, exposure

Blanketed by your warmth

I vacationed in your love

 

Until the season called for your coldness

I would grimace & endure your presence

Like a sore throat in recovery

 

The autumns of your indifference

Brought with it a kaleidoscope of mystery

As the leaves fell from our dreams

Unrealised

We marvelled at the unsettling paradox

That the beauty of our ideals may never be fully actualised

But the beauty remains unwavering

All the same

 

The winter of our love

Brought with it a necessary mourning

As I purged you, heart and soul

Piercing through with icy precision

I allowed it to hurt

I gloried in the courage it took to brave your coldness

To endure

Until the last morsel of this blizzarding love

Melted away

 

Bringing forth a spring of reflection

Of clarity

As I meditated on all the reasons I had to leave:

That no matter how hard I tried to adapt

To your vicissitudes

Your endless variations

I found myself staring

Perpetually

At this ticket back

To myself

 

For my heart is a tropical island

Of dreams & beauty & irresistible warmth

Until my rain comes like a hot baptism

Ready to cleanse & make a new

To saver in the promise of a warmer tomorrow

 

And for now, maybe that’s what I need more

As I vacationed in your temperate maritime climate

It is time for this sojourning soldier to return home

Look Within

It’s not here

The Fear that plagues you

The Love that binds you

The Desire that drives you

 

It’s not here

The mechanisms of love

The barriers you place around it

The romantic illusions that pollute it

The myths that mask you from the truth

 

It’s not here

The saving grace

The divine light

Blazing away sorrows history

From your veins, from your veins

 

It’s not here

In that powdery embrace

A nose full, a mouth full,

a forbidden pharmacy

 

It’s not here

In that liquid luck

And all the ways you try to orchestrate your own destruction

It’s not here

It’s not here

It’s not here

 

 

Look within.

The New Year

Here’s to us;

Making it this far,

Another year approaching,

Ready for us to take it in our stride

And as we dust down those resolutions,

Reviewing the messes we’ve made,

The triumphs we’ve tasted,

Taking a shot for every disappointment

And dancing in the embers of the past –

We bound forwards,

Revelling in the victory

Of all we’ve overcome.

 

Nothing compares to this strength,

The courage it take to evolve

And survive the torture of our cocoons.

For now, we emerge.

Glittering and ready

For all this year, this life

Has in store.

Amplified

 

No substance truly annihilates forsaken pain

No chemical can cure the crash

Crash

Crash

Of a shattering heart

Breaking

On the floor of your chest

The bleeding,

The agony,

It cannot be avoided

Numbed, perhaps

But that is like

Walking bare foot

Over the shards of your own heart

Pretending the wounds aren’t there

Pretending

That the pieces

Of your once whole heart

Aren’t now festering inside of you

Like a malignant lump

No longer beating

But bleeding

Seeping through every crevice of your soul

Until you are utterly consumed

 

Neglected pain

Cannot be numbed by illegal substances

That promise of temporal joy

Temporal escape

Temporal release

Because as the substance leaves you

And your plane lands

And you feel yourself descending

Down a very deep hole

The pain will greet you there

That misery you left on stand by

On hold

Because life got in the way

 

But I know, love

This world is still cruel to the kindest of souls

And life doesn’t stop

Life doesn’t give way

Life doesn’t allow you to process this pain away – naturally

 

So we drink it away,

We smoke it away,

We love it away

But when your plane lands

And you feel yourself descending

Down a very deep hole

The pain will greet you there

Larger than before

So do not expect it to whisper

Do not expect it to meet you conveniently

Expect the room where your pain resides to be empty

Cleared of any redeeming quality

So when the chorus of your pain takes to the mic

Expect its volume, its power to be

Amplified

A Poet in Love |Excerpt from a book I may write

It was the mystery her midnight eyes exude that I found most alluring. The little tell tell signs of emotions that eyes of a different shade would reveal unconsciously; her dark brown hues kept hidden.

And I gaze into them; searching for the dilated pupils, the star struck glow, that faint glimmer and airiness that would all but confirm my suspicions. But instead I lose myself in this search; in an opal sea, for it is only her eyes that have the power to overwhelm and entrap me.

– I love her wildly.

For If My Body Was A Temple

For if my body was a temple

It would be a shelter for the homeless

A second chance for sinners

A gateway to God

Through the love that radiates in us all

 

There would be no pretence here

No “holier than thou”

No role playing

No mask wearing

Just a group of God-fearing sinners

Trying to make their way Home.

 

There would be no saints,

For I am not one

For the good that I desire

I do not do,

But the evil that I do not want

This I practise

 

And it is in this temple

That only this kind of biblical vulnerability will reside.

Where there is no shame

For the reality of our human experience.

For all the ways we sin and fall short

Of God’s glory

Time and time again.

 

My temple would be

An abundance of loving arms

Mirroring that of the father of the prodigal son

Welcoming all home

Like estranged family

Ready to start anew

 

Oh, how eagerly God welcomes us home

Oh, how he yearns for us

How he pines and bleeds for us

 

But alas, my body is not a temple

This temporal cage does not deserve such recognition

My body is more like a prison of flesh

That my soul battles in

Constantly battling against my own human nature

Drifting me further and further away from the divine

 

May the Lord help marry my nature to my nurture

Help to bring peace to these two duelling entities

My innate sinful inclination

Versus

My holy burning aspiration

Only in you, Lord, will I find

Harmony and wholeness in this fatal human condition

 

For this I know:

Your Grace is sufficient,

Your Love is enough.

For Grenfell Tower Block

I am the tower

I am home

I am family

I am security

I am where safety should be

I am where you can let your guard down

Until…

 

Friction.

Two opposing forces cause a spark

Left in me because too many believe me to be

An eye sore,

The reason you clutch your purse tighter,

A reminder of the unattractive reality of poverty,

When you would much rather

Be left behind the veil of ignorance

Wealth gifts you.

 

So they give me a ten million pound paint job

To cover the cracks of financial inequality

Without actually dealing with the problem

– This becomes the fuel

To the fire left in me by the scornful eyes of the rich

By the powerful

Who measure worth by bank balances

They are the fuel to the fire that grows in me in the quiet, unsuspecting cover of night.

 

But, unfortunately, in this case

The fire is not a metaphor for love

The fire is not a metaphor for passion, for intensity, for purpose, for pleasure.

The fire is a fire

The fire is death

The fire is pain

The fire is destruction

The fire is neglect

The fire is the government, the biggest furnace of corruption

The fire is a life destroying entity

The fire is trauma

The fire is hate

The fire is what happens when we neglect social wounds; such as classism, racism and inequality

For so long

They begin to fester and persist.

 

For I am no more

No more am I the myriad of lives, loved ones, hopes and dreams that inhabited me.

I am now a derelict shadow

That will not be not be ignored, society.

 

Society is the ashes, in which the

Phoenix will rise.