I can leave the ward whenever I want to. This frees me of any fear as I wait all alone in the stillness of the after hour within its thick walls under a funky light. The end of the work day is marked by a clinging stillness. Devoid of all patients and personnel one becomes …
Tag: fear
As if…
As if this dust had never been a person And this right had never been wrong As if this debris had never been a city And this discord never been a song As if those divided had never been one And those invisible never belonged As if cruelty had never been pity And those vulnerable …
The dark side of Christmas
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse (this is where Clement Clarke Moore ends and I begin) No stockings were hung by the chimney with care Not a chance that Santa would ever come there Two little brothers grimy and tattered as could …
Continuum
Jakub Novacek on Pexels.com If my mom and dad were numbers, they would be rational, my sister and I integers (she positive and I negative). Numbers. Counting. The birth of representational value, of measurables, of an application used to explain our world. I count and with each word etch a mark in the ether. This …
What he didn’t say
Ron Lach on Pexels.com Something wasn't right. The twinge in her stomach told her so. Her eyes confirmed it was so. He was supposed to be there. But there was no sign of his form, his face. Had he changed his mind? Couldn't go through with it any more? No. Nervous energy traveled through her, …
The life and times of Mr. P. Bag
It really is a testament to the unexpectedness of life. My downfall, that is, and, actually, the entire Bag family's fall from grace. You can trace our ancestry back to Sweden, where generations of pioneering Bags set forth into the world with their adventurous avant-garde spirit. Their unified vision to assist and facilitate lives made …
Denial
Photo by Josie Stephens I dedicated myself to finding the truth. Dug in places that were dank and dark, unearthing the unmentionable. There were times I just couldn't keep going, I was so frozen with fear. But, in its own bizarrely macabre way, my curiosity eventually always got the better of me and so I …
BIG LOVE
Photo by Clara The day he died, we started to live. We were lucky that way - being alive. Many don't make it. On his last day I was under the bed making myself as flat as possible; willing myself into the floorboards. The door was locked, but that gave me little reassurance. If he …
Merciful Mary
Winds of change Please do carry the voice of truth far and wide Across battlefields And burning skies Over charred remains Mothers' empty sighs Over homes laid bare Hey sir, can you spare Some Love and some Mercy? So much hatred Blacker than the sea Rife with fear Let everyone hear Our shouts our screams …
The Big Sleep
He is abandoned asleep on the sofa. His breathing is light and even. How peaceful he looks, childlike and vulnerable, cocooned in his private inner space, where the outside world cannot touch him. When I see him like that, I imagine how his mother must have looked at him whilst a baby cradled in her …
Manu writes 