A table laced with mind games spans the length of the room.
Beneath, a floor of broken glass.
The walls drip with silent tears
and the windows behind are shuttered against the light.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
Pulling, cutting, carving.
Holes in pale white skin.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
Repeating the same mistakes,
I find myself returning to people and places that hurt;
then, angry, hurt myself,
seeking salvation in tiny red flowers.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
Lord,
My heart aches and feels hollow. Inside, there is such grief. Please lend me your arms to hide in in my hour of need. And after, you shoulders to hold my fears. And then your lap, like a basket, to cradle my tears.
Help me to let go of all that is trapped and broken, to fix it piece by piece. Help me to confront all that I am afraid of and in doing so find peace.
Open my eyes to beauty, my soul to sound. Awaken all my senses to the world that surrounds.
Guide me towards a better outlook and quality of life: one that is still and centred, and free from strife.
Show me how to release the past so that I might move on. Show me how to embrace the future so that I can belong.
Turn my attention inward, away from material things. Give me the strength to allow the feelings introspection brings.
Let me love myself as I love others. Let me myself forgive. Show me how to receive as well as how to live.
Love me like a father, guide me like a sage; stand by me as I walk into a future of knowledge and age.
Teach me to live freely. Permit me to yearn. And when the void beckons, help me to learn.
Give me roots to stand on and branches to stretch. Give me buds to nurture and seeds to collect.
Give me leaves to shed and flowers to release. Give me water to drink and air to breathe.
Give me birdsong to dance to and company to share. Give me shade in darkness and space in air.
Give me peace in body and comfort in mind. Give me strength in soul so that I might find the land that I dream of, the people I miss, the place that I belong to and the purpose of this.
Amen
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
Trying to be authentic, she writes.
But her words are hollow
and they fail to convey anything.
Her sister turned thirty today
reminding her of own big ‘three-o’,
years ago now
which she regrets.
Walking through London,
she passes the restaurant where she celebrated,
just her and him in a booth.
He gave her a ring.
It didn’t fit,
and the promise that accompanied it
is still waiting to be kept.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
The day drags,
trailing loose ends and torn edges,
collecting fluff.
Her bags carry things she will never use,
things she had planned to turn into magical objects.
A morning gone awry,
turns into an afternoon that drags
and the evening is growing old before it is young.
Trying to stitch two of the pieces back together,
she wrestles unaccommodating fabric,
cotton that has split
and a needle with a blind eye.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
Feeling antsy;
finding it hard to write.
Sitting down’s a mission,
but standing up’s worse.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
Grey clouds, wet sky, drizzle; me, soaking it up – Uggs beyond saving, coat part-drowned, hair flat. On any other day… not so bad; but today: tragic.
I should have known there would be a rapid deterioration from here: therapist hiding behind an opaque veneer; eyes slip-sliding – mentally absent, disinterested in me; subsequent drawing consequently traumatic, submerged beneath layers of ink: shop assistants attacking, pedestrians snapping, the tube packed… Only the ‘should’ I ought to have been aware of was in hiding and I wasn’t aware of anything until afternoon turned up.
Black and blue from too much walking, talking to myself, I wander and search, visiting every known bolt-hole for a place to write. Gradually conceding, giving up; admitting defeat…
Hours later – slipping limply into a dark interior, bedraggled and worn out – I borrow a chair and invest in two cups; one’s cold and disastrous, the other’s delightful and hot.
A failed attempt at writing, and I reach into my bag, realising there is nothing for it but to bring the ‘thing’ out. Twisted and tangled, it’s grumpy and upset, anxious to be loved and lonesome without it.
Ballpoint braced, I revisit the page: pen dancing and glancing, mind whirring and incurring, repeating the lines I earlier, under intimidation, made.
A girl appears: unhappy, young; hair streaming, eyes leaking, mouth a crooked O.
Then words appear: ‘chaos’ incorrectly spelt; ‘cry’ back-to-front; ‘help’ upended. And, finally, I laugh, the irony catching up.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
Time hangs immobile,
stubbornly static;
like stagnant air.
A dog at my feet,
a kettle on the hob:
worrying…
An accident with a knife;
a sudden slit:
and blood, everywhere.
Lemon juice smarts
and the day – already grey,
darkens.
With the hours stretching further
than my eyes can see,
and the space in-between longer
than my mind can imagine:
I am not only scared,
I am terrified.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
1.
Dead on my feet,
can’t speak:
uphill crumbling.
Dragging my toes,
dabbing my nose;
slipping, stumbling.
2.
Confused,
stressed;
under-dressed.
Eyes weeping,
difficulty sleeping.
Feeling cold,
growing old.
3.
A sprained ankle,
a twisted wrist;
falling
arse over tit:
“shit!”
4.
Admin,
paperwork:
d
r
o
w
n
i
n
g.
5.
Email,
phone:
LEAVE ME ALONE!
6.
Peace is golden.
Children should be invisible.
Why..?
7.
Trying,
failing.
Making,
breaking.
Far too strong,
always wrong;
never good enough.
by Rebecca L. Atherton
To keep up to date with my progress and receive a copy of my newsletter, send me your email address.
Rebecca L. Atherton 