Stillness.

A pause in time

within the chaotic mind.

Stillness that penetrates

spirit, the world waits.

The slowing beat

I feel as I breath.

The hushed silence

a peaceful alliance.

Unfunctionable…

Freshly grated ginger.

A quiet corner shaded from sight,
a peaceful place to rest my eyes.
Ginger tea to warm me through,
as thoughts wander over to you.

Karen Hayward 2015 ©

Shelter beneath wings of love. Haiku.

Soft white feathered wings

an illusion created

protective comfort.

Restrictive looms.

Restriction of blood flow

a torrent of thoughts

with no place to go.

Limitations of reality

a soul destroying fatality.

Confinement. Confine me

within your walls of conformity

your abnormalities

displayed in crimson

blood against the walls

of society.

I am circumscribed by your delusional

realities

the inbred specialities

of commercialised

nationality.

More than a switch.

I like it when passion over runs.

When fingers fumble at fabric

and kisses are magnetically pulled

to the skin. When eye’s meet in a

knowing glance and nakedness

is purely chance. I like to feel the

need in your words to see the desire

in your body. I like to feel the wanting

against my skin

as we go

exploring in.

I never used to iron.

Ironing. For years I refused to be a slave to the mould of hot steaming iron. I refused to smooth away the crinkles, press creases and stand in the ultimate housewife position. Legs spread, board out, piles upon piles of stylistic statements before me, all of them requiring attention, all of them requiring me to become the atypical label. A housewife, a wife a mother, a female, a girl a lady. We iron.

We stand for hours, up the board, down the board, bored, bored, bored. You were in or you out. I was out. I was the black death of womanhood my views contagious, my opinion death like. So I ironed less and welcomed my self induced plague.

I iron. I became the label that society imposed on me. Sickened by my acceptance I remove my bra in protest.

Flowers in the attic where do you hide!

The feeling creeps in slowly.
Panic, as I flip through once, twice, three times. I search the normal places, beside the bed, the couch, at the top of the stairs, by the window in the kitchen next to the heater, the window that shows me the sun as he wakes and the moon as she wakes. It’s not there and not even the sparkling stars in the clear skies can make me feel better. I search inside bags and tucked beneath the mattress, I pull out the bed and feel my heart sink, my eyes prickle and for a moment I question my sanity. What if. What if I didn’t own that book, what if I just borrowed it, that would certainly make sense and suddenly it feels like my world is crashing, I just want to read the book, now, I search some more determined to be sure that the book is at least not here. Emptiness envelopes around me, darkness falls upon my heart, I feel a great void where a story should be, not any story and certainly not a recall from the many times I have read it before, a void created through the lack of pages to turn, the lack of worn out paper in my hands. The emptiness has become me.