The strings we weave.

Only when fear
is no longer the
puppeteer,
Will your life begin
with fearless purpose.

Karen Hayward 2016© (Words and Image)

Fear: What the storm brings.

The wind howls through the branches, leaves dragging through the chilled air. The steady rhythm back and forth disrupted only when momentum has built. Then, then the wind crashes against the window pane as I lay alone in the bed. It slams wood into wood, sends tin cans scuttling, it rattles frantically at my letter box, pleading to get in and the shadows dance around the ceiling, I feel their icy fingers against my skin as they crawl beneath the covers. I watch, I watch the window in fear the howling wind will penetrate the glass. I watch the door waiting for the shadow man to reappear. I watch the ceiling for his slow 1, 2, 3 waltz. I pull the covers up and feel my cold fingers against my face, I do not pull it over, I fear what I cannot see more then what I can see. So I watch. I listen as the hands slowly move round clock. I listen to crash after wham after bang. My heart beating in unison as the storm projects its energies on this one spot, just outside my bedroom window.

If I keep moving I can avoid detection, walk unseen on the streets of distraction.
I can run through alleys of fear in darkness, not looking where I am going.
I can avoid eye contact, no one need see my broken spirit.
If I keep moving, impulsively I can heal, band aids of despair I no longer care.
If I keep moving you can’t see me and I can’t see what it is to be me.
If I keep moving at speed and refuse to take heed, I can transform, I can become the mask, a sanctury at last.
If I can keep moving, I can forget, I can fight, I can survive my darkest nights I can endure the sharpened knife in this loveless war.
But this coldness isn’t me and if I keep moving i’ll forget the reason to be.
If I stop moving your light penetrates my dark.
If I stop moving the universe directs my way.
If I keep moving I can outrun the future and create my own, if I keep moving I can sit in peace upon my icey throne.
If I keep moving I can live in the whispered shadows created by fragmants of the moons glow..but oh what a glow.
If I stop moving I feel your light penetrate my dark.
I feel whispers of you on my skin.
I feel you in the calmness that follows our storm, a questioning battle of what I believe to be norm.
The body is purely flesh and bone, flesh and bone, whispered thoughts whislt I am stuck unfucnctionable in that zone.
If I keep moving I have no reason to feel and I can pretend that none of it’s real.
If I stop moving you penetrate my dark.

Karen Hayward 2016 ©

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.

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.

Karen Hayward 2015. ©

Zadkiel I call upon thee now to give clarity to a final deed, did I turn my back on a soul in need? Is forgiveness the acceptance of even the broken, no matter how harsh their words spoken? Must I forgive time and time again whilst they sprinkle down hatred that fills me with pain?
Zadkiel, can I forgive, forget and move on? Can I forget the shock in their voice as I questioned their choice? Was I wrong, should I have remained strong? Am I not her protector, is it not my duty to shield her? Was it selfish, did I put her ahead of their needs when they are so desperately in search of the broken seed? Zadkiel, I am lost and in fear, I searched for you but could not see you near. The words flowed with surprising ease as I watched her fall to her knee’s. Her beliefs torn apart, her thoughts questioned she stumbled upon lies a clouded darkness fell upon her eye’s. Chance and chance again, Zadkiel, I gave in and before my eye’s grey scale fell and I saw as I never seen before,
and now her role within, is no more. Zadkiel, I ask for clarity and forgiveness reserved for the strong, is my heart right? Did I do no wrong?

What is forgiveness.

What is forgiveness? I’ve spoke those words a thousand times over and still I search for peace. I’ve forgiven your knowing spiteful tongue, i’ve forgiven your chosen ignorance. I’ve worked tirelessly to hold together the slipping strings as you have pulled and pulled demanding respect for your title alone. I have shed tears in the darkness on the balance of your belief. I have stood alone day after day because you refuse to accept her. Pride, my pride was swallowed down the moment I became.Standing alone in the darkness with my pride, you have danced holding it up as though a trophy of my defeat, I forgive therefore I am naive, I am weak. I am without bitterness, I am without hate.I am beginning to wonder at what point I should close the gate. You are blinded by your own selfish beliefs. You are blinded by fear. Perhaps, forgiveness is meant for me, I cannot make you see, perhaps this time, forgiveness is meant for me.

Universal electrons electrified in a catalyst of hope.

Whispers in the breeze of yesterdays thoughts
I dream of a sanity that I have often sought.
As I look to the skies for the light that shines north
and I think of the beauty left uncaught.
I dream of a day where humanity goes forth,
where loneliness is felt no more
and poverty is no longer a disease of the poor.
All this in the whisper of a breeze along the shore,
a knowing that I will one day arrive at that door.

Coke and wine.

I hear the wine flowing and the glasses chink

as you miss the table and hit the sink.

Mother and daughter addictions together

thrown in the garden whatever the weather.

You talk above the same old songs, and I wonder

if you know that your behavouir is wrong

or that there’s a rat in your kitchen running a mock

it’s a matter of time, tick fucking tock.

As predictable as the sun that moves the dial

smeared face and blood shot eyes is your style.

Mother dearest your spirit is broke

I saw this in your face the moment we spoke.

Fuck this and fuck that ‘cos the world is so screwed

but you never consider that the problem starts with you.

Ten green bottles sitting on the wall

every single night I hear them fall.

A knock at the door and the bed springs go

Daughter dearest, do you think we don’t know?

You sing as it moves to cover the sound

to hide the white powder, another round?

Your a tight knit unit all full of love

broken souls that are fucked up and stuff.

Excited greetings and laughing galore

filling the glasses who wants more?

Voices go up voices go down

I can actually hear when you’re wearing your frown.

The music begins and everyone sings

till the spiteful tongue brings out its sting.

Tears are falling and the mask no longer fits

true colours shining none of you give a shit.

The lamp is broke, the glasses shattered

not that any that truly mattered.

You scream you push, so much pressure

you lose the very thing you pretend to treasure.

Flashing lights and a friendly face

an easy call for them to trace,

again today, again tomorrow

mother and daughter full of so much sorrow.