Caterpillars and squirrels

Furry brown caterpillar soft to the touch, marvelling. Under the tree in our playground street, as the rain poured, dry in our natural shelter squealing and laughing.

In the park grey squirrels
scuttling, pausing, looking,
I loved them so.

These snippets of my past childhood eyes
I can solidify them with my pen
in preciousness, becoming treasure.

Thoughts

If my thoughts could fall Like the autumn leaves branches stark, peaceful, bare, ready for God. 

To my medication

You have made me well taken away the imploding inside the curling up muffling shutters down darkness swirling the evil laughing.

There’s now a growth
A tentative rebuilding
I go gently, slowly
accepting myself as I am.

I’m not bright, bubbling
all of the time
I can be quiet and dazed
in my own safe space.

You have made me well. 

In psychosis

In the spinning downward dark, in the staring darkening nothing eyes, there was still a thread I grabbed and clung to, tapping my heart, my unique heart, It whispered me, Ellie, truth, home.

I heard the voice that loves us,
for all our individual uniqueness,
pouring love on me,
a unique, special person.

It whispered
I am still here
in this strangled darkness. 

Spinning on an axis

We are all spinning on an axis.

God and the Devil sit down
laughing,
wasting hours together.

They don’t want to do the business
of claiming souls,
because they are eternal friends,
integrated.

We are all spinning on an axis. 

Present, Absent

I’m in this silent place drawing with the pens you gave me. Your medals around my neck. Your rosary by my bed. You are ever present.

When I think of sketching I think of you.
When I see the woman at the well I think of you.
Your passion for women,
the light,
the full jug of water
you gave me.

You are ever absent.
Gone. Not with me.
Never to return.
Final.

Your memorial booklet,
your smiling photo.
It’s under my notebook,
I don’t need to display it,
because

You are ever present.
You are ever absent.