Dipping My Toe Into Poetry: A Heavy Beginning

I’m not a poetic person. I wouldn’t even call myself a writer. What I do enjoy is sharing perspectives thoughts, stories almost like journal entries. They help me make sense of things. They help me validate my own thinking.

Over the Christmas break (brief as it was), I had a bit of a light-bulb moment. I decided to write a poem. A poem about gratitude. That decision felt quite out of character and so far left field it might as well have existed in an alternate dimension. And yet here we are, I am dipping my toe's, not my groin into dark water.......

Writing this poem was a journey for me and what you’re about to read is heavy. It’s something that has weighed on me my entire life. Putting it into words did something, it rewired parts of how I see and process this trauma, (David label it as it actually is). This journey of writing this poem has changed my perspective on something I have always held great sorrow and sadness.

Before we get into it: When we lose someone we love, they are not lost, they live on within us. Those that we love deeply influence how we develop as humans and so when they go they leave behind a legacy within our every breath.

Remembering Philip

My mind draws a blank

Is it 35 years or was it 40?

I draw a blank

There were tubes, his skin was pale, he had no hair

But were there?

He smiled, we spoke words

What words, I want to know the words, why can't I remember the words?

I draw a blank

He has a pacemaker, he has no hair, his skin is pink and soft

Did he have a pacemaker? 

Is this real?

We ate s’mores, we had a sleepover, his parents and sister

I can’t remember their faces, I want to remember their faces

Memory is so hard to access,

Was I his only friend?

I was

Was Philip my only friend?

Philip was my only friend

Philip is safe, Philip is not scary, Philip is not weird

Don’t listen to those other kids

His parents and sister value our friendship

His father’s tears, I remember his face

I draw a blank, my memory seemingly erased but why

I want to know, I want to remember

I am angry, I am frustrated, can anyone hear me?

Philip is dead, no he’s not

A paddling pool, blue

A long street, kids playing, shouting, where are you going?

I am going to see Philip, Philip’s dead

I draw a huge blank but I can feel the tarmac under my feet

Not a nightmare

A long street, a knock on a  door, a father’s tears, tears behind reading glasses

I run away, out of body I run and run

Embarrassed, shame, confused

My room, my bed, my pillow, my parents, anger, the deepest sorrow

Leave me alone

Blank, a funeral, my father’s embrace, embarrassed, shame

Blank, blank for years, blank for decades, tears, imagination of what might of been

I want to know, I want to remember, angry, sad, lost

We were 5 years old, my life forever altered

Emotions, feelings, behaviour cast in stone

No more blanks

I see Philips smile, I hear Philips laugh, I feel Philips love

Philip lives on in my soul, he lives in each breath I take

Once a child now an adult formed from loss of a friend

35 years, 40 years, 

I understand