before you know hope,
you must know darkness.
— what will you do with this gift?
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photography by Annie Spratt.
Tag: Loss
it’s ok, you can let go now.
how to heal a broken heart?
you must love again
something
someone
get up
dry your eyes
dust yourself off
loss, is just a season’s weight
not a calling until death
you were not born
to exist
on crumbs
now go!
someone out there
is searching
for you.
— it’s ok, you can let go now.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photography by Liezel Graham
if this is for you, may your heart find all the courage it needs to love again.
it’s ok, you can let go now.
liezel
captive
i have tasted this poison before.
still i lift the cup again.
— captive.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
This is the second micropoem in my #HealingTheHurtChildWithin
series.
I don’t think that I need to elaborate on this one.
If this is you, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Sometimes, if we haven’t healed, we keep returning to the thing that holds us hostage.
For some of us this is an addiction—be it alcohol, food, sex, drugs, gambling… for others it is choosing a toxic relationship, or the same types of toxic partners because it’s all we know.
Perhaps it is choosing the same addictions or behaviours that owned the ones who love(d) you.
I would love to hear your insight into this,
liezel
Photography by Johann Piber.
fear has a hungry voice.
the fear that owns you
has a hungry
voice
falling
from
your
lips
when you are not looking.
— fear has a hungry voice.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
This is the first micropoem in my #HealingTheHurtChildWithin
series.
‘The fear that owns you…’
Childhood trauma or hurts that you have not dealt with, becomes another voice that lingers in the background.
It often speaks in anger, or in fear, when it shouldn’t.
It doesn’t speak up when it should.
It ignores things that it should not overlook.
It is easily triggered by things it shouldn’t be triggered by.
It says ‘yes’ when it wants to be loved, and ‘no’ when it is afraid of being loved.
When it speaks, it often leaves you wondering ‘why did I say that’ or ‘why do I react this way’?
It is a voice that is hungry—hungry to be loved, hungry to be found ‘enough’, hungry to be seen, hungry just to feel some sort of confirmation that there is still life and that it is worth living.
It always has a root.
I am still very aware of this other voice of mine. Healing has not been an overnight thing for me.
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments,
liezel
Photography by Evie Shaffer.
a series of micropoems dealing with childhood trauma.
I have been working on a collection of micro poems that focus on the effects of (unhealed) childhood trauma, and disordered/chaotic relationships with primary caregivers on a child, and how they might affect the adult later on, and the way that these early traumas might then cause them to relate to relationships, love, (potential) addictions, their ability to handle conflict, and how they might as adults with deep emotional scars, negotiate their place in the world.
As always my poems are written partly from a personal place, and partly from my professional experience in mental health.
There is no right or wrong to my words, other than personal truth based on introspection, however there is nothing new under the sun and if you should find yourself in my description, please do look out for my posts in the next couple of days.
They be will short, sharp and sometimes bittersweet, but always I hope, a springboard for deeper reflection and healing.
Perhaps we can find some healing together,
liezel
Photography by Lisa Fotios.
scope
we sit on opposite sides of the waiting room
clutching our middle years
in our hands,
strangers
comparing stories of raising boys
they never seem to stop eating
do they,
from the minute they leave our bodies
so much life fills their skin.
we have given them everything that we have and more, and
perhaps because we are a hospital gown away
from being completely naked with each other,
we also speak
quietly
of the things that they might find
hiding
within our walls, and
how we hope
that they
don’t,
because we have sons to feed, and
we are hungry
to be
in their lives, and
we smile and we laugh
a little
in the shadow of the thing
that has a name
but doesn’t have ours,
yet
we hope
like all the women before us,
we walk barefoot here
in the valley, and
we all lose our shoes when we walk this road,
it doesn’t matter what your name is,
here
in this place,
we all fear the same, and
we follow the nurse to the room where they will tell us
our future
for a moment
you turn away
and i see it in your eyes.
later when i walk out of recovery
orange juice still sweet on my tongue,
i carry words in my hands
that breathe,
words that do not chase
me
yet
you are in the cubicle next to me
the borders that i have just left
behind
i never want to return to this place, and
i see you
curled up
into the shape of a foetus,
asleep
under the weight of the extra peace they pumped into your veins,
statistics say that it had to be one of us
the odds took more from you
than from me, and
i hope that you find the courage to chase away the
dogs of fear.
— scope.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
recently i had my ‘future’ told by a medical team.
i was the fortunate one who walked out with hope in my hands.
xx
Photograph by Leo Cardelli.
the beds in my grandmother’s house were heavy with love and i miss you.
the beds in my grandmother’s house were heavy with blankets and floral sheets—orange and purple and pink— that made me happy when i was eight, and nine, and six.
and again when i was twenty-one,
they were a cool, familiar weight on a cold night, and
here child, put a hot water bottle by your feet, or else you’ll catch your death, and i have never seen a winter such as this, and let’s have some hot chocolate before we turn out all the lights.
and all that love weighed the same as a soft, round body and it wrapped us up, and sleep was an easy thing to chase, then.
when you were four and i was six.
and now, i am on the other side of forty-six and you are forever forty-four, and i am pretty sure that’s cheating, and why are there no rules to this game, and
i have never seen a winter such as this, and
my sheets are white now, and unfloral, and i don’t really like purple, and every night i kick the duvet off my feet,
the air cool on my skin, so
that i can feel,
and move,
and
escape, if i need to.
there are things that are heavy in the dark, do you remember them?
and it turns out that it isn’t that easy to catch your death if it is not your time,
yet.
but if it is,
then it is.
and here we are,
you forever forty-four, and i am on the other side of six, and i am pretty sure that’s cheating, but i’ll let it go this time.
there are no rules to this game.
— the beds in my grandmother’s house were heavy with love and i miss you.
© Liezel Graham 2019.
Photograph by Jackson Jorvan.
a little bit of freeform poetry on a wednesday afternoon.
x
