The Poetry Marathon

She’s not afraid of silence,

Not afraid to go alone,

For when anyone’s your family,

The whole world becomes your home.

I can taste it, the seething heat of a summer afternoon.
It wraps me up like a blanket, its warmth kissing my skin like a long lost lover.
I’m pulled into a dreamy haze, every step taking more effort than the last, wading through a swamp of invisible mud up to my ankles in expectations and the list of accomplishments I’m yet to tick off.

Maybe they can wait.

Maybe the whole world can wait.

I lie beneath the blanket, gather it around me like it is not a summer day, but the most bitter night of winter. I take a breath. I dare not open my eyes lest the illusion be shattered. For now the world belongs to me, and if I ask it to wait, then it shall wait.

One step two step three step four,
I keep my eyes trained on the floor,
How many steps to get me there?
Do I have enough to spare?
I jump from here out to the door,
And try to save 3 steps or more,
The people passing on the street,
Are tired of counting with their feet,
For if we run out here we stay,
We’ve used our steps up for the day,
My quota left is getting low,
But I’ve still got many miles to go,
I’ve run out now, lost and alone,
Wondering if I’ll ever get back home.

You say you’re nothing special,
But I reject that that is true,
For if you want some solid proof,
Than I can give you one or two.

1. You can’t pronounce “specifically”,
   Without it getting slurred,
2. But to this day it still remains,
   Your favourite slippery word,
3. You never eat the sandwich crust,
   Like bones upon your plate,
4. You’ll always be ten minutes early,
   But you’re never a second late,
5. You don’t know how to whistle,
   But you try it all the same,
6. And every day you choose,
   To answer to a different name,
7. You’ve never learnt to cook,
   But claim you make fantastic toast,
8. You’re the first to own mistakes,
   And you’re the very last to boast,
9. You can’t receive a compliment,
   Without giving one back,
10. And everything you are,
    Makes up for everything I lack.

Its rickety floors feel ten thousand years old,
With rotted out door-frames all covered in mould,
There’s weeds on the porch growing slowly inside,
But I promise there’s no better place you can hide,
Inside an old closet where clothes used to hang,
You’re holding your breath as you count up to ten,
The moths all aflutter as you enter the room,
The only thing that’s alive in this shadowy gloom,
And you realise there’s nobody left here to find,
They moved to the real world and left you behind,
But sometimes you still hear them, their feet on the floor,
You swear they would knock if this house had a door.

Dark and bitter poison,

It burns the whole way down,

Like tar stretched on an ocean,

You cannot swim so much as drown.

Dust and rags and broomsticks,

She would wash and scrub and clean,

Under the wrath of two step sisters,

Who found joy in being mean,

And a plump fairy godmother,

With a crack upon her wand,

Dooming every spell she ever cast,

To go completely wrong,

A ball gown turned to tatters,

Two glass slippers turned to boots,

Out of place among the dresses,

And the gold embroidered suits,

She ran as time struck midnight,

Worried what else could go wrong,

Didn’t lose a single thing,

Her boots stayed firmly on,

So she ran and ran still further,

Until the sunlight filled the sky,

Not even pausing briefly,

To wave that horrid life goodbye,

She broke free from their judgment,

And hasn’t cared to look back since,

She doesn’t need their greedy longing,

And she doesn’t need a prince.

Dear the boy with eyes so crystal blue,
I couldn’t help but fall into,
I wish you’d had a warning sign,
“I’m not worth wishing you were mine”,
For frozen lakes look pretty too,
But one dip and you will freeze right through,
Now I wonder if I’ll ever thaw,
To be the girl I was before.

I saw it down the telescope,
The last decaying ray of hope,
Glinting in the setting sun,
Confirming that the end had come,
Sat there in the browning grass,
Light caught it like a shard of glass,
The ground around it caught ablaze,
An ode to long gone better days.

I feel its grip around my throat,
Death’s cold and grasping hand,
While the soul I once was tied to,
Drifts free far above this land,
The towns stretched out below me,
See no shadow as I pass,
No gust of breeze to prove I’m there,
I do not stir the grass,
Is this the final darkness,
Is this the thing we’d come to fear?
Not a total sense of nothing,
But no-one knowing we are here?
For I beg of night to take me,
I’d prefer to have never been,
Than this eternity of torture,
Where I can see but can’t be seen.