Life has been busy and it has been too long since I have written. 2020 has been… interesting, I have returned to university and there is, of course, COVID-19 and the lockdown we experienced in Melbourne. Studying fulltime whilst still working has meant significant hours and to be honest, the lockdown has probably been good for that, but the academic year is coming to an end and restrictions are lifting, so it’s time to re-emerge in so many ways. I have been focussing on my studies and thought I would share it with you. Below is a poem I wrote as part of my creative writing class earlier this year. It contains emotional content, consider yourselves warned.

In absentia

You cast a light not meant to shine
on parts of me long hidden, even from myself.
You see me as I am
damaged
broken
a collection of wounds unhealed
not ready to be brought out from darkness.
Locked beneath the skin I show the world.
Safe from all I thought
until you.

There was too much danger
being unmasked. From a distance
I said we must part
circumstance decrees. I lied
to you
to myself.
The truth strangled by fear
of being
exposed
of feeling
everything you offered
everything I could not give
you in return. In my thoughts
your shadow still dances with me
as if it were my own.

I am a traitor to myself
bound by forces yet unnamed
to a memory of what might have been.
The truth lurking
in corners and quiet moments.
It lays with me at night
as I stare into the darkness
my eyes shut tight
against the tide that returns
each day, filled
with you.

Waiting on your return The Falls Kooroocheang Victoria Australia  June 2014 — Waiting on your return
The Falls
Kooroocheang Victoria Australia
June 2014