Poem – black flame | Sarah K Reece

Still feel depressed and overloaded today. [‘I don’t know why. I. feel. so. tongue-tied’]
Days where I want to crawl out of my own skin, my head is full of noise and pressure like a sea at storm, hands shaking I drag myself from one appointment to the next, watching the world sideways, (waiting for the killing blow that must come) and the restless discontent, the need for night and solitude, a place without ‘other’, with no reflection of myself in anyone else’s eyes, only my own name, only my own shadow and the sound of my heart beat. Here, in the dark, I hear my breath, I feel my hands trembling like flightless birds that hear a savage wild song of blue sky
they will never reach.
To be alone
is to be at peace.
The memories fall like snow,
like yesterdays
happenings.

Here is a rage that only
the wounded know
Here is a language that only the poets can speak
Down in the darkness where no stars shine
There is a pain that love does not heal
There is a loss that cannot be undone
A void nothing fills
A simple despair

There is no such thing as safety
And the knowledge brands me,
burns like black flame, creates a
terrifying clarity, we need
illusions to really live, like wings or sails they take us far
from the mundane and the dismal, the poverty of
our souls
I am shackled in an empty world
blasted landscape, the wastes that can hold no hope
and yet, bitter mantle mine
To walk among mankind
There must be lightness
and smiling, we must
talk of comforting things
we must stand only
in the light, casting no shadow,
leaving no trace of blood.

Here, I can taste the darkness, and
there is peace in it
there is honour.