Shadows

(in response to Lamium, a poem by Louise Gluck)

I wake beneath a canopy of shadows, the spells of the night & the scars of an uneven sleep etched into my skin & my step. The cold of the morning forms condensation in the windows of my sluggish perception, but still, another day opens up before me & with it, doors & windows to step through. Emerging from out of the shadows or maybe just sticking out a limb to test the water?

The pools of light always beckon to me, like a calling siren. The moments that gives me the most joy. My sense of de-fragmentation – a continual process of coming together & splitting apart. I'm ok with this now even though sometimes, I might fight it.

A canopy of tall green trees makes a tunnel of a winding coast road. A car, family full, filled with the intoxicated sense of beach & of summer. The high farce of hoisting picnics & grandparents down to the sea level using pulleys & ropes. I still have the rug to lie on. I still have the rug to lie on.

The smells of putty & paraffin, mesmerised by the inherent magic of glass cutting. Mixing paints with childhood abandon. Play time in a grown up world. Packets of peanuts & flashes of flesh make me feel at home & curious, but somehow the numbers don't always add up. Or perhaps my young head doesn't feel big enough to fit them all in!

But this is love & I still have the rug to lie on. The words tumble & tremble a little to be heard.

I am one of them, one of those who live in the shadows, because that's where I grew up, that's what I have always recognised.

Shadows do not obscure, they hide but they also highlight edges, blur boundaries, create a larger landscape.

Shadows - darkness. Not the same thing. Because there's no shadows in darkness. It is only light that creates shapes.

Shadow- blocking light.

Cold. Cold heart. Overgrown. Hiding place.... Making my own light.

Why am I struggling to write? I need to open up but I feel clogged. Empty. There's nothing here but an image of myself opening and closing drawers and boxes, looking for past, future, memories, dreams, dark dreams, fears. But the drawers are empty. I can't find anything.

Is this me? Am I this cold creature who feels nothing, remembers nothing, has nothing to hold onto?

I try to ignore it, this lack of feeling, try to stuff thoughts in my head like white fluff into a teddy bear.

Dig, dig deep and you'll find reasons for all of it. A person without feelings cannot be hurt. A cold heart is nothing but an armour. You can train yourself to feel very little, just as you trained yourself to need very little sleep. Because terrible things happened when you were switched off, in the dark. Awake you can hear. Awake you can study the shadows, find meaning where there's none. I feel lost. I need to carry a light with me. A box of matches to light my heart, intermittently, like a string of Christmas lights.