The Door

Behind a secret paint-worn door,
With curlicues and locks of rust,
I hear a melancholic sigh,
The fractured sounds of childhood lost,
I dare not turn the brittle key,
And risk a pinch of yesteryear,
Come darting through a crack in time,
To pierce my heart with memories.

Yet if I turn and walk away,
What happens then to innocence?
Abandoned there in time to taint,
A voice to grow in dark cadence.
And so with fear in my bones,
I gather up my scant reserve,
I grasp the key with halted breath,
At first it grates; then yields to me.

A lazy rose at summer’s end,
Did murmer in my empty ear,
A hint of guilded travesty
Into my house it blew a fear.
At first unformed; in time it grew,
Into a shape I recognised,
And with that understanding, shed
Momentum gained with sugared lies.

This piercing; less than harboured pain,
Surprised me with it’s clarity,
Released me from distorted view,
With levity my trust returned,
So now the days ahead to come,
In number less than those behind,
No longer painted with my loss,
Can flourish with an insight gained.

The Book

I was in a room full of co-participants on some kind of self-developmental course. We were in the leisure area and people were sitting on sofa's and chatting.

As I looked around the room, I saw a cupboard, like a pantry, which was full of books. I moved towards them grazing the spines, and saw one that had no words; just faded red and gilt, it seemed older than the others, and for all it's inconspicuity, seemed to lure me.

I slid it out from between Rogers and Jung and randomly browsed it's worn and faded pages that had the quality of fine animal skin. The words were printed in places and hand written in ink in others; though in truth I cannot now remember a word of it.

As I read, I glanced up at my cohorts and had the distinct impression of hovering over the low-level hum of conversation. A buzzing sensation enveloped my body and my senses seemed to grow acutely tuned to the minutia of gestures, the odour of expression and the colour of tiny deceptions.

I realised that I was now privy to aspects of their lives that I couldn't possibly have known before.

With this power came a grave responsibility not to use my knowledge for personal gain.

Participant 1 had an ambivalent smile and appeared to be nodding sagely at 2's words; a gesture I may once have mistook for concerned interest. I saw she was somewhere else entirely and that something obscure, said some moments before had taken her to a place of self doubt and fear; the result of a clumsy misdemeanour committed by the masculine parent. She appeared to be overlaid with an image of herself age five, and faint ghosts of her experience were playing out their story around her. She was doubting that she was good enough and wondering why she'd come at all.

Participant 3 was nibbling daintily on an apple and eating herself to death in secret.

4 appeared to be looking the other way, but was staring at 5 through a reflection in glass.

So intense was the detail, that I almost didn't catch that the break was over and we had to leave to catch the next train.

I wanted to take the book with me, but saw that I couldn't.......shouldn't and I went to return it to it's place in the pantry. The change of pace was making me giddy and the train was going to pull out of the station any moment.

I knew I needed to read more, then realised with a jolt that I didn't even know what it was called.

I turned back to the book and pulled it out again; just as everything started to fade I made out the words across the front 'A Lexicon of Earthly Life and Love'.