Starting out,
she was perfect,
snow white in complexion
with hands and legs of delicate
moving intent.
She had a curious furious mind,
flitting like a butterfly.
Her dreams took her everywhere
she wanted to go,
just to be.
Her smile was pure and outpouring
magical and inviting.
Her laugh was infectious and inclusive
Her empathy for a friend
heart rending and knife cutting
to the bone of the soul.
She was what beauty was always meant to be.
Then one day she heard the words and phrases
of the malintent
she’s not as pretty as some, or that
brain between yours ears
will never get you very far
And thoughts of fancy are
best left forgotten,
placed in a locked box
and dumped into the sea.
All her seeming sins were brought up from the depths
and laid bare by muted lovers never seeing their own
ill gotten gains.
Violent beating words, followed by choking pushing
declarations of malevolent “loving” motives
left her mind a fractured land
she was scared to travel,
day or night.
At the start of my first
pause at seeing her
really seeing her,
she was magic personified in flesh.
A bright pulsing blue
engulfing.
A rushing vibrant river come to claim
and I smiled inside
at the taking of me.
I saw in her the inception
of the girl and the woman that was always there
I saw all those things they could not
in her
And I told her so.
as she smiled
tears falling.
by Philip Wardlow 2018
Tag Archives: depression
Love your Hedgehogs!
Time, Tenacity and the Reason Why.
Moments flit
mounting to minutes,
then hours,
Days cycle
as the sun sets
and I’m left
bereft.
Wasted, are the stars
that twinkle.
Wasted, is the moon
illuminating.
No inspiration wrought.
Looking deep,
a hole hides
where once
a solid space
did reside.
Why the vacancy?
Oh, if only the
tick tock
of time could
halt, or
grind down to
near a trickle
then perhaps
my soul would have
the tenacity
to finally
awaken
once
more.
Philip Wardlow 2018
Carousel of Life
First,
You are originally packed,
innards carefully selected
for the long trip
Zipped up,
thrown into a trunk,
weighed and tagged
with declarations
nay or yea about the status of your
being.
Then you are stuffed in
with the others,
in coldness,
while others may
sit in comfort, warm and secure.
You are very cold
so very cold
and its hard to breath
as you sit in an
unknown darkness
not knowing up from down
Abruptly,
ungentle hands throw
you about,
disoriented,
you tumble, fall and
are crushed,
to finally be dumped out into
the light
to traverse
around and around and around
walls flitting by, legs
and arms of non-distinct color
not wanted by you,
pick the
others
alongside you in
the endless revolving
journey.
Soon, you are the last one
on the turnstile
still circling and circling and circling
until you simply
stop
and wait for someone to pick you up
and you keep waiting
and Waiting
and Waiting
Waiting…
by Philip Wardlow 2018
Tensions and Potentials
Funny how a day plays
Out
From all the rest
In
the moment of a crash
Between
worlds never knowing
Upon
the other’s shoulders
What
weights they bear in silence
Who
they fear in ignorance
Why
roads are traveled
When
all the open paths
Array
around them
Pulling
at heart strings
Confounding
A mind conflicted
toward
either violent ends or
after
internal deliberation
to
peaceful meditation
where
past sins
are
finally
put
to bed
And wistful dreams
meander
in now a
serenely
quiet
head.
By Philip Wardlow 2018
Melancholy Man
I got reasons and I have none
For the times I smile and the times
I dont
But please know, you saved
The melancholy man in me
Yes, you surely did save
this melancholy man.
That kiss you give,
those eyes that see me
Truly
You saved me
And my muddling mind
It’s coming to focus again
On the wonder
The rare,the magic,
the potential
And hope in everyone
I feel it rising
like my
Love for you
Already has.
So stay forever my sweetness
And keep this
melancholy man
company
By Philip Wardlow 2018
Adrift
Where waves once gently lapped
now they churn
and pound
relentless.
Once anchored,
now moorings torn
dragged out to sea
all now adrift.
Rising phasing fickled moon
taunts like a schoolyard bully
cold and biting
as it sinks away with the
promised sun,
and its burdensome
loathing gonging heat.
Just an insignificant bobber
afloat,
Eyes staring at the nothing and inward
universe, wondering at the why
of it all, and the wanderings
we seek when the world calls.
Fish nibble at toes,
Tasting,
Sharks circle,
Waiting
For the final death throws,
for most like an easy
meal under an early
morning light.
Delirium
brings a dark, dark,
silhouette
against a lit azure sky.
Pulling…tugging
…breathing life…commanding a body and mind
long past dead to
to snap back to resolution.
Blackness enfolds,
Awake,
softness holding
in a quiet room abiding
of the whitest white
With distant shore finally reached.
As a gentle lapping at the shore
comes to finally an open ear
ready to finally hear.
A new way of life.
by Philip Wardlow 2018
Reaching Her
Some days are often dreams
she wakes from,
half remembered.
Perhaps best
forgotten.
Tears are given,
gravity catching,
taken by a lover far below
the sheer cliff she sits.
He climbs to her,
tears clutched tight
Ever ascending
Slow, ponderously,
Inch
by
Inch
By
Inch
He is a patient man
looking up,
giving her a full
loving smile
There is no other
place he’d rather be
For the view is
spectacular below
and above
to the girl
he’s trying to
reach.
By Philip Wardlow
Lost One
I’m a melancholy mind
floating in forgotten winds
never fully
free of the damaged
parts that float around,
hard to catch,
hard to see unless
you look deep into me
I want you to, yet
I fear you are too distracted
and I cant blame you
for who you are but
I need you to see.
No one has really
ever found it but
I want you to.
I fear you cant.
The beautiful kid
that is still lost
and needs to find the way back
To run, to laugh,
With a new heart in hand
But this sun is
Blinding
And home is only
a made up memory
that already set
By Philip Wardlow 2018
Unprocessed
I learned long ago
to bury my feelings in every
day life
the highs and the lows.
Why be happy when its just going to be
taken away in an instant.
And why show you are sad when you will
just bring every one down and they
really don’t care anyways.
So I smile. I joke.
I say I’m good, how about you,
to turn the conversation
away from me.
I have always been good at that.
But it builds in me
This tension.
Stresses of the day, anger at people, fears in life, continued failures.
I hold it.
I do much better inside when I let it out.
And I do.
Like reading a book, or watching a movie
I fall away from the world and I am just am.
Pushing my body in a work out, hard, really hard.
Having good sex, really good sex.
A good stiff drink.
Retreating.
But I’m working up to a better version of attack.
Talking to someone I trust to find
the feelings I can’t express or bring to
focus to what’s inside me that hides there even from me.
Like why I feel anxiety about seemingly stupid things I
shouldn’t.
Unresolved anger that I say doesn’t bother
me but does.
Why I fear a future I should love to imagine.
Hitting a punching bag helps,
riding my bike, free, unfettered
in the sun, in the wind
Away from the world.
Helps
But engaging really is the key.
I am releasing that need to
keep that wall sustained
I think it has hurt me way more
than it has ever helped
I want my melancholy to melt
I want my mind to connect
and my smile to flourish
in every possible way.
by Philip Wardlow 2018
Ain't no rest for the Wicked - Philip Wardlow - The real and the sensual sides to life in all its facets.. 