Constructs

Life feels like
a series of
illusions,
delusions
and constructs

To detract
from the
realisation
that we’re all
essentially
alone.

#originalpoem #poem

Black and White

They split us up

I arrived at school
To find her gone
And my heart with it

They moved her away

Back then I was told
“You’re too young
To know what love is
Only grown-ups feel it
It’s an adult thing”

That I should
know my place

I did
It was with her.

(For Carla).

©2025 JJ – Nature Music Art.

Nightdream

If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

I would nightdream. Sit still, stare into space and let my imagination drift, as I do when I daydream. The inner life is where it’s at, for me.

A Lifelong Daily Battle

For me, it’s a lifelong and daily battle.

To be the person I know myself to be. Beyond the fear, beyond all expectations.

Or be the person I know I should be, because I would feel a greater sense of belonging and approval.

Leaves. I love leaves. I love them on a tree, underfoot, in piles, images in books and even the fact pages in books are known as leaves. I view leaves as people. Individually and as a collective. Leaves are lovely.

As a child, I could never bring myself to kick them, although I did lift them up and threw them into the air and enjoyed the feeling of them raining down onto me. Trees I have always viewed as people too. People holding up leaves and then when they felt ready to, because their arms were exhausted, letting them too rain down onto the earth and the world below.

I have always viewed trees, leaves, the bark on trees, branches, twigs and stones, the earth itself, the myriad tiny creatures within that, as people. People just like you or I. Everything as alive and yes, sentient. Even stones.

In societal terms, and to many I’m a weirdo. A freak. An oddball. Strange. Bizarre. A target for bullies. Someone to be spoken down to. Not quite good enough. Not enough.

The energy I have put into fighting that all my life, has been gargantuan and very tiring.

Wanting to fit in, to be like everyone else.

As I’ve gotten older, it’s become harder to do so. I had hoped with the passage of time, I would more fully integrate and be less ‘sticky outey’ and less jarring to the ‘normies’ but that hasn’t happened. In fact, I would say that I’m ‘weirder’ than I have ever been.

I’m me. Weird, strange, odd.

And yes, I do view leaves as people.

The Day I Drowned

I was drowned as a child. My heart stopped beating. I died and had to be resuscitated.

I can still remember the boy’s faces as they held me under, knowing full well what they were doing. The malice etched into their features. I was 4 years of age. They were 8 or 9. I may have come into contact with them down the years and not known it. There’s something frightening about that. There might be grown men living in my town, in their mid-50’s now and they killed a boy. Me. They were laughing. Bragging about what they had done. Scary.

I finally wrote about it this year, in poem form. 9th May at 23.57pm.

Anyhow, this is what I wrote:-

The panic rises
Within me a fear
Memories repressed
The life long ago
A different time
Sinking down breathless
Their laughing faces
My life ebbed away
And then it all stopped
There was just nothing
I coughed and spluttered
Breathed in the sweet air
That indicated
My bittersweet return

Did I feel better for writing it? No, not really. Has my life been enhanced by it? Nope, not at all. Needless to say, I had to write it. To get it out there. To get it out of me.

I think a lot of the negatives in my life can be traced back to that point in time. Mum said I walked in as a carefree boy and left an old man, scared of my own shadow. That I didn’t take risks after that but played everything super-safe. It made my childhood oddly clinical and joyless. I can remember having to go swimming at school and I would wear wear arm-bands, 2 rubber rings and have a float ‘just in case’ I got pulled under or lost my footing.

I hate those 2 boys, now men, for what they did to me that day. I was glad when I went bald because while I had hair, Mum washed it in the sink with me facing away so no water went into my eyes or over my face. Even now if I’m in a shower, I have to move the shower-head down below my face and then wash my face separately, with a flannel. If the water is cold, I panic. It’s terrible.

So yeah, that’s my story of the day I drowned.

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