Author: VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

The Department Store Tower

(Warning: Poem makes reference to child abuse)

She taught me how to stay out of sight
the women who worked the candy counter

Dragged my fourteen-year-legs in beside her
as management brushed past, oblivious

Stick to the aisles and passageways, she said
Make sure you are always busy.

She couldn’t say the words that burned on her tongue:
He’ll follow you into darkened corners of the warehouse
He’ll lock the doors and tell you it’s all your fault

No one talked about what this man did,
five floors beneath the department store opulence
While people shopped, and ate, and bought

The wheels of consumerism, well-oiled
stuffing our consciousness with lies and deceit
the vulnerable confined to shadows and margins

But some of us will never forget
Innocent fragments haunting locked corners
Ensuing rage still railing against the injustice
That puts a pedophile in charge.

(Image my own)

Nested

Nestled in with childhood truths –
secondhand
perspective missing

Nursing a creeping creativity –
insignificant lucidity expanding
measurably hurried

Once social, now retreating
papered over failure
have fallen
frigid waves infiltrating
chronically pained
over and over
contemplating flight
freedom

Voiceless
expressionless
flat
even revelation muted
unmoving

protective boundaries
discussed
now crumbling
underestimated the struggle
the pervasiveness

Consider a militant approach
strident restrictions
nullifying passions
but I am a weaver

open to uncovering
blessings in failure,
compensated by soaring –
grounded yet questing
unsettled

disease is not a repellent for the mind
conjures movement in the sedentary
creatures born of defensiveness

I am motivated to find renewal
dank, moist, lacking flame
in this explosive personal nest.

(Written during my bedbound days, 2017. Edited for this edition. Image my own)


Blessings

Mother’s feet scream –
agony of her miserable condition,
underlying disease eating her.
My feet, free of calluses,
paddles slightly bent and fallen,
carry on with forgiving kindness.

Husband’s knees are red-hot pokers
shooting knife-sharp volts
with every rickety step.
Mine are knots in spindly
trunks that bear movement
graciously, allot me flexibility.

Father’s back grew weak
faltering in the end, hunched,
as if he’d born a cumbersome burden.
My back, not without its moaning,
carries me proudly erect –
like the spring sapling, winter endured.

Uncle’s heart beats erratically,
ceasing despite its mechanical support,
his life a testimony to modern science.
My heart flutters with expectancy,
aches with disappointment,
and soars with each new birdsong.

Sister’s tension rises,
the stiffness in her neck suffocating,
headaches blinding her vision.
My neck, slung now like a rooster’s,
puffs around my face like an old friend,
allows me the comfort of perspective.

Brother’s mind has seized,
lost somewhere between today
and yesteryear – never certain of either.
Mine, a constant churning cog,
gathers information, spews ideas
and bends in the face of creativity.

My eyes have seen suffering,
my hands throbbed with desire to help;
yet each bears their cross stoically,
and so I watch with compassion
and gratitude for the life I might have lived,
had my own vessel not been so blessed.

(Image my own)

Who Am I?

(Trigger warning: this poem alludes to child abuse)

Who I am
if not a harbinger –
eyes turned to the sky
diligent?

And what defines me
beyond calm in a crisis
action-taking, firmly
responsible?

No bystander here
I will fight injustice
free the wrongfully accused
capable

Driven
driving
fearless
awake

No sleeping
when danger presents
turmoil relentless
nightmares persist

Visions of uprising
and natural disasters
filling my dreams –
I grow weary

I cry, but no one is listening
the bustle outside reflective
of lives being lived
while I cower

Worried that the sky will fall
and I will be too torn
too bruised
to rise to the occasion

That child I coddled
now questioning my motives
that woman I saved
scoffing at my delusion

I am neither saint nor saviour
I am just a woman/child running
from the drunk under the table
still trying to define herself
as anything but his prey.

(Drawing is my own)

Forest Walking

Wish I could converse –
one harmonic voice blended
in a symphony of birdsong –
but my tongue stumbles
reveals me as interloper

As much as I tread
softly over forest floor
my missteps crackle
alert the denizens
danger is about –
no imploring
can reverse the impression

Nature’s sensitivity is finely tuned
and I am urban-scented,
barely tolerated,
seldom trusted –
must bear my reverence
for this sacred space
more deliberately.

(Image my own)

Brute

The man is rhino
mere stench of him
inspires fear
clears the room

We cower, quietly
captivated little mice
terrified he’ll call us out
bullied into submission

But this status quo
bears no permanence
time and circumstance
will topple the power

And once writhing
on his backside, who
will venture to help, and
who will leave him be?

(Original was written in 2020. Seems it still applies. Image my own)

Finding Corners In Fitted Sheets

Intensity drops in,
early, before
I have a chance
to set the day in order –
puts me on the defensive.

She clings
encourages me to hold on
her sick creativity awake with impulsivity –
I am ailing
loyal
compelled to launder the linens

Desperately trying to find the corners
in the circular fitted sheet –
dependent on daily chores.

She wants to talk about feelings
but I am still numbed from sleep
from this never-ending illness,
from this perfectionist drive for optimism

She wants to embrace
hug me into submission
lecture me on the benefits
of organics and loose-leaf teas
and I am too busy avoiding her
to be grateful.

(Originally written in 2018, and edited here. Image my own)

What Saved Me

Legs, once burdened by resignation, now dare
Arms, once contracted by pain, reach out

Lungs, constricted by limitation, breathe deep
Heart, damaged by futility, finds new rhythm

Muscles, cramped and bullying, flex anew
And this flesh, previously tormented, glows

My body, ravaged and bruised, believed in fatality
My mind, turning its back on self, chimed concurrence

Only non-compliance keeps me alive
a rebellious will, graciously allowing
God’s higher plan.

(This poem is in response to a poem written at the height of my illness in 2017. The original is entitled Body Talks. Image my own)