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Marking The Way
Shell Suit
When You Met Me

Marking The Way

My skin, my own personal map
marking the way
past directions, I followed them once upon a time

Turn right through pain
go left at loneliness central
head straight through a string of conflicting emotions: anger, elation, disgust
touching on the borders of disconnection:
a brief flirtation before normal transmission is resumed

It sounds bad, I know it does
but in some way, in many ways
I like it as it is

My history – my narrative

Sometimes I have to look back at where I’ve been,
the journey travelled

To appreciate what I have

Being here. Now.

Rachel Studley © 2003

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Shell Suit

He walks in a silent world
but he is not deaf.
It suits him to live in a shell,
tightly wrapping cocoon layers
upon layers.
Blocking out thoughts fears and desires
once it was different,
once he dreamt of light and of magic,
Once he believed,
(perhaps not in a religious way),
That mystery and imagination,
held the key to humanity and feeling.
One day it went sour.
The river of thought ran dry.
The warmth of love became embers;
Cold and calculating.
Finally to rest in congealed hardness.
There was no pain,
Only numbness and a suit of shell,
an armour of invisibility.

To this day there is little hope
of awakening.

"Go crawl from your shell and feel
the sun the rain and weep".
Subconsciously the thought ricochets
in the empty rooms of this
head.

He does not know what to do about it.
Yet. One day there may be hope.


Tony Fisher,
October 94. For Anne.

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When You Met Me

when you met me I was the same size as everyone else

then I was a giant
my feet far away on the floor
my hair brushing the ceiling
my voice filled the room you lived in

then I was a dwarf
my head on the floor
biting at your ankles
squeaking and stepped on

then I disappeared

Jo Twist © 2003