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Missing Stories

| Sheree

You may have missed her story.
There’s a loud silence
when a black woman is brutalised/raped/murdered.
Front page headlines seldom carry outrage,
hardly carry a mention.
My heart catches fire every time
I have to decipher the details
through a pinhole of shadows.

I see her being followed home from that party.
Them two stalking her apartment
thinking she’s got money just by the way she holds herself.
Or at least her grandmother must.
They break in. Gag and tie her up in the basement
where they each take their time to beat and rape her.
What I remember from between the missing lines
is those bastards making off with a few dollars,
an iPad and a laptop after they set the house on fire.
You may have missed her story.
Let me tell you another story along the same brutal missing lines.

Countdown Deals

| Sheree

 

Just popping in quickly to let you know that rubedo, the memoir I self-published in 2016 is on a countdown deal with Amazon this week. Totally forgot all about it, as I set it up a couple of weeks ago and then time got in the way. This is probably the only time I’ll be offering any discount deals on this title, as I work on the next instalment.

Get your copy while it’s cheap. Happy reading. 

Found Poem – Chicago

| Sheree

Things happen in the blink of an eye
I pray to keep him out of harm’s way
I pray to keep him until he’s grown
But there’s a target on his back
And a gnawing hunger in his eyes
No prospects no jobs no hope
I pray to keep him close
I pray against police and gangs
But shots are fired shots are fired
No respect for humanity

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a marrying of sites

| Sheree

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
― Margaret Atwood,

Since May 2015, I have lived a nomadic life on the internet. I have created two different websites, in addition to Living Wild Studios, since then.
August 1st 2015, saw Wild Soul Woman being born.
my new home
I created Wild Soul Woman as a safe place to heal. A safe place to heal after a very harrowing and very public shaming. Wild Soul Woman was a space from which to RISE.

A year on from then, and I felt the need for more space, more room to grow into the wild soul woman I was becoming. Bit by bit, day by day, I have been becoming a better version of myself. I have been becoming my authentic self.

Hence, Authentic SheShe was born as a blog where I shared my practice, lessons learnt, opportunities and love affair with creativity. Running parallel with this site was my site dedicated to ,my photography, presented under the title of Sheree Angela Matthews. I used this place as a showcase for my projects in progress as well as a portfolio.

Living Wild Studios is now my creative home, where I am finally sharing multi-coloured strands of my creativity all under one roof. Finally coming home to all of me. To the whole of me. Living wild, living true.

Please consider signing up for Studio Notes. You’ll find out what’s happening in the studios before anyone else!

Blog

lichen

| Sheree

The symbiosis of a fungus and a green alga, lichen is the first plant to colonise a hardened lava field. Versatile and hardy, it thrives to survive under harsh, volatile conditions. She marvels at its tenacity, wishing she was as hardy. Wishing she was as robust. Clinging to rocks, tree trunks and wire, lichen grows and glows, sexually producing spores in sacs. Branching and shrubby, once upon a time she would have been too afraid to look so closely, to distinguish life amongst the dark holes of decay. Now she does not look away. Now she sees the beauty.

Coppery red flat tops
curl in towards
soft shiny centres

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April – A Poem A Day

Fishing

| Sheree

The worship of fish, for subsistence and profit, declines in response to the fishing quota system. Villages hugging the shoreline struggle with time and the departure of the young. At Thingeyri, out there in the fjords are three massive green nets holding artificially reared super fish. Trout. Not native to the area along with the multinational< company owning them.
One day, a hole is found in one net. How many fish escape, no one knows. How the fish survive in open water, if any, no one knows. If the escapees mate with the other fish, no one knows. It’s not the companies problem. It’s not an issue worth investigation. The hole is mended. The trout continue to be farmed to yield their optimum value. White white flesh to satisfy the foreign customer’s tastes.

red headscarf tied tight
bent and slow
she walks to harbour

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April – A Poem A Day

Adrift in the Wilderness

| Sheree

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Surrounded by white upon white. Cold biting at all exposed flesh. Eyes search for some familiar sign even though this is my first visit to the Westfjords. Something, anything to anchor the self in place as I float unhinged from all that I know and all that I feel. Fear swims into this pause. Into this solitude. What happens if I don’t like what I find in this time and space alone? What if I don’t like who I am?

on one of lampposts
along the slushy street
a raven grates out kraaa

 

April – A Poem A Day

naming my bones

| Sheree

naming my bones

liberated lines:: amplify :: day 2 – Can you class teeth as bones? As when the North wind blows and gusts straight through me as if I am air, I smile. Later my teeth ache, like the cold has seeped into my teeth, into my bones.

The cold can nestle within my womb for days. I feel it bedding down. Not bothering to warm through. Instead content on chilling me from the inside out. Right through to the tips of my fingers and toes.

I look at my hands and wonder. You can have more than 206 bones, you know? Unnamed bones that develop in areas of friction and tension and stress.

I feel unnamed bones in the in the palms of my hands. Because I’ve always tried to please, giving away parts of myself in the hope of being validated and loved.

I feel unnamed bones in the soles of my feet. Because I’m trying to walk back to me now. Trying to get back to my whole self; the self who was lost behind masks others forced upon me and the ones I took up eagerly, if it meant I belonged.

Gut and bone and bleed. I name these as authentic me. Sinewy strong fibres knitted close together. Taking up the slack. Gut and bone and bleed. Lined up like rows of teeth, ready to do battle, ready to bear my soul. Gut and bone and bleed.
#liberatedlinesamplify #namingyourbones #authenticsheshe #alchemy #belovedbodypeace #hygge #practice #wildsoulwoman #voice #standinginmytruth #patience #compassion

there is darkness

| Sheree

there is darkness

liberated lines:: amplify :: day 1

There is a darkness … I am the mother who sleeps in late because I skywrite my intention days before. It’s Monday morning and I’m playing hooky from expectations. I scrunch my pillow up closer feeling into the silence of the house, holding my dreams of the day.
I am the tender of others even when alone. As I put the washing in, prepare the evening meal, wash the dishes, dry the dishes, turn the dishes over. I am a healer while still healing myself. But isn’t that always the way?
I am bed and pen and computer and toffee-nut coffee. I navigate the bends in the river, I want to say with grace. But I know with strength.
In the darkness, I bed down, make myself cosy as I know here, layers of self echo and shed, amplify and shimmer.
Right down to the bone and soul, there is alchemy with patience, alchemy with compassion. I am becoming, always becoming into my truth.

#liberatedlinesamplify #throughouttheday #hygge #alchemy #intothedarknight #compassion #patience #authenticsheshe #liberatedlines #belovedbodypeace #alchemy #atthecrossroadsofshouldandmust