craving and restless
at a loss
knowing my medicine
and not taking it
to suffer; a tradition passed down
through our bodies
attempting to work against it
sharing time
with water helps to heal
the wounds, silence the cries
She’s called Daphe, the woman running the business training out of her Notting Hill home.
The Thames curves south from here by Chelsea, sluggish brown. The city’s awake and burning.
Have you been to see the damage yet? he asks, in our snatched conversation.
Almost gleeful in his hunger to hear details about the tower block which blazed leaving so many people missing or dead.
He says there’s photographs of the missing stuck to tree trucks, walls and railings. Black, brown and olive skinned and missing.
I don’t want to see this suffering. The ruins becoming a tourist attraction. Leave them with some dignity. Always having to endure the gaze in life and death.
Could I be as cute and cunning as a fox, I giggle into another snapshot filter.
Happy in my play and disregard for others’ opinions.
His eyes are open and still. I think he’s a he, slight and young. Pointy nose with white frosting.
The rest of him is a dull orange red.
So whole and perfect and dead.
Lying on his side at the edge of the motorway, four legs sticking straight out as if ready to bounce back onto, after playing dead.
I feel guilty. I didn’t hit him. He was already dead when I flew by in Summer, my metallic orange Susuki Splash, honest.
But when I see him dead as clear as day, I feel shame at my mini Snapchat film and buying into the cunning as a fox stereotype of fairytales.
My heart stays in my throat for the whole day.
Why did he have to die, such beauty and no blood?
This is my season.
I love this time of year. Autumn is my birth season and it’s when I shine. There’s that ‘back-to-school’ feeling accompanied by the change in energy and light. There’s a bubbling of anticipation as the landscape is on the turn. Transformation is possible.
I lean into the season by getting outside into nature as much as possible. Usually when the schools go back , we can enjoy a few weeks of sunshine, a late summer roll out of heat before the temperatures drop.
September is also a good month also to enjoy sea swimming as this is as warm as it’s going to get, The North Sea, after storing some of the summer’s warmth. The water can be so clear sometimes, calm and still.
This transitional season is beautiful because where there is life there is also decay and death. The late blooming flowers still have some joy to give. At the same time as the berries are bursting out of brambles and bushes. Leaves begin to turn colour, to collect in brown bundles. A time to harvest those seeds we planted in spring. A time to count our blessings and give thanks.
Happy Autumn x
sensuous
free
body
burning
deep
communion
skin to skin
slip and slide
glide and glove
fit together
is such
a delicious
way to be
uncomfortable sensations which can only be described as pain course straight to the core
to release endorphins of joy
the outlook is better
the outlook is golden
the outlook is diamond
the outlook is bright
the outlook is purple
the outlook is a gift
breathless
reckless
niggling thoughts
forgotten
stripped away
on a ripple
and a ride
duck head under
the water like
through a cold pane
of glass
salt invades
stinging nostrils
burning throat
cheeks tingle
and glow
I’ve always had a wandering relationship with water.
Called it curiosity as a child. Call it freakiness as an adult. To feel the curling nothingness upon my skin, turning once dry to wet.
I’ve always wondered where the water flows,
why it’s never the same sea twice and
why they keep pulling me back to dive deeper into their cores?
I want to send out a love that feels hard to the people so when they feel it they pay attention.
That they don’t dismiss it as soft.
I want them to feel it in their gut like a punch. Recall the power.
That they don’t miss the promise it holds.
Yes, I want to send out a love that feels hard to the world so they stop taking it for granted.
That they don’t forget to send it back to me.
Living Wild Studios 