Featured Poet - Isabelle P. Byrne

LAID TO REST

She swallowed the parts of me the world could never stomach completely, 

So, she suffocated me so discreetly killing me so soft and sweetly,

She was the epitome of naivety, but she got away with it completely, 

She shut down every human part of me, so I could live life easily, 

She was my greatest invention, 

Her obsession to become godly was never the intention,

She took my place, and I was lucky to get a mention,

It was me not her that became a bodily extension.

The girl whose depth of mind stopped just before the shore,

That her aura so genuine you would never believe she was more,

Until her fractured smile showed glimpses of her core,

She rid the weaknesses that burdened me,

But she created someone who wasn't sustainable to be.

She became the devil in my way,

one of us had to go to let the other stay.

She pushed and pushed without any limitation,

So, she broke herself but kept going not knowing its implications,

Furthering my complications, too late to mend, too late for resurrection, 

So out of touch with the needs she never thought I needed,

By the time she realised, she had repeated the same moves until defeated,

she was the fuel that fed the fire,

ignoring my needs to meet her own desires,

Ignoring all that made her feel the things she wished she couldn’t,

Then in retaliation became all the things she shouldn’t,

That my body became the victim to her relationship of control,

That this game she continued to play eventually took its toll,

Never to cry, or scream or flash her innards out,

so instead it made me into a vessel of self-doubt,

She was my idea of perfection, and I loved every part,

Well until the sun set, and it began to get dark,

Left in a room with someone I didn’t know,

The same person she never let show,

She took all the parts she hated and carved me into someone that could survive,

That the person I had become was a person That existed rather than thrived,

she self-prophesied our own spontaneous combustion,

Living amongst the debris of our mutual destruction,

Fear of becoming something she would inevitably become,

It’s time to succumb to this mind before is finally goes numb,

she played the game right, and she played it well,

that the bigger she grew was a sign of how far we had fell.

a collector of sorts, pinning her personalities upon her pin board

always making jokes above the social discord,

not knowing she was telling jokes neither of us could afford,

To her accepting change was losing face,

being someone else or being something new wasn't something shed embrace,

she was too busy saving everybody else to save herself,

not realising she needed to take time to acknowledge her own health,

trying to distract from the fact that we hold the power to break,

yet the longer she was in power it upped the steak,

that if she stepped down, we would both be seen as fake,

Years of Perpetual motion buried under ignored emotion,

Pushing and pushing until my inevitable implosion,

the face that everyone knew so well weathered into erosion.

Striving to be the best without the capacity to achieve it,

so, she dropped what she could and kept what she believed in,

Her bark began to part like damp wallpaper revealing the plasters beneath

but No plaster can plaster over her past beliefs,

She never wanted to change who she’d become with such rigidity,

In her will for control, she lost it unknowingly.

Now I've lost with no more ability to achieve,

No ribbon no white rabbit to be pulled from my sleeve,

The archers arrow pointing inward My destroyer and my salvation,

not knowing the self-deprecation is the what’s stopping my liberation.

Bringing misery through her tyranny with my body under her punity,

Never to fulfil her idea of sanity never able to transform into her kind of deity,

she pretended she was stronger than her own broken mentality,

Exhausted by her own regime her mind softened into frailty,

Now I mourn all the capacities that were stolen from me,

My life My future the expectations of normality or perhaps Pity,

She tried her hardest and she tried her best,

But she was never to be happy with perfection as her quest,

She lives within me she lives within my flesh,

All the years of her control and torment that made me so depressed,

She can’t do anymore damage now she’s left,

And so, with great sadness I laid her mind to rest,

But when I laid her to rest, I had to start again,

So, I pored the ink from my heart back into my pen,

In the hope I could rewrite a life I let her live,

But I know now that without her I have so much more to give.

HELPLESS

No one understands why the glass fell from tightly gripped hands.

Or why the fisherman’s net never caught a catch,

Not because we didn’t try hard enough to close the latch,

That we can’t contain or obtain or control the things out of our control,

And so, there are days we close our eyes and change our role,

As we watch our loved ones slip into the rabbit hole,

Our eyes so wide in the hope they’ll use black pit pupils as a way to escape,

Escape this disease that came with bad fate,

Too late to take precaution, too late to avoid extortion, no sign or cause for caution,

You watch as they slip from tightly gripped fists,

As you know you have no power here,

No way to help steer or change gear as the end of the road begins to get near

I’m here now and I’m begging for someone to save the one I love,

Because I’ve prayed to the fucker up above,

But there is no cure no well fitted glove,

That will ever save the person I need to save,

I would give it all and twice what I gave,

Your eyes are dead now, like black sinkholes, another full stop so I take a bow as the Drs take the controls,

That this illness brings such guilt and shame,

loved ones that surround their family like a picture frame,

A frame to continue to hold together the pieces of the lame, Unable to rid the ideas of blame.

It’s so hard to remind yourself that this was never a game,

No way to win, when you play a game of luck,

No way to cheat or get unstuck,

Watch as the chaos unfolds outside of your control,

You never could help the person who’s fighting a battle within,

That an outreached hand is where you begin,

Rattling your brain for signs of where it all started,

Was it at university, or adolescence or childhood,

Was it for being labelled being bad over being good,

Was it years of silence and being misunderstood,

Was it that I was able to help but never would,

I’d give it all, I’d donate my heart if I could,

That no family should take the weight of a sickness that never discriminates,

That takes your loved one’s mind, and you watch as they disintegrate,

No door man to pay, no bribes to be made,

As you grasp your loved one without the power to stop as they fade,

Wading out into the abyss, wading out into their ideas of bliss,

Just remember it was never something you did miss,

Or that time you forgot to give a goodbye kiss,

This is a disease that brings agony to the people in close proximity,

The pain that cuts through our ideals of normality,

Insanity is the situation and the disease,

Where our loved one’s struggle as the family grieves,

An invisible threat that you thought you’d never get,

But now your met, with this powerless stagnation,

Where you just want to help and bring a form of salvation,

That you would try everything, and you would give it all,

Just to stop your loved ones fall,

But then, it stops, the wind begins to drop, and the eyes that had glazed become 4,

You finally see them enjoying the good days,

That all of the anguish you endured,

That your patience and love helped your loved one be cured,

The hopelessness of not being able to fix the house of crumbled sticks,

But it’s the foundations you have to help starting laying bricks,

You may never be able to save the ones who suffer this pain,

Yet if you remain there till the light begins to show,

No matter how dark it is for them, they’ll know.

I NEVER MEANT TO HURT YOU

I really never meant to hurt you,

I know you get scared when I stop acting like I usually do,

That every “I’m just tired” brings you fear,

As you watch me fade away and disappear,

That my restlessness makes you uneasy,

You constantly ask how you can better see me,

That I make you feel hopeless when I refuse your aid,

That how could this sad person be the baby you made,

That I shout at you for not understanding,

When you were there to cushion my landing,

When you were there to hold my hand,

You fought for my care and weren’t scared to take the stand,

You were there every day with my favourite things,

Because even when the rain came down the umbrella man sings,

You saw the sorrow I wished I hid,

You stood by me like you did when I was a kid,

You felt every hurt every stab I endured,

You never lost faith knowing I couldn’t be cured,

You felt my pain when I wishing to be alone

You made sure to answer your phone,

You saw me at my worst and every tear I shed,

You hugged me the days I was absorbed by dread,

You brought me my smokes and sushi in bed,

I’m so sorry you had to go through the thought of losing me,

Please know you are the reason I’m finally free,

You did it all and you did it for me

and I’m so incredibly grateful, truly.

HERCULES

I lost Hercules again, I can see it in his eyes,

He can’t act anymore and so he begins to improvise,

And all the hidden tears and cries,

He spent his life trying so hard to disguise,

That it didn’t matter how hard he tries,

The world was only there to chastise,

The man who couldn’t be a man that complies,

That he must be strong and use anger to devise,

Just another lost boy who doesn’t run away but flies,

 who jump through the window in the hope they may defy,

Saying their final goodbye,

That this world had not given Hercules the narrative he needed

And so instead at night he pleaded,

That this disease he had would somehow be defeated,

Every time he closed his eyes his mind was stampeded,

With all the times he never succeeded,

That he could never be the man that was asked of him,

That it was Hercules mind that became his strongest limb,

But it was never on his side and changed with a whim,

That life had become dull and dim,

And his body began to slow and with panicked legs he forgot how to swim,

He blamed himself for not being him,

That he wished to be more muscular and not so slim,

That he didn’t know how to be a provider,

That the gender gap was too much of a divider,

That being a man is to be alone amongst friends,

All fighting for happiness in a gender that pretends,

So, drinking and fighting become just a form of destruction,

Because masculinity is another unrealistic construction,

So outdated he becomes outcast,

That each relationship he had would never last,

he looked back over his childhood and his past,

That he was never taught how to be sad,

That that’s not what it means to be a lad,

That his tears were never to be accepted by his dad,

So, the only emotion he could chose was to be mad,

So angry with the world that had no answers to be found,

That all his loved ones never stuck around,

Because he didn’t know what it meant to be free,

Free to be the person he needed to be,

Free to cry and share his plans to die,

And all those times alone when he thought he’d try,

There is no shame, there is no shame, there is no shame.

He was never to blame for losing a losing game,

What a world to impose these rules on our men,

That it’s no wonder suicide keeps taking them over and over again.

So, this is too all the men, the men that feel at their brink,

That the world's hands were ready to stop the thoughts that make you sink,

That masculinity needs a real good rethink,

That no man should be so scared to lose face,

That this society needs to rid these ideas of disgrace.

Each man and boy, shouldn’t feel alone,

So, make sure when you give your mates a phone,

That they aren’t skint just isolating themselves alone,

Don’t be another at the funeral gasping for not having known,

That Hercules lays before us should have been shown,

 Hercules you aren’t a god from above

You are a human on earth that needs to be loved.

CODA: A Poem to the Palliative

If you thought you were living you were wrong,

When the coda starts and they play the curtain song,

A new way to be wronged,

As they steal a life in which you never thought you belonged,

Living a life thinking you were always in control of your destination,

When in reality you never took into account life’s tragic complications,

No, you don’t understand how it feels,

To have your life unpeeled,

And the time you have left sealed,

And all you can do is do what they tell you to,

Because bad health is never the plan,

That your life becomes run on the dates of your next scan,

That everything you made you hold as tightly as you can,

Because right now you were conscripted like the average man,

Your life stolen, and war taken its place,

As you lose your hair and lose your taste,

All sat in the waiting room hoping our number is never called,

even the fortunate sons aren’t safe from the fall,

Or something that money has no power to stall, no

And as the uniformed people desperately try to undo what’s wrong,

Only to find this is a part of god’s plan all along,

But it can’t be this cruel it can’t be this unfair,

That there isn’t anything we can do no matter how hard you care,

Or how much life you have left to share,

But this is when you stop,

You check your strength no matter the hard place and the rock,

You dig so deep, and you take it day by day,

That there isn’t any point being paralysed

By the future you can’t push away,

You make the most of what you got,

You make the memories, and you pour that glass to the top,

That you got to know just how much time you have left,

That I know it feels like day light robbery theft,

But you must be kind with yourself and allow to be looked after,

Because this world doesn’t owe you a happily ever after,

So, you find a way to work with what you were given,

As you swallow the pills and enter your bodies prison,

And you are scared but determined each step of the way,

That you aren’t going to go easily when you really want to stay,

You fight each and every day,

For the ones you love the ones that tell you it’ll all be okay,

Because it will even when it isn’t,

please muster the courage,

Please dig them heels deep and grit those teeth.

And never let this chaotic life take lead,

You are in for a ride, but they’ll always be someone by your side,

So don’t use your last days to hide,

You are worth too much to be defeated by the devil’s demise,

In this life everything of beauty dies,

That you blossomed and your thrived and there is no doubt in your mind, that you know what it means to be alive.