Collision I was written as an all nighter after a poetry workshop, the words flowing from a part of me I’m only now starting to find and trust. Having dived some pretty amazing waters around the globe I’m only too well aware there’s some pretty impressive beauty to be found at depth. As well as a whole lot of fear. This poem reached both.

Having been to my first poetry slam a month prior, I was inspired to rewrite Collision as a performance poem. A few hours of mindful flow and a few deep dives later, Collision II was complete.

Not having stepped on a stage since I was at school, with a number of derailments happening around me, a few things needed to be given a voice. It was time to reclaim I.

Where have words taken you?
The recesses of a dark alley

Where no light shines?

Centre stage?

Words inspire thought and

Thought creates words.

Blank space left for the

Unsayable

Unspeakable

Deniable.

Wordless.

(PAUSE)
Space.

Speaks.

Loud.

One stumble, one step
One fall, one rise
I hear your cries.
Life’s slopes are not always slippery
They are simply steep
Keep going. Up.
So that a path may be revealed before you

And the net will catch you when you leap
Because YOU were born

And YOU will learn most from situations

YOU
Did not choose

Never forget yourself
And YOU shall not lose.
Where there is space

There is thought.

And where there is need

Don’t just do something,

Stand there.

Give voice to the voices

Silenced by the lies and secrets

Of untold paths

Injustice

Untruth


And words not told.
The smack sellers
sleep in the park

Their pain perhaps

Not quite fully understood

By the family dwellers

Next door

Nor the system
That opens the doors
Then slams them in their face. Less.
Will their mothers keep inviting them back

Again and again and again

Maybe not.

Do they even know they’re there?

Do they even care?

How do I know you are who you say you are

When you lie only to yourself.

Have you been telling secrets that

You

Should not have been told?

Or is your history
A mystery you feel compelled to withhold?
Don’t tell anyone.

I can’t tell anyone.

Vulnerability.
Will apology provide tranquility?
I’m not even sure you would want to hear the truth?

I want to listen to you.

I am trying to listen to you.

I still am listening to you.

I really want to listen to you.

What if she was your daughter?

I don’t want you to listen.

I need you to hear.

Lost in the abyss of first world problems

Old world dreams.
And too great a list of needs
Sprouting seeds
Of discontent
Disillusion
Darkness under the surface
Lack of purpose
Greed.
Social media creating
Social erosion
I plead.
With your lips and not your fingers
Talk to me.
Does your life make you feel content?
Is there a way to evoke an internal revolution
To support our evolution.
Sorry
There is no lock and key solution
Besides…
Why do we feel the need

To resolve a human story

Can it not be simply lived?

Without sanitising
Apologising
Categorising
Revitalising
Idolising
Systemising
Analysing
Criticising
Internalising
Glamourising
Compartmentalising
(PAUSE)
Ignoring.
Is painful paradox

What is needed

To make us change?

Sanitised death or the

Unsanitised experience

Of a life fully lived

Through love and pain

Experience and shame

Mistakes and battles fought
With head held high
Sharing no blame
Before you frame me in a box
I proclaim
And officially reclaim
I.
(PAUSE)
too

Cry in the bathroom

With a black coat hiding

The colour underneath.

Coraggio!

When words take you somewhere

Do they really take?

Or do they give?


you bloody ripper!