Soft and grey and full of you,
It keeps me warm
It holds me close
When you can’t.
This blanket where you said you’d hide
Instead of leaving.
A tiny part of me believes you.
So I wrap myself in it
And imagine your arms.
You gave me
Blanket baggage.
22/04/2014
© Bonnie Calderwood Aspinwall 2014
I don’t believe the world will end in eight days.
I really don’t.
But I still wish I could spend that day with you.
Just holding you.
Not afraid of the end.
Just happy in the knowledge that if it were the end that I would be with you.
I miss you.
13/12/2012
© 2014 Bonnie Calderwood Aspinwall
Silence.
How peaceful
How innocent
Unsullied
Like velvet
Like a kiss.
Bullshit.
Silence made pregnant
By the words biting at my lips
Bursting to escape my mouth
Barely contained by my clenched teeth.
Silence, while my mind screams
Deafening
Drowning out all other thought.
I am locked in a burning room.
No escape.
Were it physical, this fire would
Envelop me
Consume me
Destroy me.
Leaving only dust.
But instead it just keeps burning
Boiling away coherent thought
Leaving me raw
But whole.
On the outside.
Unscathed to the eyes of others.
Like a fist,
Strong.
Aggressive.
Defiant.
But filled with broken glass
Bleeding even as in desperation
It squeezes ever tighter.
What if I were to let go,
The shattered shards dropping
From my hand?
Like the flicking of a switch
The fire goes out.
Ice taking its place
Or perhaps not even that.
What if nothing took its place?
Emptiness. Blackness.
A vacuum.
An absence of feeling.
How would that be any better?
Such a counterproductive act of self-defence.
Unless it were out of my control?
Suppose I just wake up one day
A shadow
A shell?
A black hole contained within a person.
My capacity to feel
Nullified.
Emotions broken from overuse?
No.
I’d rather burn.
I’d rather bleed.
Than become numb:
Silence on the outside
Matched by silence on the inside.
07/01/2012
© 2014 Bonnie Calderwood Aspinwall
One for years
Two find it hard to be
An imperfect disunion
Tried by halves
Half the pot of gold
Now so unlucky
Half the future prospects
Made bitter by division
One of a pair
One chair
Sad and alone
Without its twin
Half a dream
No use alone
Part can be patched
The other is irreparable
A mountainous absence
Impossible to breach
Half of my heart
No clean bisecting slice
No cut from start to finish
But one unending tear
Uneven edges
Still bleeding
Neither neat
Nor simple
A constant rip at the seams
My life essence is stretched thin
Impotent over the distance
Life is not like life
When souls can’t feel
How can I live
When my heart
Is in two places?
25/02/2010
© 2014 Bonnie Calderwood Aspinwall
Waiting for the train
Laughter numbs the pain
Sudden rush of pride
Tearing me inside
Shouldn’t want to cling
Spoiling everything
But holding you I cry
Don’t want to say goodbye
To lose another friend
All good things must end
Now living’s hard to do
So far away from you
22/11/2009
© 2014 Bonnie Calderwood Aspinwall
For one whirling moment
He’s all that I hold
And all that I own
And all that I want
For one moment he’s mine
And now it feels like
Someone has stolen the air
From my lungs
Leaving me filled with
Nothing but nothing
My soul is with him
And I miss them both so much
Without him I feel
Nothing but my memories
Of one whirling moment
When he was all I could hold
And all I could own
And all I could ever, ever want
Or love
Memories of a time
When he was mine.
13/10/2009
© 2014 Bonnie Calderwood Aspinwall
Barefoot Astronaut 