Poetry Wednesday; Poetry Pals friends

A draft, about self esteem

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Good day Red Cabbage Heads,

Nelly at

Poetry Pals

and I have shared a couple of zoom sessions ostensibly to talk about the poetry book of the month. Most times when we have these zoom calls there are a good few of us and I’m often almost silent. I don’t like talking in big groups. I don’t like talking in front of strangers. I don’t like my voice. I don’t like exposing myself (minds out of the gutter please, I meant personality wise). I can’t read out loud without stuttering due to dyslexia, I can’t look straight at people for long due to autism, and this makes me feel reserved. So I’m fairly certain when I and only I turned up last month. Poor Nelly must have wondered what she had let herself in for, a whole hour she would need to get through with this taciturn old lady. However, one to one I do okay. And we got on well. This month the same thing happened. Just me and Nelly for over an hour and a half. I rather enjoyed it. I spoke more in those 90 mins that I had for the whole month before. I laughed. I had opinions and felt listened to. I felt comfortable. And that’s all down to Nelly and how she made me feel comfortable in a situation that must have been unusual for her. So thanks Nelly 😘.

Whilst going over the two occasions in my head I thought about ‘being’, about what it is like to be me and the different roles I fill. I was having a bad day physically on top of three more bad days physically in a row and it was beginning to take a mental toll. So I thought about the prompt we talked about and about one of my first posts on here about being and decided to entwine the two to make a poem.

Photo by Chela B. on Unsplash

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE

A feeling circled round to. 

Once I was beautifully self confident, 
gently assertive, a proactive go-getter. 
Someone the world needed to get things done.
I wish I had the confidence to be her again. 
Then I didn’t think about being I just 			
					was

She walked with a bounce, an authority 
she wasn’t scared, she didn’t care 
She let them look, she let them judge
their ire bounced off her, slid from her
protective shield of youth
even though she understood the dangers
she flaunted them, confident in her power. 
She was amazing 			
		    was. 

And now, I don’t know how to be
I count my breaths in and out, 
I squeeze my eyes to still the tears.
Every movement of my body is 
carefully debated, calculated, 
executed with immaculate 
precision to disappear,
to be swallowed, to be
	                             was.
              was.

And there we are. What a load of existential waffle. 😳😂😜 That’s all for this week, ta-ra Tx

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