Poetry Wednesday - When I First Wrote Poetry - aged 13.

I can clearly remember trying to write my very first poem for me. Not an assignment for school, not a reworking of another poem, not a task. I was sat on the floor in my Granny’s small room she used for everyday use. It led off the tiny kitchen at the back of the house. Even in the thin terrace the front room was out of bounds as it was kept for best. We used it only to walk through from the front door to the back of the house. It held a mysterious air. We were on a family visit and I was around 13 years old. I wore pale blue cotton trousers, a blue shirt and a knitted tank top. I don’t really know why I remember these details. I had a small nondescript notebook in which I normally wrote inane horse stories or drew horse heads in various colour ways.

13 is a tough age. I felt wrong and like I was on the edge of a dark precipice. Puberty had begun and it seemed as though my mother checked every month to see if I’d ‘started’ (that wasn’t to happen for another 2 and a half years) and it seemed like my worth was wrapped up in my body not my brain. And we’d just been told we were moving, and much as I disliked my life it was what I knew and the unknown was incredibly scary. So I was sat on the floor as there weren’t enough chairs and wrote in my simple, brown covered book.

I don’t have the original any more. Most of my poems of my developing era were scrapped not long after they were written, only a very few were kept. I remember feeling quite proud at the time of writing. I remember being inspired by pop songs of the era though that doesn’t show in the writing. I also remember being teased massively by my brother and others around me. Sadly, it put me off for quite a few years.

It wasn’t until I started writing again at 6th form aged 17/18 that I decided to gather a few scraps of paper together for safe keeping. And there it was sitting there.

Photo by Arūnas Naujokas on Unsplash

Egyptian Eye

Hopelessness, despair
The joy, that was once there, has gone.
Now, I’m feeling that rolling stone of desolation.
	They took my life from me
	Placed in me a substitute
They took away my destiny
I’m lost, no longer me.

The hope that curled and purred away inside my heart
Dies and melts under the
Seducing, licking flames of the 
Hate and Anger of
	Futility
		June 1982 - Written when told we were moving, I felt betrayed, I felt I had no life left – the substitute they place in me is the Egyptian Eye – a stone that once in your possession controls your life.

I can’t believe it’s been over 40 years since the day I was told we were moving. I cried. It was a visceral reaction and one that shocked me, for I was unhappy. And I was cross, so cross. Hence trying my own poetry for the first time. Proud as I once was of it, I now dislike it greatly. But yay, go 13 year old me!

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