childhood

Discordant Symphony




Discordant Note

Scratching, floating

Hanging in the air

 

 

Pressure ebbs and flows 

Headpiece filled with straw

 

 

A twisted melody lingers

Confusion and rage entwined 

Resentment's bitter sting

Wrestles with sorrow's whine

 

 

Innocence stolen, trust shattered

By hands meant to protect

 

 

The child within still bleeds

Silently searching, begging for respect 

 

 

Justice denied, our secrets buried

Master manipulator 

A monster cloaked in lies

 

 

Crimes still hidden 

Despite Death's hand

Too late for tortured cries

 

 

Feet of clay now returned to dust

From whence they darkly came

Leaving behind a tangled mess

Of trauma, grief and shame 

 

 

The urge to desecrate, destroy

Wage war upon their grave

Wrestling with guilt, pity and relief 

Yes, he is no more

But I am not yet saved

 

 

This victory feels hollow 

An unearned, empty gift

When wounds still pulse and throb

No closure, the burdens unshift 

 

 

 

I imagine looking for the tombstone,

Fists and soul clenched tight,

Anger, disgust, and rage.

 

 

Shadows cast doubt over my morals,

Compass dysfunctional, truth estranged.

Like Basque tongues tangled with Ainu clicks,

A labyrinth of questions ethics inflicts.

 

 

No tears of mourning shed

No idea the monster was laid to rest

Three years later, a happy accident

Release a demon locked deep in my chest

 

 

How to reconcile the little child

Who needed love and care

With the person now made to carry

This discordant note hanging in the air

 

 

In the depths of this discordance 

Frustration and confusion still rise

Dare I confront the shadows

Curse their peaceful demise?

 

 

Every anguished scream swallowed 

Each day, coerced, suffocated in silence

Transmuting years of buried aches

Why not release in rightful fierce violence?

 

 

Through serpentine paths of healing

Piece by shattered piece remade,

Scars shimmering with untold stories 

Of battles braved and traumas mourned

 

 

In owning all that was endured

By innocent hands and shattered trust

Languidly learning to cradle, soothe

My inner child waiting, weeping in the dust

 

 

Each breath is an act of bravery

Every step is defiant, resolute 

Reclaiming fractured narratives

No longer voiceless or mute

Through my poetry, I find release

May its rhythm grant me peace.

 

 

This journey from victim to victor

Is paved with shards of broken self

Reassembled by courageous hands

Into mosaics of pain and health 

 

 

A symphony of survival

Echoes in the spaces in between

I cannot rewrite my cruel history 

I yearn like others to live and dream

 

 

Beyond the reach of phantom hands

That sought to break and steal and mar

I rise in revolutionary softness

Tempered by battles, reminded by scars

 

 

The discordant note, a stubborn seed, 

Resists the soil, its tyranny decreed, 

Yet woven slow, within the larger frame, 

An ostinato may conquer its shame, 

Finds solace in the weave, a timeless plea, 

Echoing Eliot, Stravinsky rewrites history. 



Author's Notes/Comments: 

I found out this morning (yesterday now), some 13–14 odd hours ago – whilst mindlessly googling, that a person who manipulated and molested me as a child had passed away (almost three years ago).

 

The obituary stated that they died “Peacefully” whilst being cared for by [redacted]. The conflicting emotions are intense – that they can still torture from the grave – exhausting.

 

While dealing with this flood of emotion and wrestling with my conscience, I came across a poem fragment on my phone that I started to write a few years back. The result of what it has morphed into can be found below.

 

I know this poem is far from complete, but I needed to get it out therapeutically. So, if you wish to comment, you are welcome to critique - however, strictly with empathy and compassion. 

The Triangle

Standing there suspended 

Between the heavens and 

The abyss I am at the 

Pinnacle of the Triangle 

 

Time stands still my 

Heart is in my throat 

The spirit is willing 

But my calculations are weak 

 

Casting this fragile apparatus  

Off the precipe 

The rush of cool air 

The thrill of adrenaline  

 

I am following an elipse 

On a one way orbit 

My position is triangulated 

But the hypoteneus curves 

 

I am accelerating along 

A 3-second path I cannot predict 

Light itself wraps itself around me 

Until I am immersed in the deep 

 

When I surface again 

Time and space have  

Resumed but the vertigo 

Of total relativity remains 

 

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