Performanc piece for performance in the Bath Literature festival. |
Flying free Cold. So cold. Is that what people think? Blocked up, bottled up, burning inside. Trapped, like a bird in a cage. But where’s the key? How do I get out? I want to fly free. Something is preventing it, this fear, and this doubt. It’s crippling. Disabling. Tongue jammed in mouth. I can’t get it out. I freeze, choke, bottle up, and retreat. This shell is a comfort where I hide. I’ll let others speak. Always the quiet one, alone in a crowd, watching in envy as others seem to float, to fly, to flutter. A stone in a sea of diamonds. I can’t. I can’t. I CAN’T. What’s stopping me...? What is it? A little black creature, slimy and small, its claws a relentless grip, vice like upon my mind, a poisonous whisper it circulates through. You can’t do it’. What’s the point? You’re never going to change. Constantly analysing what others think. Will I sound stupid, look funny, be boring? The sniggers, the giggles I hear them in my head. ‘Look at her, the FREAK Weird. Strange. Whatever it may be. RELAX, I tell myself this. But it’s so hard. So hard, to be free, to say what I think. BE REAL. BE ME. What is real you may say? If I’m like this so much, then is that reality? Need to release the fear, so I can fly free. There are the occasional glimpses, shimmers, through cracks in the veneer. I relax, smile, I’m finally able to be the person I want to be. I need a hammer. Something, someone to smash though the walls that are hindering me, wake me up, extinguish the gas sending me to sleep. There’s nothing to fear. It’s all in the head. Paranoid mind tapes, on a constant repeat, need to press STOP, and not retreat, back to the shell, the warm ‘comfortable’ place, but step out, be fearless. I’M NOT AFRAID. THIS IS ME. I WILL FLY FREE |