LeipGlo contributor Indigo shares a selection of her poems with us and talks about some of the processes and inspirations behind each lyrical work.
Trigger warning: the following poems contain references to eating disorders and the death of a friend.
Ghosts
We are the flowers on the water
& the leaves upon the breeze
We are thistles in the meadow
the bark of copper coloured trees
We are the ghost of all you know
We are a familiar fragrance
a scent-it-meant of home
We are birdsong in the hedgerow
& keep you company when alone
We are the ghost of all you know
We are made of drifting clouds
& come to you in the rain
We are the fruits of all you sow
the salty trickle of your pain
We are the ghost of all you know
We are footprints left by shadows
& the dry breath of the dead
We are the moons subtle glow
& the memories in your head
We are the ashes of all you know
This poem is about separation, from people and from places, and from the lives that we are used to.
During the pandemic, I felt isolated. Not only due to repeated lock-downs, but I also lived in a foreign country, unable to speak the language, and my friends and family were all across the ocean. It felt like the world was crumbling. It felt like everything we had taken for granted was disintegrating.
I remember I took a walk in the countryside around Stolberg when I came across this beautiful field that was completely full of thistles and I instantly thought of all my friends back over in Scotland and of my walks around the Scottish borders. I had a strange feeling of happiness and sorrow. I wondered if things could ever be the same again, and I doubted it. When everything is unfamiliar, yet some things touch you still, remind you of someone or somewhere or sometime that is gone, remind you of how things can be so distant and unreachable – it’s a sense of loss.
Corridors
This corridor doesn’t lead to anywhere
It has no centre
No beginning or end
Suspended
Open ended
It dangles
It disentangles
From life
From the universe and the stars
From belonging
To self-check-outs and empty cars
It rides
In unchartered skies
On hooked beaks of cranes
The metal complains
It creaks
And squeaks
As the corridor swings
Caught on its hook
High above the down of luck
The grass
The dirt
The muck
the people rushing by
Oblivious
To this corridor in the sky
Oblivious
To all
Who live outside their world
The cold and hungry
The broken girl
The corridor knows
A list grows
Ever longer by the day
Those who have lost their way
In corridors
That have no centre
No beginning or end
Each person who enters
Will never leave again
I was out walking in Liverpool a few years ago and saw this big old metal crane hanging over some buildings near the docks. It held a huge section of pipe. I wondered what the world looked like from that high up. It made me think of how distant people can seem even from where I stood.
I thought about the growing number of homeless people that I passed on Bold Street and about how many lives happen around us all the time and we don’t notice, we take no time to connect.
I also thought about addictions and how hard it is to get out of bad routines. It was on my mind a lot at that time, as I was trying to recover from a very destructive eating disorder. I guess it’s about routines in general, getting stuck in a routine, a pattern of behaviour that is at the cost of any other interaction, of any connection with others and a disconnection from life in general. Selfishness, lack of empathy, disinterest on the one hand and on the other it is very much about the sense of being lost, loneliness and being forgotten.
At Sea
Daughter of the air
Beware
Don’t give your gift so easily
Let time melt your beat-less heart
Your father in the waves
Waves
At a ship that sways unsteady in its course
and soon beaten by the heavens force
It sinks
into the drink
and carried off to distant shoals
are all aboard that ship of lost souls
For you, sisters have shed sharp tears
For you.
They have bled.
A river runs red.
But for you, your earthly body is shed
It dwells
In spells
with copper coins lost to wishing wells
A memory an imprint
A forlorn dream
A lost innocence
A silent scream.
My favourite fairytale has always been The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. The poem “At Sea” is very much inspired by that story. It’s about feelings of emptiness and depression. The rejection of life. The importance of not losing yourself to a moment but recognising that life and time are precious and not to be thrown away.
Dead Flowers
There are no flowers anymore
No sweet-smelling perfume to linger
The bright coloured petals have all fallen
A new season has come
Dirt
That is what remains
Dirt and dead grass
No colours
No scent
Just cold tar and icy pavement
A Corpse covered in crows
Lays open in the road
the bus drives by
and crows retreat to the sky
High
So high
They wait
their meal
imprinted on the wheel
I close my eyes
not to sleep
rather to close my shutters
to retreat
to a slower heartbeat
the rhythm of the road and chitter chatter
of gentle soothing mundane matter
fills my ears
but not my head
for that is full of the words you said
I was riding on a bus from Hawick back to my home in Jedburgh, Scotland. I remember watching some crows on the road, picking away at some poor unfortunate creature. It was a particularly cold Scottish winters day.
I was feeling exhausted from not being able to switch off the voice of my anorexia.
It had been getting increasingly louder because I had been getting increasingly healthier. That’s what happens. It’s odd because when I was really ill I felt amazing, full of life, energy, and ideas.
In recovery, I felt depressed, miserable, and like a failure. There is something in anorexia, an energy, a focus, a creativity that pushes you and you feel invincible like you are really good at something – at least that’s how it was for me. Anyway, this poem is really about the exhaustion you feel in recovery and how you feel like you are losing yourself, losing a friend. In reality, I realise, I was finding myself.
My friend Maggie
Watching the sun
as it tries
to set behind your eyes
though this day is too soon to end
my friend
Don’t let your bright light die
or the burning orange flame
flicker
uncertain
It is a strong wind that blows
trying to extinguish your light
please fight
it is too soon
to bring forward the night
I moved to Jedburgh in Scotland in early 2016. I was still very noticeably ill with the anorexia and I was about to embark on a very inadvisable (and short-lived) stint as a chef in a local cafe, having recently qualified as a pastry chef.
One day soon after my move, I was out walking when I ran into a very friendly, red-haired lady who came bustling up the street with her little Schnauzer dog ‘Monty’.
She introduced herself as ‘Mags’ and we stood and chatted on the street a wee while as if we were old friends, and soon we were. She tried her best to support me over the few years I was in Jedburgh, she encouraged my recovery from the eating disorder and really helped me reduce my reliance on exercise.
She introduced me to her friends and in general, she made my life a lot less lonely and much, much happier. She became family to me. It was not long after I had decided to move down to Liverpool that Mags discovered she had lung cancer. At first, it seemed they had caught it in time. We were all really positive. I wrote this poem during that time when it still seemed there was a good chance to fight the cancer. It makes me incredibly sad to know that her illness deteriorated during the pandemic and the lockdown and that she had to face a lot of her last months in isolation. My friend died in June 2020, just a few days before her birthday.
