When I was slightly younger, I arrived at home for a bit of a showdown at Christmas and my mother and stepfather were on the brink of splitting up, I was a little sad and decided to write it out on the train, creating the poem ‘Beat’. Years after submitting it for a competition, I had a letter saying it is being published in a book that is stored in the British Library. Here it is…

BEAT

She hisses

He cusses

She stomps,

Words burn like torches.

Faces stern

Hearts race

Heads pound,

Each longs to surrender, admit defeat

Hearts ache but time heals,

Will minds ever learn to take the beat?

Perpetual curses and raised voices,

Hairs all standing like small soldiers, on end

Stress levels raised, emotions in tethers

Each longs for fewer storms, calmer weather,

Each longs for the other to see clear.

Ready at the waiting, large cannons fire

Right through the skin, through all of the layers,

Those were drafted in years of true love

Wounds seep as hearts weep,

Forgetting the sound of their former beat.

Tortuous turmoil and angst turns to dust,

Multiplies in mass, forms a sheet

Covers them both in a coat of guilty reprieve.

Each walks, with opposing ambitions in opposite directions,

Loosening their weave.

Music drowns out the sadness,

Takes the edge of the edginess

As loneliness creeps…

Seeping and spreading

Through each private show.

Lights,

Camera,

Action!

Pause

Hesitation…

 Can you still feel the beat?