Pressured Speech [SssSssh, It’s My Turn To Talk!]

by Paul Tristram / July 4th, 2021

All I wanted was to… Dance.
Not a princess nor a tomboy,
as a young girl
… I would scuff my knees
practicing pirouettes
… until my ‘psyche’ broke.
The ‘self-harm’ and ‘anorexia’
were but feathers…
floating down upon…
weighing scales of CONTROL!
DISCIPLINE is a tunnel
of shaping-hammers
… I smiled the very first time
I shattered a bottom back tooth
through gritting with FOCUS.
DRIVE is torture and addictive
and a God/Devil given ‘fuel’
unlike anything street-narcotic.
You don’t understand, do you
… I can see it as plain as day,
in your ‘small world’ eyes.
Fingertips upon high ledges
… has become my usual state,
I almost attacked a taxi driver
for taking a wrong turning…
and then refused my meds,
until they let me smoke again.

Paul Tristram is a widely published Welsh writer who deals in the Lowlife, Outsider, and Outlaw genres.  He wrote his first poem as a teenager following his release from the (Infamous) Borstal ‘HMP Portland’, and he has been creating Literary Terrorism ever since. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.

This article was posted on Sunday, July 4th, 2021 at 8:03am and is filed under Poetry.