The Fear Series

A welcome guest

One day it arrived.

It rushed in like a wind blowing open a door which was left slightly ajar, as though there might be a very small possibility of a visitor arriving later. “I’m not staying up for you but you can let yourself in you need”.

And by the morning it had come. But it wasn’t a visitor in the normal sense. It was a feeling,
A feeling with a deeper meaning. A peacefulness had entered in before I had time to scare it out again, and it had settled right here inside.

At first it felt so foreign I didn’t recognise it. But then my heart knew its name. It was forgiveness.
I had forgiven you, as you had forgiven me. Bitterness no longer being entertained had sculked away. Anger had followed it. And forgiveness had arrived.

With this new guest came a deep sense of peace. And I asked the peace to stay; and it said it would.

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at the crossroads

A train rattles down the track gaining speed. On board passengers sit staring into space, stationary in their seats and yet moving ever closer to their destinations – progressing on this confusing track we call life. I blink as the wind blows up and the train rushes past me, and I can’t help wondering how I came to be at this crossroads. Everyone else seems to be moving forward and I am standing still.

I search through my bag but I’ve clearly lost my map. Should I go back and look for it? I glance ahead beyond the track. The path between the trees is obscured after the first bend, and to my right the road leads down the hill.
Not only am I not sure which path to take but I don’t know my end destination. I’m acutely aware that time is getting on and that the light is quickly fading. Panic takes hold as realisation sets in. I am lost.Read More →

Identify Me by Helen Sherwin

The keys tap (as the sleeper stirs)
Hastily splurging thoughts into words
Defacing the whiteness
Stealing the purity from the blank page
And identifying me

It’s a revealing of the secret kept
The needs of the writer met
As the heart is unravelling
The truth becomes concrete
And relief comes quickly

But just as fast a fear brews
Panic grasps at the air tube
The sleeper is no longer sleeping
Everything is awakening
And a choice dawns

A desire to hide from the second soul
Covering up the almost told
Snatching it from its birth
The efforts fade unborn
And identify me.Read More →

The Haze by Helen Sherwin

It was a memory, an almost forgotten memory, that I wanted to share with you.

The problem with sharing memories is that often they are in a state of haze in your mind.  And, on recalling them you have to order them and tie down the story. Creating order out of loose thoughts; pinning down truth.

Healthy you might think, but there is a sense of loss in doing that. What if you haven’t remembered correctly? Once committed it’s near impossible to go back.

Although the haze was just a haze perhaps that was closer to the truth than a strung-together-memory, in which you might of fabricated some detail to make it “work”. So, it sounds good. So it makes sense.

But alas it shall have to be told, and words committed for how else should we save it from being lost? How else should anybody read it? For one cannot read a haze after all.

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