Actual Bodily Harm by doggerel

POETRY

I write poetry whether anyone asks for it or not. If they didn’t, then it’s usually for me. And still if they didn’t, I’ll ask – only a very few people – if they’d like me to. Sometimes they say okay, because I can write poetry which is violent, makes them take another look, and see how others see. Bodily harm in poetry is just invisible tattoos with a blunter instrument…

THE INVISIBLE TATTOOIST

There’s a difference between wanting to be helped and being found. When help doesn’t need to be wanted but it knows it can, then it longs to be given. I can’t help writing poetry, even in terrible dreams. I’ll always be a writer who can find beauty in horror and vice versa in the mirror.

Several moments in theatre

MICRO FICTION

The music of least interest tells you what’s happening on stage or screen. The melody needs to be different, so that it’s another voice.

Seated at a naked desk, without a single sheet of paper to write on, the typewriter becomes a mirror on the stage. A sheet of paper has two sides but reflections have more, as a cracked actor writes a trilogy in monochrome…

California Typewriter

THE DRESSER

I hate my face. Why does it have to do so much? Why do I have to work so much on it? Why do I have to make so much up? I hate my fucking face.

I make it smile, laugh when I’m crying and lie when I talk. Sometimes I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to show this face.

But I go out. And on the face of it, I’m happy. I talk, I smile, I laugh, then I wipe my face in the mirror.

I smash my face into the mirror, so no-one can see me.

© Steve Laker, 2020

97: Paracetamol and Chips

POETRY

SWEET AND SOUR

Kintsukuroi (Japan): More beautiful for having been broken (and repaired with gold).

#SelfHarm #BodyDysmorphia #DomesticAbuse #Anorexia #EatingDisorder #PersonalityDisorder #HongKong #Suicide