Turned Inward But Moving Forward

Everyone is shell-shocked from the recent election. I kind of expected it, but to be honest, I can't summon up much emotion towards its aftermath. 

I've been on this slide into disbelief, dismay and depression after most elections since the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014. Even the Tories being ousted this year felt hollow as I knew Labour wasn't going to do anything differently, and the SNP faced significant losses. 

Now, I just kind of hang around in the numb depression area when it comes to politics and society. I can't summon up hope in the run-up and don't feel the raging disappointment others feel when it all goes badly. 

I don't have the energy really, my personal plate is full. I'm balancing so many things for my kids, my own four and the sixty-plus I care for at school. Their needs are my full-time job, my focus is always turned towards them.

And then on the way home from work last week, I received a phone call that dropped another weight onto the pile. A small bump on my nose was found to be skin cancer. I've had it for years, but it was beginning to grow and change so I wanted it removed as it's ugly and annoying to me. Both the doctor and I were surprised by the results. 

I wrote this two years ago when I had a biopsy for a lump in my breast, a much bigger concern that turned out to be nothing:

Foreign, just a speck of sand,

an irritation within my shell.

Pearl of blackened rot

or a quiet multiplication of cells.

I imagine it spreads,

infestation

like an explosion of ants

crawling into every crevice.

Meanwhile, this other lump was growing. I'm sure it's nothing major, it's so tiny, but it'll be another pile of appointments and concerns to add to the list. 

So with all that's going on in the world, selfishly I've turned my thoughts inward even more, towards the people I care for and even towards myself for a change. I just have to keep moving forward, holding so much afloat, as if there is a future for my kids worth moving towards. To give them the foundation and the skills to keep moving forward themselves. 

And poetry is left to fall between the cracks of all that. In the summer, my editor said we would try to get my book out in November and, of course, I haven't heard from him since. After 5 years, I can no longer summon any enthusiasm for his promises. My other collections have been declined by 15 other publishers this year, yet I submitted to another publisher this week. 

I keep on writing, slowly though my belief in my publishability is low. Though I continue to half-hope, that is not the goal. It's pulling the feelings, memories, worries and love out in words that keeps me afloat. I work out my thoughts in my journals or in my poems. It doesn't matter if they get published really, though I would like to be able to share my work. So I'll continue to send my poems out and continue to write a blog that few read. It's better than letting the thoughts bump around the echo chamber of my mind.

I'd like to be able to say I ended that poem above with a hopeful message, a chink of light, but it ended like this:

After a season, an offering,
benign,
a word of chalk and bone,
crumbling beneath my heel. 

In the silence that remains,
a twitch of worry
still worms
beneath my surface.

I'm positive about the whole thing, it'll be a pain to sort, but I don't believe it's a serious issue, just another thing to deal with that will get dealt with.

'What Grows in the Dark' was recorded with the Helsinki Writers Group at Helsinki Open Waves back in 2022, though their audio doesn't seem to work now, this link does. It's lovely hearing those poems again.