The Lost Stories

I would love to be left alone

But then, I would be lonely.

Who wants to push people away,

To the margins?

Those you love should not be extraneous notes,

Scribbles on the side.

And because I love them

They are the centre of all I do:

The content.

I only want to be left alone to write,

Sometimes.

So, how then, to find the time

To write?

I don't.

I have pockets which present themselves,

Tempting and tantalising,

As serene moments of stillness

Between the cooking and carting and chaos

Of my life.

At these times,

I am enclosed in a world of my own making.

The quiet before breakfast

When others sleep

And birds flit outside.

The seconds where others are occupied

Happily

With gangsters and shootouts,

With kicks or sticks,

Controlled by controllers.

When my loved ones are absent

With the others

Who also count to them.

In the part-time hours of the day

Where chores are completed

Or betrayed by me

For my love of composing,

And I delve naughtily into

The written word,

Mulling over vocab instead of the mundanity

Of menus

And laundry.

I love to explore my mind.

A germ of an idea, small and crisp

Just waiting to emerge.

It needs cajoling from its home

And sometimes it is swift, breaking out

With a fervour of typing

Smooth and accomplished

Like a charismatic gigolo -

Engaging, alluring and hard to resist.

But, at other times, it can be tricky to coax out

Like a feral cat:

And when the thread that is leading it to me

Becomes frayed by duty and attention elsewhere

And it is on the verge of being lost,

Like a marble through a floorboard,

Still it tantalises but how to recover it?

I have lost stories like this.

They sit, desolate and neglected,

Like ruins, half-finished,

But with a romantic appeal,

The outline of their potential sensed, not known.

Or threadbare, close to collapse;

Not like lived in furniture which has seen life

And love in its wear;

No, like a cracked plate

Or a cobwebby corner of a room or

A pile of crumpled clothes.

They need attention but they don't get it -

It's not urgent, like the living stuff.

But, you know, I feel their neglect

Like an ache.

I don't want them to languish unread.

Some could have been shining stars

But will be completed too late

To compete;

Unchallenged.

I want to pick up those threads, seal those cracks

Brighten that corner, iron out those wrinkles!

I want to show off my creations,

The pieces of my mind

Committed to paper, enshrined in words

And I want them to socialise

Glittering and applauded

Like actors at an opening premier.

But those gems will need to remain

Unpolished,

Like heirlooms in an attic,

Lurking, somnolent, waiting to be

Uncovered.

Again.

Maybe in the future.

But not now.

I can smell the curry is ready

And I must go.