Tag: #ChiaroscuroAnthology

The Chiaroscuro Anthology,  18/19

Obstropulous, not obstreperous

By Lee-Anne Ford

 

In 2015, Andra Day sang:

You’re broken down and tired

Of living life on a merry go round

And you can’t find the fighter

But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out

 

Michael Buble sang it, too, in 2013:

Close your eyes

Let me tell you all the reasons why

Think you’re one of a kind

Here’s to you

The one that always pulls us through

Always do what you gotta do

 

The inner-she says:

I see you, my warrior, my healer

I saw your energy split.

Warrior protecting healer

Healer healing warrior

Both aspects present in you as you fought

As you fought to protect us.

 

I saw, and cowered with you

Pinned to the floor by four

Vaccine with no consent

A child cannot assent

But you fought

 

I saw, and avoided with you

Forced into blood tests

Forced with no consent

Avoid now, pay later

But you fought

I saw, and panicked with you

Triggered, no help but yourself

Nowhere safe to collapse

Walking as you fainted, deaf and blind

But you fought

 

I saw, and grieved with you

As our love suffered the cruelty

The iniquitous cruelty of Huntington’s

Sixteen years of fighting and grieving

and the big grief of death

But you fought

 

I saw, and grieved with you

As you discovered our truth

The truth of our Autistic nature

The essence of us

Where trauma was rooted

But you fought

 

See me, my brave, stubborn one

The one who fights for us

See me, come home, come inside

Here is sanctuary, heart’s home

Rest here with me because sometimes

All you need is a heroine

 

As sung by Thirsty Merc, in 2015.

Every now and then, you come up for fresh air

Every now and then, you fall in the dirt

Yeah every now and then

You realise that you’re only a mortal man

Every now and then, you begin to suffer

Every now and then, you had about enough

Yeah every now and then

All you really need is a heroine

Want the whole Anthology? It’s here.

The Chiaroscuro Anthology,  16/19

Can you hear the wildness calling?
By Lee-Anne Ford


Never wild, never tamed,
Yet always mild, good girl framed.
Not a different drum, but a different snare—
Ever caught on music in the air.

Masking deep, assimilation high,
I learned rules yet questioned why.
An inner voice, an outer game,
A quiet fight to seem the same.

Never wild, never tamed,
No wilful child, yet never claimed.
Flights of fancy, bound yet free,
Imagination’s quiet mutiny.

Music—classics learned, jazz yearned,
Yet syncopation must be earned.
Appearing tame, but never so,
I learned to keep my profile low.

The liminal whispered, yet knew not its name,
Still, I heard it call, just the same.
Other voices—cars, dogs, chooks—
But most of all, the voice of books.

Never wild, never tamed,
Yet books betrayed what I became.
Stories, facts, and theories spun,
A mind unleashed, a race begun.

Books as rebellion, a dangerous spark,
Seeding revolts within the dark.
Still, the liminal called to me to see,
No matter what befell me.

The Mabinogi, ovid, bard and druid,
Saw life and essence shifting, fluid.
Visions flickered in the flame,
Noble wild, yet lesser tamed.

Wildness flares in quiet surprise,
Unseen, unheard—until it cries.
Into the west, the border-place,
Glimmering light, a liminal trace.

Don’t box us in, don’t tie us down,
Seek the refuge, break the bounds.
Let us flare—high, medium, low—
We have such wild places to go.