Night Times by Lesley M

I toss and turn over and over again
All the dull aches suddenly pronounced
I close my eyes willing the pain away
But soon I reach for the night switch
The clock says one fifty am
It’s eerily quiet outside
Lucky folks snoring away
Oblivious of my struggles
Struggles with no witness

I walk to the window to gaze at the star clustered sky
It’s perfect, I say to myself
If only my life could be the same
With no pricks and pains, tears and fears
I try to forget what the doctor said
The hospital visit had been an ordeal
Just one of the many hapless patients
Who look up to the doctor for salvation
Empathy yes, salvation no

The night sky is beautiful
If only I could fly into the inviting space
Far from my mundane life
Of aches and more aches, hospitals, doctors and medicines
I am a prisoner of these medicines or condition
I am too wasted to care which is which
My life has become a circle of despair
With little prospects of a chance of repair

©2014 Lesley M

Now+then Poem Illustration© 2014 Tom Spencer

Now and then
by Cate Jacobs

Now and then, I wonder what life would have been like, if fish had wings and could fly

up into the sky, to escape the bite of the hook.

If lilies took pollen and death back from the bees, closed their petals tight, became a bud again before sinking back through leaves and stem into earth, to become the seeds of other possibilities.

If waterfalls flowed up instead of down. If the sun turned round the moon. If egg timer sand didn’t fall and butterflies crawled back into their chrysalises to metamorphose into angels.

And you, could rise from the dead Whilst we grew backwards into children, splashing in puddles, in bright red wellies. You’d pull my pigtails and run away into a world HIV and AIDS didn’t even exist yet.

Now and then,

I wonder, what life would have been like

If……