Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose

Tag: catharsis

  • Poem: Drainage – 12/07/20

    Poem: Drainage – 12/07/20

    Strangely exhausted,
an afternoon, heavily slept,
too much, too much,
ill memories draining,
they won’t rise delicately,
rather seep down below the mattress,
will not gently fly away.

A drainage system
below the surface
of a city, a being,
more than four times hastily gone mad,
residual pain wafting from
the wide walkway pipes,
potent,
uncleanly,
needing purification:
the sensations do not need resurfacing.

But a town mayor deems it so,
right and correct to flush this town of
mental muck
though the waterways will never
flow with pure, clean goodness,
it doesn’t hurt to try, though, does it.

Her drip,
drip draining like a cannula,
a personal IV,
feeding pain-controlling and cleansing
elements to this human city, this sleeping being,
in an instant there is a rush of 
blue then red dyed magic entering into her veins,
her memories become less aching,
less hounding,
can the system be cleansed,
and her self still remain saved?

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by Semevent from Pixabay

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  • Prose Poetry: The Fall – 22/01/20

    Prose Poetry: The Fall – 22/01/20

    When I am slighted, I can become cruel. My words spit forth with venom; I cannot help my purging. It is as though I need to get them out, in order to stop the poison taking effect upon myself, my soul, and in doing so I hurt others by means of my cathartic process. Afterwards I should feel remorseful, but, not yet, not yet, a lone raven calls, not yet, my dear, we have to await The Fall.
 
What is The Fall, you may ask? Let me explain simply, The Fall is when everything culminates and crumbles from a formidable boulder into shattered, tiny pieces, the strong once broken, forming mere pebbles settling into dust clouds, which really are unsettling. My exterior, strong and generally kind, now turned cold as of recent times, has been dismembered into gravelly limbs and such that really, didn’t need any adjustment at all. I had pooled my energies and forced myself into intensely focusing on one or two tasks alone, and in doing so, my stresses had increased tenfold. And the way I perceived being treated or mistreated really spoke volumes to my self-harassed being. I convinced myself that I was the most obvious victim.
 
So, essentially speaking, The Fall is when one falls apart. Strictly speaking, symptoms are as such, when I rock the boat slightly, testing the waters, then finding it fine, I start pressing back and forth violently, making certain I am causing a commotion, then suddenly the boat keels over and the only air pocket is the oxygen underneath the boat.
 
I must breathe into this prison,
For without breath there is no hope.  

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
All images signed “LMH”
are copyrighted 2019-2020 by Lauren M. Hancock
and all rights reserved.

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  • Poem: Crossed Lines – 21/01/20

    Poem: Crossed Lines – 21/01/20

    Depression hits my aura like a stoning
I crumble beneath the view
fetal-like
shell-shocked
I’m trying but my best is never good enough
seemingly humoured toward the end.
 
Your life is different to mine,
and while I am thankful for some memories
I want to curl tighter and tighter,
keep you away
I’d be lying if I said you entirely caused the hurting.
 
When it came time, I felt no cord being severed
it had already vanished from existence,
entangled lines once wound like vintage telephone cords
neatly arranged in little camps of yours and mine.
 
And while I can comfort myself with bitter feelings
of how I was so hard done by and mistreated
for the most part it’s tiresome mind-trickery nonsense
only truly applicable to when the gradual silence 
decided to speak.
 
And it haunts, it haunted,
billowing in the chambers of my mind,
when I recall times when our hearts were perfectly entwined,
but letting go of each other,
we both really didn’t seem to mind.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
All images signed “LMH”
are copyrighted 2019-2020 by Lauren M. Hancock
and all rights reserved.

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  • Poem: Darling, Am I Too Much? – 14/01/20

    Poem: Darling, Am I Too Much? – 14/01/20

    My darling,
is it too much that I speak?
Are my vowels out of turn, yowling into paining ear drums?
My articulated consonants taut at the edge of profanity,
is it too much, too much,
too much so, that I speak?
 
Best I jot thoughts down then, with an infernal rage,
cast them aside,
or scribbled or scrawled out of existence,
or ripped to shreds, like a tiger
I know how to decimate,
it has been bred within me,
I know my claws will take.
 
My filter barely sits at the base of my spine,
where, like at the hands of a maniacal chiropractor,
I’ve been manipulated after much time,
and the emotions, they shoot up with
an impermanence that I cannot bear to control,
the scars left behind by the bubbling brew of sharply bit dialogue
promises and lies
enrage me more,
stitch me up further,
I vow to you:
I will no longer suffer.
 
I will talk out of turn,
I will continue to voice truthful opinions,
my internal wefts, no matter how light or sooty they present,
I will curl my fingernails into my palm just to feel the pain,
to remember who I am,
to wake up,
to be on par with who I’m trying to be,
who I am.
 
My darling,
I am so sorry that I spoke out of turn,
permit me to begrudge myself of any relevance,
I wasn’t entirely aware that such a timely shift had occurred.
 
Perhaps you will hear me as a voice,
when you lay your head down to rest,
wishing to dream of a land of perfection and love and
forward momentum,
when I know convoluted nightmares are the trappings
behind eyes that failed to prize the signs of my moving forward
and making my life more adapted to my dreams.
 
I’m not sorry at all,
because I was cut off at the seams.  
  
© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
All images signed “LMH”
are copyrighted 2019-2020 by Lauren M. Hancock
and all rights reserved.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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  • Poem: Pins and Pulp – 06/01/20

    Poem: Pins and Pulp – 06/01/20

     I have not been outside in days,
 huddled down in my cocoon I have encased myself 
 with stinging words and florid phrases,
 distinctive patterns to my ears,
 though perhaps not to others.
  
 Alone, I sing of times of freedom, absolution, and success,
 upon reflection, these moments were 
 anything but what I felt,
 I operated without thought
 compelled by blind impulse.
  
 I travel through my memories,
 each milestone like multiple pins spearing my 
 fragile, pulpy skin,
 these lumpy layers wrapped around my form 
 trying to keep the embarrassment in.
  
 It is easy enough to pluck the obliging weapons
 to watch the paper fall clean away
 and I am bone and sinew and muscle,
 each vein carries a pulse and a motto 
 where one must squint in order to readily discern.
 
 go forth go forth
 one repeats, red and richly
  
 never look back
 you’ll meet your match
 forget the past 
 other veins bleed.
  
 Hastily I grab the loose sheets to wrap myself anew,
 a mummy living before your very eyes,
 while bloodied, I heal enough 
 to reveal subtle poignant truths.

 But there is a filter which needs to be retained,
 a breathing apparatus which saves while one's submerged -
 for some revelations can only go one way.
 
 I decide I'm fixed enough,
 at least for now, I will rest,
 there's nothing left which I would like to say. 
  
 © 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
 All images signed “LMH” 
 are copyrighted 2019-2020 by Lauren M. Hancock 
 and all rights reserved. 

 Image credit: Eva Sandoval
 mixkit.co/@evasandoval

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  • Prose Poetry: Expulsion – 18/10/19

    Prose Poetry: Expulsion – 18/10/19

    I have long ago released all ill feeling for those whom were once in my life, for the former alliances, for the ones who took advantage of a young naïve woman who was I. For those who exploited the gullibility in a cruel selfish manner that meant only they would be the ones benefiting, I speak to you now: you have no effect on me anymore, it is easier to forgive then commence forgetting than to cling to the hatred of years before.

    While it is effortless to recall angered words about them, in my being, in my core, I don’t feel anything bad or negative for them now, not anymore. It’s as though the thick black soot of anger and slime which permeated my being when I recalled them has simply annihilated itself, wiped itself clean.

    Certainly, I can detail my former anger and sense of insult and offence but what would be the point in that? Live and let live. These beings are the ones who have to live with who they truly are, how they are themselves, and that is quite possibly the biggest sucker-punch of an irony to be known and seen. They will one day be suffering; this I can assure you. The conscience has a way of making oneself accountable for their actions. And I know to stay well away from these types, because for me, the warning signs signal in my mind for evermore.

    I can’t imagine being like some of those self-serving, arrogant, selfish people I once knew. They would have to come to terms with how they treat others, and perhaps for them, there is nothing wrong with being advantageous, fashioning circumstances benefiting themselves and themselves alone. They do not think kindly of me, nor do they think of you, they precisely alter the methods and exercise their wiles until you’re backed against a wall, with nothing more to say. Unfortunately, occasionally our self-control and courage take a sick day.

    Do not allow yourselves to be affected by these types, nor the memory of what these types have performed. They are unworthy of your anger or spat spite, instead allow yourself to be free of negativity, they’re worthy of nothing in your life, nor space in your mind. They are gone for a reason. To the memory of them a firm goodbye.

     © 2019 Alice Well Art, Lauren M. Hancock also known as Alice Well. All rights reserved.


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