A Poem for Ian
My beautiful Dad
I am not of your blood but you gave me your heart,
The best step-father I could have asked for.
You have been there my whole life
Constantly supporting me, caring for me
You have taught me a lot
Taught me how to read, how to write, how to be happy
Taught me how to become the woman I want to be
Always welcoming with open arms and a
“Hiya sweet pea, fancy a cup of tea?”
I cherish the time we have had together
and all the memories you have given me
Like when you took me on bike rides,
smiling as you pulled me in a buggy alongside you
Like how you would waltz me around the kitchen to jazzy music,
balancing me on your feet
You are my 11:11 and birthday cake wishes
Closing my eyes, I blow out the candles, wishing
Wishing we had more time
Wishing your terminal cancer could be cured
Wishing time could rewind, or at least stand still
Wishing I could somehow appreciate our time even more
There are no words that can describe the emptiness
I feel thinking of not having you in my life
And how soon that thought might become reality.
But I try not to buy into those thoughts and live in the moment
Just like you taught me.
Cold
Yes, you were my first
My first lesson in love
When we were in bed together, the world was quiet
Laying on our sides looking in each other’s eyes
Drinking each other in
Learning about your scars and marks,
memorising where your freckles
gently touched your nose
Your eyes, the colour of the hot pools in Reykjavík
I felt like there wasn’t enough time in the world
that I could spend looking into them
My hand, resting on your chest, would feel it rise and fall
Our fingers would intertwine, exploring
Your touch sent shivers down my spine
You were my life for nearly three years
My first everything
I thought I would always feel
what I felt looking into those blue eyes
But like the shade of your eyes,
you became ice cold
I had ignored all the warning signs, trusting you completely
I realised that I was in love with the idea of love
Not you
The Silent Women
As I stroll from room to room in the stately home
I pass the familiar faces in the paintings
I see every weekend
My job is to talk about the women in the pictures,
But I don’t even know their names
I call them ‘the Silent Women’
They’re always watching, never speaking
Their expressions are absent, haunting
They never cease to make my skin crawl
The paintings are titled and labelled
‘Unknown Lady’, ‘Mother of…’, ‘Beloved daughter of Sir…’
The artists name is always given
Yet never the painted
The lavish, gold frames hold in their identity
As tightly as their corsets had held their bodies
Resembling the lives the women would have led
Over three centuries ago
Alexandra Evans is an exchange student from Liverpool John Moores University in the UK who is studying Poetry and English Literature at Southern Connecticut State University. She is currently pursuing a career in poetry and says she is so grateful to be a part of the Outrageous Fortune community.