We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

15.7.20

Seeing Things

Seeing Things

When they said you were ‘seeing things’, 
they meant you weren’t, not really – 
you only thought you were.

I learned not to tell anyone 
anything I ‘saw’. 
Or heard. Or felt. 
Or just knew.

I became adept
at concealment

walking around visible
but no-one saw 
me. 

They only
thought they did.


(Confessions of a psychic child.)

Written for Weekly Scribblings #28: Seeing Things at Poets and Storytellers United.

28 comments:

  1. This is wonderfully raw, honest and poignant! It takes a lot of courage to embrace who we really are and capable of regardless of what the world believes or thinks. 💝💝

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    1. It's interesting that I didn't think I was mad. But I knew that if I didn't keep it secret, the world would decide I was mad.

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  2. You learned quickly to put up the shell of protection. A place one goes when there is nowhere else to thrive.

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    1. My parents weren't unkind about it. They praised my 'vivid imagination' – which still sent the message that it wasn't believed as something true and real. But it was other the kids at school who ridiculed it.

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    2. Kids are the worst, sometimes. How many spirits were crushed by a grade school classmate? I'm glad you survived and maybe even thrived despite those who thought they knew you. Cheers!

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    3. I definitely survived and thrived. (Big smile.)

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  3. A special gift that needs protecting..hopefully in adulthood difference is more appreciated (amongst the people that count at least)

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    1. As an adult I found people who understood and were able to help me understand.

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  4. Guess one has to be invisible sometimes. Happy Wednesday Rosemary

    much love...

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  5. I know what you mean, Rosemary.

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  6. Adept at concealment...opting for silence and invisibility, even for one's own survival, has its detrimental outcomes, eh?

    Very revealing work, this. Thanks.

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  7. I think of how I hid some things from my parents and that just this week both my kids were excitedly talking tarot with each other, with decks they have adopted from my stash. It's never great to feel gaslit, but those of us who were can shine the light brighter for those that come after, to make their way easier.

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  8. There are those of us who find the gateway in our brain that was there all along, undiscovered by most. You speak of it eloquently.

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  9. Sadly humans are not all that tolerant of differences...it frightens them.

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  10. Those first lines--ouch. And an interesting perspective on forced invisibility/blindness.

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    1. It wasn't in the moment, of course, but evolved over time.

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  11. I really like how you ended this. It came full-circle, only it points out that the naysayers were the blind ones. :)

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    1. It just wrote itself, very quickly. Very little actual thought went into it! (Perhaps had been waiting subconsciously a long time to be articulated.)

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  12. "They just don't believe me" but now they are accepting me as I am.
    Nice little ditty, I'd believe anything you would say, Bev.
    ..

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  13. "They just don't believe me" but now they are accepting me as I am.
    Nice little ditty, I'd believe anything you would say, Rosemary.
    Oops on the first, I've not had a good day today. Tell you later.
    ..

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    1. No worries! I'd believe Bev too, lol. (But seriously, you might not have believed a little kid. Well, YOU might have, but many would – and did – dismiss anything from such a source as either fantasy or outright lies.)

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  14. How wonderful to be gifted, and process early on that people will call it a vivid imagination.

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