Emily Dawson - Poetry Collection
I want to stay home with you
I want to stay home with you,
Inside our little world away,
I want to stay home with you,
Where an hour turns into a day,
I want to stay home with you,
We’d hide and play pretend,
I want to stay home with you,
With my very best friend,
I want to stay home with you,
I’d want it in better times,
I want to stay home with you,
It makes me write and rhyme,
I want to stay home with you,
I’d choose you to weather the storm,
I want to stay home with you,
In every space and every form.
These are the words I wish I could say
I feel like such an idiot when I’m around you because I constantly overthink everything I say and do. It’s not like I should care and it’s not like it matters, but I’d give anything and more for sweet words in love letters. Coy and confident, subtle, and blunt you act and I, searching with aim and intent for the spark in your eyes. It’s there then it’s not and I don’t know if my eyes play tricks, it seems all I do is chase mirages to get my fix. Attached, my heart belongs to a knight of swords and stones, falsehoods and miracles as words flash bright upon my phone. They make my day only for me to fall back in earth from zero gravity, they make my nights lonely in wake of calamity. Your come-back-around’s and absent calls fill me with dread, but only then do I find euphoria upon soil once thought dead. A daydream clumsy and red, a night coupled with intensity in pining locked in my head. It tumbles out useless and wrong, a frog in my mouth while my tongue sings another heartbreak song. You figure me out and I remain a mystery still, never fail to surprise me in wake of late-night thrill. Yet sometimes I am left empty by the end, I could stay up until night kisses day a new in wake of pretend. Yes, it’s true when fake happiness prevails, because I’m only happy by your side, when lips touch at once and all that entails.
Kiss me and hold me close, chills up my spine with your hands around my waist at once I froze. Take your hand and a smile rests comfortable now, a whisper of gratitude when all I wished for a kiss somehow. Cold as you slowly pulled away, in my daydreams confidence would tell you the things you love and what she needs to say. I don’t know how to shape space and time around what you want or need, all I know is I’d do anything for you though ask me not I wish to concede.
Home
What is home when no love remains, hearts smashed across the cold, hard floor? What is home when bitterness cuts through the walls – paper thin, shouts echoing from one room to the next? What is home when windows remain shut, bolted to avoid the curious eyes and ears of passers-by? What is home when hope is a small flickering flame, blown out by a gust of wind far too powerful to comprehend? What is home when it is ruled by the dominating force of man, while woman is a quiet form of anger only expressed in the futile words preserved in ink and text? What is home when children take shelter in the four lonely corners of their bedrooms, their emotional growth stunted, their lives forever changed by the sheer will of another far stronger than they? What is home when expectations of parenthood are placed upon the oldest, their childhoods cut short, their adulthood coated in bitterness, a sugar centre buried deep under layers upon layers of misery? What is home when they wander the streets of town after town, city after city, escape lingering on their mind, with little means of safety, food, and friend? What is home when, as time passes, all that is left is those distant screams bouncing from wall to wall, swallowed by white padding, victims’ voices dying in their throats as they give into exhaustion of the physical, emotional, and mental kind?
A home without love is not a home, not truly, not at all. A home with love is a rarity, the rarest gift of all.
Written by Emily Dawson
My name is Emily, I am an English Literature graduate from Kingston University and have been writing for as long as I can remember. I specialise in poetry and short stories, as I find these to be the most intriguing and interesting to explore; I write about my own personal experiences as a way to process emotion and explore wider themes, as well as aspects of identity including gender, sexuality, and class. I have had my poetry and prose pieces published in my university’s annual anthology/magazine called the RiPPLE, in 2019 and 2020, and hope to become a published author someday.
