Anthology
Laura Thistlethwaite (she/her)
Growing up in Geelong on Wadawurrung country, the chance to be creative was the most memorable part of Laura’s upbringing. Learning sheet music at the same time she was learning to read, it wasn’t until she started to write music of her own that poetry fell into her lap. These verses speak of growing up, growing out and growing with love; something albeit painful, she is grateful to experience. Told from different points in her life, her poetry aims to shine a light on the non-linear path of growing up.
Wurundjeri Country
Deep breath
I grappled
you stirred
unspoken words lingered above
A thick smog engulfs
Our collective minds
The silence
The absence of certainty
It pulled me deeper
Through murky blue
Deep breath.
Trepidation floods;
You left me to finish
The sentences you wouldn’t speak,
A jigsaw full of edges,
I pondered,
While you toyed,
You knew the last ace I played
Could never win
With knees grazed
Eyes soft and red
I’m dragged
Not through a murky ocean
But through a warmth
You will never acquaint
For it is a privilege
Not a pleasure
This beating vessel
Of pure intentions
You are not capable
Of caring for
Your incorrigible patterns
Etched forever within you
Their grooves so deep
I was caught
Entangled
The lace
It snaps
Jolted forward
I’m free
The bedside table
It was steady.
Four legs
Roots planted firmly in my carpet,
Like a tree that had lived for years.
The shattered lamp,
The shrieks of laughter,
Broken pieces taint the floor,
That will soon meet our tears.
No more hard exterior,
Its jagged pieces fall below,
The light that’s left to shine,
It’s too much for you,
I know.
The shadows haunt my dreams,
Cast where that light had been,
I can’t turn the lamp back on,
Just to bring back the foregone,
When my heart lead me astray
With your truth in the light of day.
The garden path
A cold and lonely august,
She lay there down below,
Too afraid to proliferate,
The only way she knows.
A solitary rupture,
Moves her from darkness to light,
She wriggles in discomfort,
Daylight replaces night.
She danced as she grew,
Reaching toward your sun,
your words, your thoughts, your tears,
She grew with every one.
Her seed it flourished quickly,
Sprouting bright and green,
Watered delicately with your tenderness,
Cut straight from a movie scene.
Some days she wilted briefly,
Stopped fresh in her tracks,
Her uncertainty a weakness,
But there was no turning back.
She could not grow toward the ground,
For her bloom had come so far,
She stood tall and proud and gracefully,
In the reflection of your star.
There is no rest with growth,
A constant fight for bettering,
She needed to take a breath,
She couldn’t admit she was settling.
Now her sleepless red eyes wallow,
For deep within they know,
That the place that they rummage,
They can never truly grow.
She can’t grow in there forever,
The pot became too small,
Your garden bed had already flowered,
There was no room,
After all.