Author Archives: Poppy

Imagine a lady, a giantess swooping along a glacial corridor. She is dressed in ball gown, voluminous metallic grey skirts rustling and dragging all around her. She is magificent, terrifying to behold, utterly unstoppable, unaware of all around her.

She is a river, a monumental river, like the Ganges from the mountains to the sea carrying innumerable souls, all at once, all human life and no living thing.

Atop her, for all her magnifience and overwhelming size is a girl, a normal girl from the waist up looking horrified as below her her skirts alter the whole world. Tiny compared to her silks, insignificant even as she continues her journey across the landscape.

Oh, how I have wanted to write that- for so many days that image has haunted me. I am at once a force of tidal emotion and a tiny girl, lost in piles of books unable to reach the high shelves. I am learning how to do all these practical things with grim efficiency (‘Don’t tell me about the problem, sort it out, don’t even tell me about the soloution, just move along and sort the next issue out.’) whilst all the time yearning to sit still for a few minutes with a book of poems and a glass of wine.

Dexter is here with me. He is solid and calm to my rages and storms. I am my very own weather pattern. I am my own moon and sea. I am my own stars and sky. Everything, all at once, everywhere, alone and crowded, calm and shaking. I hate it.

This is the start of my journey and to help you, dear reader  shall put this more simply.

I have my space (so beautiful, I shall write about it another time). I have a man who is everything I could wish for and who is yang to my yin, Top to my bottom, stern to my submission. I have pretty things and implements and books.

But I also have such a surfeit of emotion that if it were food I would have gout. I am swollen with it, sore with it, bent over with it, overwhelmed and held hostage.

Dexter knows. He waits. He watches and holds me. He takes time with me. Last night I was bent over the chaise longue, over the scroll at the end. My bottom was presented to his belt, no formal introductions were needed, it was not the first meeting but it was the most intense. Just there as I struggled, as I watched my arms flail out to reach for him and as I heard myself start to cry I had the briefest glimpse of peace. It was just a moment but we both felt it.

There will be more moments. I can’t imagine it now but there will be. I will be sure to keep you informed.

(My chaise longue is dusky pink by the way- no leopard print in my house.)

Would you like another?