You Came Out Screaming And Alive And Look At You Now

In Olivia Gatwood’s poem Ode To My Bitch Face she says  “you came out screaming and alive and look at you now!”

But I was born blue

lifeless and choking, a chord around my neck.

When you ask me about home

I will tell you about my mother;

the comfort of her closeness.

Home is the suppression of emotion

The silence out of fear

Home is the choking on my words

Struggling for breath, chord still laced around my neck.

Home is my lungs filling with water when I was five I couldn’t swim.

And all I could see was blue

And all I could see was her.

—

Paintings inspired by the breakdown and rebuilding of my insides. Sometimes filled with fire burning passion, sometimes deteriorating in agonising silence. I don’t paint very much, only when I’m feeling something so strong that I don’t know how to put into words.

Alice Redfearn