by Molly Dayle Ashton
The beautiful one has come
In the image of feminine perfection
Timeless power beyond beauty of the real woman
Lying in her secret chamber where her other face is hidden
With its wrinkles, creases at the corners of her mouth
A bump on her nose – young child on her lap,
Imperious gaze.
Liking yourself makes others see your beauty,
the shimmering of stars in the night sky,
where dreams float through the universe;
you will find me standing in the shadows of the moon,
my fingers making the silver sounds
that express what my voice cannot say;
I see the way they look at me,
I can look at the ground or look them in the eye
but either way their judgements cut my heart;
I could be someone’s girlfriend,
but what if she tried to clip my wings?
they don’t see the other face,
the one I see in the bathroom mirror,
the one that smiles back like she knows my secrets.
my mind can only hold so many memories
but there is a woman in there that sorts them
keeping each memory neatly filed away
she gets a bit annoyed with my untidy habits
particularly when I wilfully throw new memories in there
without regard for her neatly arranged cabinet of curiosities
My heart aches for Australia
Beats with sorrow
For the women that walk the streets
When night time falls
Luring men to their fate
For she is nature
And men need to rise above
Soft maidens and wine
To reach their angels
Waiting patiently at home
Expecting him to be faithful
With aching hearts
I was surprised to receive a notification the other day that it was my sixth anniversary as a blogger on WordPress. I don’t even remember what I called that first blog all those years ago but it would have been about poetry spilling from my 15 year old fingers. I turn 21 in two weeks and I guess this is as good a time as any to reflect on how my life and writing has changed in those six years.
First there was an empty space
At 15 I was a shy, unconfident girl who preferred spending her lunchtimes on her own in the school library reading. It was there that the urge to fill that empty space called out to me, getting stronger and stronger. That’s when I wrote my first, embarrassing poems about loneliness and desire.
In my last years of high school I discovered Romeo and Juliet, the essays of James Thurber and other classic readers were followed by King Lear, contemporary playwrights David Williamson (The Club and The Removalists) and Ray Lawler (Summer of the Seventeenth Doll), the poets Judith Wright, Geoffrey Chaucer and John Keats, and classic novelists Jane Austen and Emily Bronte.
When I finished school there was only ever one choice. I knew I had to write. I took a year off and worked on my first novel, Molly’s Dreams, which I self-published on Amazon (you can find it there if you look!).
Last year I started a Bachelor of Creative Writing at university in Canberra and moved away from home for the first time. I started this current blog at the same time. Sometimes I post with lots of energy, but at other times I get overwhelmed with my workload and the blog slows down. Through it all there have been many readers that have followed me, clicked like, left comments, and given me the encouragement to keep writing. I love you all.
Right now I am nearing the end of first semester and working hard on my second novel. It is a young adult fantasy about a 15 year old discovering she has a special power. With that power comes the ability to do good but also to hurt the people around her. She has to learn how to deal with this before others use her power against her.
Anyway, thank you all again for taking the time to visit and read my blog. You don’t know how much it means to me.
Love and best wishes
Molly-Louise Ashton
Love yourself
Whoever you see in the mirror
Or feel inside
Or feel what other people see
Under different masks
Self confident and unsure
