Alison Hramiak is a part time poet and part time teacher educator living and working in Yorkshire. She has written poems from an early age and has been published in several Forward Poetry anthologies and also on various web sites funded by the Arts Council. She writes for occasions at www.poetryforlives.co.uk and regularly blogs about poetry there. She reviews educational and historical writing, and also poetry anthologies, and has recently started performing at open mic sessions including at the Huddersfield Literature Festival earlier this year.

I am RAGE!

And rage is ME.

Blinding, bubbling,

Burning, broiling,

RAGE.

Erupts from me,

like lava from some

vehement, vengeful, violent volcano,

bent on disruption.

I am FEAR (too).

FEAR, festers inside me,

A savage scar,

and I can’t see past the C

Word

Now.

FEAR has blinded me,

lives with me.

An unwanted house guest,

that follows you everywhere,

an invasion.

Like an army of ants

with a mission to destroy.

Carer not lover,

Nurse not wife,

always friend.