Soul's Graffiti

By Carly Louise MacRae

Soul’s Graffiti is a raw and honest exploration of the challenges and triumphs of living with anxiety and depression. Through vivid and emotional storytelling, the author takes readers on a journey through the twists and turns of their own inner struggles, offering insight and understanding into the chaos that can often consume the soul. With a deep sense of vulnerability and authenticity, the author invites readers to join them in exploring the complexities of mental health and finding hope and healing in the midst of it all. This powerful and moving book is a must-read for anyone who has struggled with their own mental health, or for those who want to gain a deeper understanding of the struggles faced by others. So, if you’re ready to delve into the depths of the human experience and come out on the other side with a renewed sense of hope and resilience, Soul’s Graffiti is the book for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781528971997

Carly Louise MacRae

Carly Louise MacRae, born and bred in Bristol, UK. Single mother of 3 children and has lived within depression and anxiety since her early teens. It was during this age she began writing to express and understand the emotions she was holding within, after years of writing to herself, through poetry and short stories, and after 30 years of surviving, she decided to share the poetry side of herself with the outside world.

Book preview

About the Author

Carly Louise MacRae, born and bred in Bristol, UK. Single mother of 3 children and has lived within depression and anxiety since her early teens. It was during this age she began writing to express and understand the emotions she was holding within, after years of writing to herself, through poetry and short stories, and after 30 years of surviving, she decided to share the poetry side of herself with the outside world.

Dedication

To those Souls who believe they are lost, broken or both.

You are not alone.

Copyright Information ©

Carly Louise MacRae 2023

The right of Carly Louise MacRae to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528971188 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528971997 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my children, my muses and the team at Austin Macauley for making my dream possible.

Soul’s Graffiti

This just a spiritual journey,

While my soul is living this earth-bound existence.

Born of my soul are the words I use to explain its journey.

Please don’t judge, just listen with your eyes.

Where I’ve been contributes to where I’m going.

Wonder who’ll still be with me on this journey.

Let the bells ring, let the choir sing.

This soul is on a journey towards home.

Written is my language.

Silence is my home.

This is my journey.

This is my Soul’s Graffiti

The Barrenlands

The Barrenlands

(The Beginning of the Barrenlands)

The world went crazy when I asked it to be my friend.

Enraged with an anger at my previous disrespect.

The Trees stopped growing.

The Flowers ceased their blooming of colour.

The Seas swelled in floods and tides.

The Earth shook and cracked.

Then tore apart to show her core in its full force.

(Lost in the Barrenlands)

The bodies of long forgotten friends lay beneath my bare feet,

as I walked across crunching bone and decaying flesh.

No Birds to welcome this suns dawning,

with the greyest of skies ever before seen.

The Beehives empty, the honey long spent.

The Spiders dead, cobwebs of dust and dirt.

This is all that is left as the seasons no longer change.

(Surviving the Barrenlands)

The World became silent when I asked for Forgiveness.

Repressed by my previous disrespect.

Alone I stand in need of her beauty once again.

Those memories of pictures faded as my eyes gazed around

The Barrenlands of what I had always taken for granted!

Ashes

I’m just the ashes of a fading dream.

Burnt to a cinder, crisp enough to break

under the weight of his blood-stained boots.

So make your walk upon the Ashes of me.

True enough I have fallen victim

to the web of an estranged world.

Brought from the Death.

From the Ashes of what could’ve been

burnt by a waste of Spring.

Time enough to wait

for my blindness to recover

from the fumes of Sorrow.

Eyes which were scorched

by a lost decade of a Burning Spring.

I have made a crawl space

far beneath their prying eyes.

They only see the smile

I have learnt to paint.

Hard enough to breathe in a waste.

This is where I hide myself.

Waiting for my answer to my call

to arrive and save my pain.

As I burn myself to live

in the pits of waste.

I asked the Heavens to save me.

They leave me here as bait.

I asked the Hells to take me.

They leave me here to wait.

For I am just the Ashes of a Forgotten Spring.

Empty Squares and Blank Circles

I saw myself gazing into a new Futuresphere.

I felt myself holding it within my hands.

But now its vision has left my mind.

Empty Squares and Blank Circles have returned.

There is no direction to traverse toward.

Only this Limbo state of Waiting once again.

Standing outside of my Comfort Zone.

Alone afraid and lost.

Those olden vices cannot comfort these Fearscapes anymore.

After I had seen myself within a new Futuresphere.

Its ball of perfect light shining within my grasp.

Now it’s disappeared.

Fading as I wither under.

Empty Squares and Blank Circles are all I see.

The Lamia in me seeks her power source

and spells cast are for the strength to endure

this section of the unwritten play.

Where I stand behind the backdrop of the scene upon the stage.

Others speak of their Cameo roles, yet still I don’t learn a thing.

Here I am in the Limbo state of Waiting

for my cue to return to your stage.

But the final act has yet to begin,

and I wonder if I’m to smile or die once again.

Caught inside of these Empty Squares and Blank Circles.

Home

Show me the way out of your paranoia trip.

These games you play, I’ve played within before.

Your rules have change so much I think they’ve

got you confused between your winning and losing.

And it looks like you’re losing to me.

So many around to see a good side.

Shame the bad side rushed ahead to the finishing line.

Leaving your good side standing on the starting line.

How about we restart the race?

Maybe you could choose to keep up this time.

Being cruel for a good intention.

Just to ride an emotional wave of self-torment.

Too late to find the rescue boat.

So now you’re in the oceans trying

to survive the swim to the shores.

Without the strength to succeed.

I’ve been watching from the side lines of your race track.

I’ve been waiting patiently upon the shores of your oceans.

Hope you see me waving.

Hope you know I’m trying to help you find your HOME!

Ice Queen

For what am I here in this treacherous world?

Where none are forgiving and all are hurtful?

Where the love of one person consumes

your heart like a ravenous beast and

leaves your chest a barren wasteland.

A hole grows where once was my compassion.

A thick layer of mistrust covers me.

Not even the warmest affection of a friend or family

can thaw this never-ending expanse of Winter.

And you ask what has made me turn?

What has mutilated my mind so?

It is something more deadly than poison.

With its beguiling fathomless pit within.

LOVE!

Love has made me this.

LOVE!

Even the word is deceptively sweet on the tongue.

And what do you see when you look

at this once sweet golden maiden?

Do you see the frozen lakes so deep?

that are now so unobtainable.

Do you see the Winter?

Do you see the Barrenlands?

Do you see the Ice Queen?

Lost

So she becomes lost once again.

And all the love she once felt

disappears under another fading sun.

Caught beneath the pressure of remaining fine.

Pretty smile with teary eyes.

Looking outward, hoping that none will see

the rapture of pain lurking underneath fake appraisals.

So all that she loves becomes lost to her hardening heart.

How she wishes it wouldn’t be so this time.

But the heart becomes colder than before.

There is no snow, only Ice.

An ice shell so dense that no

amount of sun could cause it to thaw.

So with this new gift in hand

she prepares to enter the Nothing.

Wondering if she ever really left it behind at all.

Chasing a sensation into Dreamscapes.

She walks alone into the darkness of her Soul’s night.

Where no stars shine.

This was not the doing of her heart,

but the heart of the one who is shallow.

Causing the pathway of Betrayal to be traversed.

Her heart holds so much depth,

she’ll never learn its worth or its weakness.

Only strength in face of her fears

has ever been known to show its light.

Now she has her reign of Winter Storms,

that reside within the season of another’s summer.

For all the love has gone under cover as she becomes

lost once again encased within a shell of Ice.

Me and You

Me and You have exchanged a few words.

But that’s all they were.

Words.

Me and You have spoken of ideas.

But that’s all they were.

Ideas.

Me and You have shared our dreams.

But that’s all they were.

Dreams.

Me and You have burdened pains.

But that’s all they are.

Pains.

Me and You have held Love.

But that’s all it was.

Love.

Me and You used to be you and me.

But that’s all we were.

You and me.

Oh God

Oh God I wish I was dead.

Oh God I can’t fight this feeling much longer.

Oh God I can’t wait to meet you.

To see your face. To hear your voice.

Maybe someday I’ll reach my place beside you.

But it’s not today.

Instead I’m stuck with this ragged life.

Full of everyone’s hate and love of war.

Oh God I wish I could find life.

Oh God I can’t see a way through.

Oh God I won’t wait for the ground to shake.

With their passing on of fear and control thought.

Got to find myself a new passage way

into the Golden light of blessings.

Forget the broken ties to generations that fail

before they even begin a trip on stones.

A travelling companion to fight for a waning strength.

Oh God I wish I had another day.

Oh God I wish I had strength enough.

Oh God I wish I was a wish someone else created.

Then maybe all of this would cease its grip upon me.

Our Truth

We sit and guess our truth on a twenty-fourth line.

So here we go again.

Chasing in circles.

Where I climb the walls of your broken thoughtsphere.

Do you remember our past like me?

Or am I the deluded one?

As you are the one holding the cards to make

us another line as we sit and guess our truth.

Snow came in on a Summer whirlwind.

Bilocating my thoughts as my rains came

to take the rotten Painscapes I’d out grown.

A new reaper came that day and said,

I’ll leave you dying as I take another love unfounded.

So I lay in the silken folds of your lying words.

Then we sat and guessed our truth

on a thousandth of a cursed tongue.

Here you began to see through my optical delusion of self.

When the where became a time to revive olden Demons.

This was the ultimate life style of wasted friends.

And now the taste has expired.

So we sat, me and him, and guessed our truth,

without the twenty-fourth line.

So the circles changed to squares

as I climbed over his broken thoughtsphere.

To remain standing on the other side.

Leaving behind his delusion that matched my own.

Now knowing our truth throughout those twenty-four lines.

Too Many

Too many people with too many Emotions.

And here I go again.

Falling into blindness, as using lips leave me cold.

Covering my face with his mask

as he covers us inside his coat.

Not the one to understand how the cold is

my comfort as it mirrors my inner stars.

Keeping to too many people with too many Emotions.

And here I go again.

Falling into madness to escape another reality,

as the fantasy fades into dogmatic spheres only they comprehend.

Bruised internally.

Shown to none except the man wolf with flight in his touch.

Staying with too many people, with too many Emotions.

Then I go falling pass the wasted debris of olden,

broken promised lies from scarred lips of Death Makers.

Thankful all is silent.

Never to hear the pleas which were never uttered.

Still with too many people, with too many Emotions

Here I am falling, forgetting that I to hold—Too Many.

Waiting on Waiting

I’d runaway if I had someplace else to go.

But here is where I chose

and now I’m fearing I’ve made an error of choice.

Out of a misguided wish for a something

that could never be mine to own.

So I lay in waiting.

Not completely sure of what it is I’m waiting for.

But I’m waiting just the same.

You categorise everything, including me.

Where you place me so wrongly.

No wonder you’re so confused.

Now I understand why I always run.

If I’m feeling a feeling for you and it shows.

Don’t misread it.

It’s just a feeling.

And feelings come and go.

Like the dreamscapes I once owned.

So I lay in waiting.

Not completely sure of who it is I’m waiting for.

But I’m waiting just the same.

I’m just here waiting on waiting.

You All

I gave you all of my experiences.

While I sheltered you from all of my tears.

I gave you all of my wisdom.

While I sheltered you from all of my fears.

I gave you all of my heart.

While I sheltered you from all of my fracture lines.

I gave you all of my future.

While I sheltered you from all of my past.

I gave you all as I opened up to receive your empty gift.

That you all proclaimed, was you loving me.

Broken Vices

Take me back into my vices.

Those useless addictions that kept me safe.

Those moments when I begin to lose it.

Rain comes to reign my sights.

Problems and doubts cover my grace.

So take me back into my vices.

Those waste of time addictions.

That worked so well for the days when I was lost.

Still somehow I knew who I was.

A sensation that was so small

it filled my empty universe.

Return me into my vices.

They should still work to keep me safe.

My lonely addictions.

Those that kept me company

while