Half-Eye

Written By Phillipa Joy - Psychotherapist

I begin to see with a half-eye One shut and the other, shadowed Just a crack Enough to see The crack in the hallway Splitting the house in two The crack in the ant hill Spilling bites The crack in the riverbed Parching quickly and quietly The crack of an electric cattle prod Gun Air rip of the steel gate The crack in the windscreen Splintering glass webs The crack of the whip swing over and over Under and under Again and again Crack, crack, crack I can see too much through my cracked half-eye I pull it, beg it, bully it, turn it inwards The crack won’t close I slump along with my half-eye I see with a half-eye The arc of a crack The way a gaping rupture can fill, rise and swell Slope, pendulate, spiral, seed Ripen through deep time The crack as moment, movement, compelling force Tilting me, tilting us, towards something else Refusing to allow us to remain certain of what we see What we are Of what is to come I see more with my half-eye How much more there is yet to come Through the crack The wisdom of a child who folds Into themselves and beyond reach, for now Guarded looks Hunched shoulders Braced fists A careful, crafted smile and silence The people and places we dream and then become Seeing and holding with a heart cracked open Tender cracks Love Weep into them Breathe into them Sow into them Laugh into them I can see so much through my cracked half-eye I thank it, honour it, shelter it Widen it

This poem offers a glimmer into some of the history of my way of seeing and relating to hardship, suffering and pain.

It is a beginning story, not the whole story, with more to come.

It is also the start of an invitation to an online module on the theme of ‘Rupture as Repair’.

Coming Soon.

From my Heart-Field to yours,

Phillipa Joy - Psychotherapist

I maintain a small private psychotherapy practice in South East Queensland, where I work closely with those who have experienced complex developmental, relational abuse and neglect. My practice is shaped by a commitment to being response-able to the legacies of harm carried through history, while nurturing ways of tending to relational care amidst today’s metacrisis.

With Masters qualifications in Psychotherapy and Narrative Therapy & Community Work, alongside two decades in not-for-profit, community, and private practice contexts, I bring both formal training and lived experience of walking alongside people impacted by profound harm.

My writing and therapeutic work seek to honour the complexity of suffering while opening space for care, connection, and transformation. I am indebted to a wide range of thinkers, practitioners, and artists across philosophy, literature, psychotherapy, and community work, whose insights continue to accompany and nourish my practice.

Next

I let it