May 2011
1 post
The newspapers called Janie “Death’s Valentine”. They feasted on her demise like vultures. They were in the town within a couple of hours, and her blood was still pooled on the ground in the courtyard outside the main building of Groswell Prep. After the press got there, they didn’t leave for a fortnight. I suppose what made them stay was the mystery of it, that and the fact that there wasn’t...
June 2010
3 posts
1 tag
Inspired by the word "Direction"
I am infinite, forever, a constant.
As I think to part my lips to speak I feel it stirring in my gut, a light. Raw as the blood of a fresh kill, depraved as the hand that made it bleed. It burns with a torrid lust for release; a muffled whimper passes my lips. It’s pure light, sunlight, starlight, rushing up, rushing out, aching to pour forth from my mouth. I am bright, aglow, ablaze. I am...
Your butterfly hands, like counterfeit wings, make a counterfeit wish for your counterfeit dreams.
I’m sick of ‘lovely’ things and I’m so tired of ‘pretty’ things. However, that’s not to say that I would like the opposite. On the contrary, I would like the loveliest and the prettiest, so lovely and pretty that it couldn’t even be described as such. I want loveliness to such a large degree that it would become ‘brilliant’ and...
February 2010
1 post
“I knew I could never do what I hoped for as a little girl. It was not what He intended me to do. He did not intend this for me either. Neither did I. Alas, this is what I am. I am a quivering mess, a tangle of nerves and emotions for which there are no words. The building upon which I stand is so very tall and the street below is very far away. People are beginning to turn and look now. I...
January 2010
1 post
The 242 had become an animal; a towering majestic beast with a thick red skin, hard as iron, and two incandescent yellow eyes. Each new wound, seeping with royal blue blood turned thick and grey at the touch of oxygen, caused her to screech with such ferocity that the sound echoed for miles. At every turn the gargantuan beast would slow for a moment but soon regain her lost speed, hurling herself...
December 2009
7 posts
Loneliness
There’s this room, full of people. People talking and touching and laughing and clinking glasses and making small-talk. Somehow I am standing in this room, amongst all these people, yet I remain separate from the entire scene. As though that is a two-way mirror hanging on the wall opposite and I am standing behind it. The unseen observer. I watch all these people, with their meaningful words...
“it’s that feeling again. that one you get when you feel like you’ve got nothing in the whole world, you’ve got no one and not a single shred of anything to hold onto. and you can’t even remember who you are or how you got here or why everything is so totally fucked. it’s like there isn’t a world outside of that window, you feel like everything’s...
“i wonder what’s inside the box?” said thomas. he circled it two and a half times with his head cocked to one side and his hands on his hips, staring at the wooden chest with a very stern look. pandora held her hands behind her back and swayed back and forth, rolling her feet from ball to heel, ball to heel.
“oh, i wouldn’t open it if i were you,” she replied, but her lips curled into a...
it’s all a game of
who can talk the loudest
who can run the fastest
who can jump the highest
but really
they all want to see each other
fall
just to see each other fail
it’s the cruelest game of all
they want to tempt you from your ledge
knowing it’s a long way to the ground
think you should’ve stayed in bed today?
well don’t let it get you down
“fine” is one of my least favourite words in the english language. you are not fine, i am not fine, no one is fine. we’re broken up, totally distraught, crazy out of our minds with pain and so close to the fucking edge that everything hurts and nothing works. so don’t tell me that you are “fine” because i know that you are so very far from that.
Silence drives me crazy. It allows me to think, to worry, to wish I had done this instead of that. Some enjoy silence, they revel in it. It allows them to think, to wonder about the future and ponder the mysteries of life. It allows them to expand and grow. There are a lot of people who enjoy silence, although not all of them have the luxury of experiencing it in their day-to-day routine. Some of...
These days, people are always striving for silence. Teachers yell, “Silence!” Librarians hiss, “Quiet!” Big sisters snap, “Shut up!” Silence, silence, silence. I want the opposite of silence, some days I just want to yell, “NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE!” I want to run through the streets of the small town I live in screaming at the top of my voice. But I don’t. I don’t...
November 2009
9 posts
Larry enters.
Larry: (Horrified.) Oh, Miss Clare, what have you done?
Clare: (Staring at the wall.) I thought about the pistol in the top drawer, and I thought about shooting myself in the head. I thought about the butcher’s knife in the sink, and I thought about driving it through my chest. (Slowly rolls her eyes to look at Larry.) But you know, for all I’ve done, I think...
“If a serial killer broke into my house right now, I think I’d be glad. Grateful, even. I’m not afraid of dying, I’m not afraid at all. I don’t think anything comes afterwards and that doesn’t scare me one bit. It would be peaceful, don’t you think? To just not exist. I guess the only thing that I am afraid of is the pain, you know, the pain of dying....
They say this is the city that never sleeps but there is one moment, at the waking of each day, when a certain kind of lull descends as the moon says goodbye and the sun has yet to say hello. For a moment, so fleeting that it often goes totally unnoticed, the city is asleep and nothing moves. Then the sunlight begins to pour out over the horizon and the day resumes as though something...
At the funeral, my grandmother explained to me about one true things. She said that everyone has their own one true thing and they don’t always know it, but it is very special to them. In my seven-year-old mind the wheels started to turn and I asked her, “Can somebody have more than one?”
“No,” she replied. “A person can only have one one true thing.”
She told me, “There is a sound a...
i imagine things. they’re not real. i imagined dying once. i took a knife and drove it into my side and i fell to floor and writhed in pain. i must’ve been there for hours, absolute in my belief that i was dying. i looked at the blood on my hands, brought those fingers up to my face. the salty metallic taste was in my mouth. i could feel my breaths becoming shallower, less frequent. and then it...
i don’t like writing about you because when i do it comes out all mushy gushy and heavy with my ridiculous hipster metaphors and i read it and reread it a million times over hoping that you’re sitting at home reading it and thinking, “oh my god, i wish this was about me.” and i sit at home thinking, “he’s wishing it was about him and oh my god it is.” but life is not a cheesy hollywood movie with...
can you hear the rain and the wind? do you feel the shake and the howl? can you feel it in your lungs, in your head, in your bones? it’s a part of you, isn’t it? the storm, it’s part of you and you’re part of it. they’ll tell you that you’re skin and bone and nothing more. they’ll try to convince you that what you feel in your heart is just a chemical...
for twenty-seven years i have lived on this street. i can recall the face of each person who has walked past me as though they were standing right in front of me now. i can remember the way each person glanced at me as they passed, with the same sorrowful expression. “he’s a poor beggar,” they thought. “his pockets are empty and his heart is emptier, he has nothing.”
...
i know that you are out there,
i know that you exist. i see you in the street when i pass a young couple in love and i see you at the summer fair when a boy buys the last candy apple for his sweetheart and not himself. sometimes i can just make you out in the movie theatre, putting your arm around that girl when the film gets a little scary. when my mind wanders i picture you in my mind’s eye, and i can hear your laugh...
September 2009
2 posts
The room they have taken me to is a dull metallic grey that looks as though it has never been new. The walls run into the floor and the floor runs into the walls and the ceiling hangs somewhere high above me like a second sky. A bearded man enters, his navy uniform clashing with the room like white against black. He asks me why did you do it? I say I don’t know. He says oh, did you just want to do...
in the forests of our imagination the trees echo and they whisper your name, so loud i can’t get away, even if i wanted to get away. this moonless night never gave us a chance, the tall grasses sway where the dreamers vanish.
August 2009
14 posts
airports, bus stops, train stations. i find myself in these places very often. in these places, the feeling of going somewhere is everywhere, even if i am not. i can feel it in the air, breathe it in, see it in the eyes of those around me. i look at the train schedule and ask myself, “where shall i go today?” i decide on london but really, i am not going anywhere, i am simply embarking on a...
"there is something about looking into those...
and there, on the corner of east and forty-second street, i could feel the august sun on my face and the summer breeze carried the strawberry scent of her hair, and she faced away from me, a shining silhouette in the sunlight, all glitter and dreams. standing on that street corner, all those things about her - her laugh, like smoke on the water being played on the lute, and the soft, weathered...
"your smile is not worth these east coast...
and so i wait at the terminal, looking at all the others. new parents, wrestling new children into new strollers. old lovers, with interlaced fingers and eyes for no one else. small children, with their dolls and action figures, with their dreams still in the dark room, still developing. the lonely ones and the ones who never made it, reading their books, watching the sky, mourning their wasted...
she held the glass like she was a ship and it was...
“if you hold that glass any tighter, it’ll shatter.”
but her eyes were blank, seeing something no one else could.
“what?”
“the glass,” i repeated.
“oh.”
she let go, placing her hand in her lap.
her grip had left a million tiny cracks and they continued to spread,
cackling as they did so, embracing the glass, reaching out like crooked...
and now the road home is a road you can never take again. do you regret all those things you said? as you walk these lonely streets, looking for your lonely answers, do you regret all the things you did? when i warned you, you let go of my hand and then you were on your own. i guess it all makes sense now that everything is in pieces.
all the ink runs down the page and takes with it all the words i was supposed to say. what happened to the girl who thought she could do anything?
lay under the grey blanket sky, watch as the heavens cry. there’s no comfort for the infinite, only the wicked shall get their way.
i’m going to lose my mind if i don’t lose you first, but how can i lose you if i never had you first. all these skylines start to look the same, every line runs into the next. to think, i used to call this place home and now i only want to go, go, go. run down these sidewalks and back alley shortcuts, because “the only way out is through”. grab my hand, i’ll take you with me, i’ll take you to the...
do you remember the little cafe
on the corner of johns & clark street?
and the redbrick square , where all
the children would play ?
can you remember the boat, babiest blue
? owned by
clarissa who lived at number 42 ,
but when summer came, she went out to sea .
i used to wish i could be alone, which is funny now, looking back. i would walk by a particularly nice high rise on the particularly nice side of town because i knew that there was an empty gallery space for rent on one of the topmost floors. once i met a boy outside that high rise; he was dirty and hunched and he had a lot of greasy hair crammed into a hat too small for his head. i watched him as...
there is no "us" in "you and i"
sometimes, it’s enough and we don’t ask why because it just is. in the earliest hours of the morning, when the sun is still rising, you do not question the way the light pours over the top of the hills and finds its way to your house, pushing through your curtains and bathing everything in an intangible gold that renders you helpless, unable to hide any longer. you do not question...
grammar went for a holiday, left chaos in its...
because nights spent alone, cold cup of coffee in hand, reading by the light of the flickering floor lamp, its bulb teetering precariously on that boundary between life and death, simply cannot be compared to nights spent on top of high rise apartment buildings looking out over cities alive with those twinkling lights, someone else’s hand in mine, harsh wind blowing against my face, making...
perhaps i was in an accident, the kind you hear about on the news, and i am in a coma. perhaps the memories i could’ve sworn were mine have been fabricated by my subconscious, and the things i think i feel are nothing close to reality. the people around me are mere figments of my imagination, incredibly overactive as a result of months spent locked inside my head. perhaps the girl i wish to...
July 2009
17 posts
her eyes never left the sky turning from dusk to night, shades of blue darkening, light pin pricks barely illuminating more than dreams, and she said to me, “blink and you’ll miss it.”
if nobody speaks of remarkable things, then nobody shall speak at all. for everything is remarkable to someone, as you are remarkable to me.
i’m just a silly little girl who missed the last train home, and now i’ve got to sleep on a bench in the station. that thursday summer’s sunset never looked so grey, as it does today. i look at the stars, wonder who’s watching them too, twinkle, twinkle, smiling down at me and you. i know somewhere out there, you’re under this sky, the same old sky that keeps me safe at night. remember that old...
when it comes time to make that decision, there is little i will be able to do to change your mind. but i wrote every argument against the motion down in the hope that you might take a moment to think it through, and i wrote those three silly words on a paper napkin in the hope that, should you vote for and not against, when the rains come, those three words will be washed away.
the silence is so easy
but when you talk,
that’s what makes this so hard.
watching your lips makes me forget
the words i need to hear
and the ones i need to say.
please,
if you loved me, i know you’d
let me go.
i lost myself in the summer,
that cali sunshine washed me away.
i had no name,
no recollection of anything but now,
then.
we used to play hide and seek in the woods and you would always hide. i pressed myself up against the tree, and closed my eyes. i counted to infinity, once, twice, three times. but when i opened my eyes the woods were gone, all the trees burnt to ashes on the ground. all the animals had fled and you couldn’t be found, so i buried myself instead.
hey new york, i miss your eyes.
and could you tell chicago i said hi?
there’s nothing like those city lights,
nothing like those city nights.
“there goes the boy in the pretty shirt with the golden smile that made you feel new.” i used to think that the rain made it all okay, that the rain washed it all away. all these lonely people standing in the rain, i thought, were newly-made saints, forgiven of all their past mistakes. i stood in the rain, for a week and a day, i thought it was washing it all away. but when you let me...
i have spent all of today trying my best to not think of you, but every time i catch myself not-thinking-of-you, i mentally applaud myself and think, “you are doing a very good job not thinking of him.” i conclude that this not-thinking-of-you is not working very well. my heart has never ached this way before and my stomach has never felt so light that it might float away into the...
something lost, nothing found
i lack the one thing that makes everything okay. we are, we are, we are useless. i keep telling myself that it’s more you than me. we never achieve and we never decrease. remaining stationary on this hill, neither up nor down - just averagely hanging about. the greatest words are the ones that we can never stop repeating. “our words can be lovers on the tips of our tongues.” say...
there’s something wrong, can you tell? i’m dying to be anyone but myself now, i’m dying to be anywhere but here now. just to feel safe i tried to cut myself in four and started seeing the world through an open window. found myself on the outside. and you were on the inside, no one shed a tear, no “wishing you were here”s.
and there must be something wrong, you know,...