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Saturday 29 May 2010

Shells

And here we are again in the turning, ticking, moving, roving, itching, scratching, licking, biting, beating, thumping turning of the world. And it turns, yes. In a full circle before falling off the pin it is sat on, sharp and shiny and malevolent to the core. It takes you by the hand and it leads you to that little rose garden, closer to the bay and that white cottage than you would have at first thought. When the door opens you must be careful not to scream and scare the inhabitants who are always sitting there in the front room whispering and talking and cawing and nattering and screeching into the glass of the windows. They are easily frightened.

So are you, I remember from the days we would run barefoot in the fields and not care about the worms between our toes. You found a dead bird one day, half eaten and rotten but you still called it beautiful or I thought you called it beautiful. What I imagine seems so real that it might be true if I tell you enough so I tell you every day, I make sure I repeat it word for word and talk as fast as possible so you can't miss anything. Like now I'm talking and talking and talking and you're there listening, you're always there listening, listening at the door, at the wall, at the floor, at the cupboard and at that sick little hole at the sink. You put it there to remind me not to get ill or I'll be like the plug-hole all silver and filled with such small rips that a mouse might have made them but they are perfect, perfectly round. It's almost like an art.

You liked art, you always liked art, you were always arting around in the garden beneath the ferns. It's not the same as the rose garden and it's not at all near the sea. You liked it by the sea, didn't you? I always liked it by the sea and the sand and the smell of the salt in your hair and on your fingers after you picked up all of the shells you could see and put them in the bucket.

Then you stood on them. You crushed the shells and the bucket and it makes me feel like you're glaring at me. You were always glaring at me, you're still glaring at me even though I am in this bed feeling oh so sickly, you still glare. You look at me with those eyes and they tell me it is my fault. Mine. That you glare at me so when I have done nothing but count the tiles on the ceiling and pretended that those shells weren't in splinters. But you're always here, aren't you? Always glaring and looking a gaping at me. Gawping at me.

Why are you always looking at me?

Friday 28 May 2010

Future

In one second it's over. A whole new life in a new place halted for four months, learning stops and the waiting begins. Waiting for a set of insignificant numbers and letters. It's gone already. Look over your shoulder, you will see the day you moved in waving at you from the corner of the street so close you could touch it. Blink. It's gone and only the future lays ahead.

It is a smile that slips in unnoticed. Though fast in passing, the memory leaps about inside that mind-world, replaying itself and appearing longer. Change has taken place within these walls and on these scattered pages. But it is good.

All that's left is the future and I rise to it. A sun to an unknown sky.

Thursday 27 May 2010

Post-haste

Eyes flicker, moving, roving, creeping across the type in an attempt to decipher the meaning and hold it hostage in the halls of remembrance - cells of remembrance. So small that there's no room wriggle or move or spread into a greater knowledge. It slips out the way it came.

The mind-fingers clasp and tug and cling to those flittering thoughts as they butterfly out of it's grasp - the caged bird is freed more easily than it is caught. With a sigh the eyes close and the mouth swallows. It stings and pounds and the words laugh from the white below.

There is no time.

Tomorrow waits with its claws out and sharpened and it grins - a grin that knows, a grin that taunts. There is no time.

Sunday 16 May 2010

Smile

It's strange, the things we realise. The things we need, want, don't want, will happen, won't happen. We worry, tapping our fingers and twisting our thumbs as the thoughts whistle around our heads and scratch at the surface. And in one moment...

It all goes away.

With the help of nothing but a smile.

Saturday 15 May 2010

Bruises

My legs are bruised and my hands are bruised. I can feel them even before they're there painting my skin.

And it's ugly.

The colours are sickly and they eat away at the lily-white around them. They are poison and they hurt.

Saturday 8 May 2010

Concrete

The steps rise to meet me, taking me by the hand and embracing me with such force that I utter a sharp gasp and clench my fists. My eyes stay wide as I still and remain there for a few moments. Moving away is harder than it should be. Dragging myself up and over to the wall, I sit there, breathless and clawing at the bricks.

I look to the sky and a cry escapes my mouth.

Friday 7 May 2010

Shoes

There they are
in the middle of the floor
conspicuously empty.

But neat.

They weren't there
before when I glanced
to the right. They moved.

I watch and they're still,
the transparent feet
leave them be

until I look away.

Facial Bookcase

It's handy, having this bookcase in the corner of my room where I keep all of your faces. Each and every one of you grins up at me, right at my fingertips. I don't even need to leave this room with all of the company I need, right here, on the shelves.

But I don't touch you, your faces, staring back at me, would grimace at a touch and a pull from your place on your shelf. It is forbidden.

I don't need to touch or to hear, not with my bookcase stood mightily, over there. All I need is to catch sight of the right face at the right time and everything is right - no need to talk. You tell me things, each one of you, with your unchanging faces and I know it's true because it is there, laying before my eyes. Seeing is believing.

Without my shelves and your faces I would be completely disconnected, cut from the interaction. It is such craved interaction that everyone is here, everyone of you, staring at me from the bookcase.

My face creases into a smile and you all smile back as I sit here, staring at you as you stare at me. We're so together, connected. We never need to leave this room.

Monday 3 May 2010

Fun House

"It's a fun house where the mirrors all reflect what's real / and reality's as twisted as the mirrors reveal / and the fun is finding out what the mirrors show..."

With their voices they soothe and unnerve, an echoing, disjointed harmony rises from the open lips and their smiles. With the glass there, it's hard to see them as they are. Tall? Short? Fat? Thin? The mirrors are everywhere and the secrets they hold are stuck fast.

A high pitched whisper from the left, a smile of deep, glistening red comes from a gap in between. Forward, you step, to follow that grin but your hand lands on cold. It's a mirror afterall.

That nasal voice from behind, the slow tipping of a hat. Beckoning. You spin. There's nothing there but your disfigured reflection.

And from your right a lumbering, heavy voice. The thump of passing footsteps. But still there is only the mirrors and you, twisting and turning. Lost in the place where reality lives, in the guise of plentiful disjointed images.

In this mirrored box you sit, waiting, just waiting to cast your eyes on the usual - on the you that looks back every morning from the one in your bathroom. But all you see is malformed versions of yourself, leering back at you.

The voices sing again;

"and the fun is finding out what the mirrors show..."