The Button Place

2011-09-03T19:54:00.002+01:00

I don't like that word. Six letters. The only six-thing that I don't like.

The most beautiful thing I have ever seen:

2011-06-23T02:00:00.000+01:00

He pulls her hands and the chair moves closer. The wheels move slowly. He keeps hold unwilling to let go until he has to and it is clear that we're no longer there.

He strokes her knucles with his thumb, "I'll be home on wednesday."

"And I'll be waiting." I can't see her face but I know she's smiling.

The repeat the words like a chant, both trying to convince the other that they mean it even though the other already knows. She doesn't want to leave and he doesn't want her to go. She is here, there is no doubt that she is here and she is his and he is hers.

Their kiss is soft and their eyes spell love with every look; they don't want to blink, to miss each other, but they know they have to. They repeat the words and whisper things that I can't hear.

It is not a goodbye, not really but they look at each other as if it is - my chest heaves. Wednesday. The word is a prayer.

They kiss again and everything is okay,

"I'll be home on wednesday."

"And I'll be waiting."

Sue wheels her out and she waves. He smiles after her from his seat by the bed. He looks up at me, eyes filled with words he doesn't say, "take care of yourself."

"I'll see you soon."

I can't help but smile as I walk down the corridors. I have seen love.

Wednesday

2011-06-23T01:45:00.000+01:00

Her smile is contagious: he's coming home. She's been talking and laughing and explaining things we already know but it doesn't matter because he's coming home.

She fidgets in her chair as we hear the crutches, she wants to get up but she knows she cant, she has to wait. She hears his voice before she sees him and her smile widens. He smiles too as he moves to his chair, the one beside hers. We hear dad laughing in the hall, he's on the other crutches. They both shake their head. She says something no one understands but it doesn't matter because she's happy and he's home.

There is a childish excitement in her, she wriggles and squirms next to him, fussing over whether he's alright. He's annoyed about the doctors and the hospital and his medication coming by taxi. She hears what he says but her mind relays it differently. She speaks and he looks confused but it doesn't matter because they're together again.

22/06/11

2011-06-23T01:40:00.001+01:00

She stares at the faces, smiles and clutches the yarn between her fingers. The needle is an old friend, a tool, a relic from a past life flowing with children and prams and homemade blankets. She runs a finger down the thread and on to her creation, the square is still soft in her grasp but yellowing stains crawl up its surface. It is old.

"I can still do it. I haven't done it for years but I can still do it." The thread is wrapped around the needle and the hook grabs at the blanket. The yarn slips from the metal. She smiles, "see, I can do it."

There are photographs everywhere: children, children's children, siblings, spouses. They decorate the room in mismatched frames and those that don't sit in a bag smelling of age and happiness. We look through them, thirsty for knowledge of family. I see my parents smiling, it was the day they met but already they look together. My dad tries to hide pictures of himself, silly hair and protruding ears. I see a woman and a child, my dad calls her a witch and the child Charlene. Mum and I puzzle over whether the long-haired young man in the photo is Dad or Uncle Stephen, even he has trouble. His sister sits to my side and laughs as she finds my dad's face peeking out from behind her, three brothers and another sister. I look at his siblings, my family, and try to guess which face belongs to which. She smiles at us, "Those are my memories."

She sounds far away, looks to the window and frowns. There is a cactus in the way but she sees through it past the curtain and past the glass, past the cars outside. I wonder what she's looking at.

"I have a photo of us," her hand waves towards my grandfather, "over there on the wall." The photo is enlarged and filled with vibrant colour. It sits in a gold frame. She smiles.

"That was at Micky's wedding." She looks smug.

"You're not wrong," my dad smiles and then a laugh creeps into his voice, "who's Micky?"

She stares at him, looks at us and stares again. She stays silent. He tests her again and I sink back into my seat. His question changes, "who am I?"

More silence. She blinks and wetness creeps under her eyes, not enough to spill over but the sheen remains. She's trying but it doesn't come. She clutches at her cardigan, blanket discarded.

"He's Micky. That's Micky." Grandad points. Dad laughs. You have to laugh... He can do nothing else.

"I know!" She's louder than before and she repeats the words, "I know it's Micky."

She stares at the faces and the photographs and I stare back as my family talk around me. She looks at the walls and the floor and the window.

She doesn't know their names.

You're ready to go

2011-06-23T01:36:00.003+01:00

Text from a blackout poem I put in India's leaver's book, made from our student news paper:

summer is here we know
the last
long
lazy after-
noons promise
lovely weather
and
you're ready to go.

what better way to fly
across the land
to
have done us proud.

So, carry on
into the Summer,
With a long break
and
plenty
to look forward to,
don't forget!

Things I should do more often:

2011-06-05T23:03:00.004+01:00

Empty the bin.
Write.
Put clothes away,
in proper places and not
on the chair.
Stop thinking about the scent
of you.
Go to bed early.
Get up early.
Have meaningful conversations.
Remember the faces of strangers
once met.
Talk to people
sitting on trains.
Think about nothing.
Rest.

Stop

2011-06-05T22:55:00.002+01:00

She tapped her fingers and hoped the words would happen. They didn't. She knew the story, she knew what happened next but the words didn't come. She couldn't find them.

The books were sprawled on the floor, pages crumpled. He knew what he was looking for, he had seen it before. It was a not-far-off memory but his search halted.

All ahead stop.

A moment

2011-06-05T22:51:00.004+01:00

I walk walls. Dark walls. He sits in the same spot and stares at the road. Grey hair in black night. I watch as he sits. He doesn't move. I pass by. Minutes. Then return. Still he sits.

I leave. Walk my walls. Walk home. He sits.

Follow me

2011-04-25T14:43:00.004+01:00

We walk with Abandon, we travel with Neglect and hold hands with Abdication. Desertion waits for us, the fork in the road is highlighted by his form and Forsake lingers behind. Relinquish takes a sip from the stream before he joins, broken trees bow to Rejection and Renouce and the party-pace quickens. We do not meet each others eyes, fear for them what lies in mine and fear for I for what might be found. Stop halts us there, at the fork and the last figure enters.

Guilt holds out a hand and a smile, teeth crooked, he beckons: follow me...

Lens

2011-01-29T23:48:00.004Z

My eyes are lenses and the world is distorted through them. Each moment is collected, archived by my retinas and sent down the nerve into my brain. Once there they settle and carve out houses in the grey matter. And wait.

Next Stop, Please

2010-12-31T18:58:00.003Z

The sketchbook is crinkled and browning from use, its covers are in tatters and the gold writing is too far away to decipher. The pages are not used in order but opened at random and spattered with ink.

He uses a brush tipped pen and his eyes never leave their target; his strokes are strong, swift, decisive and taken in with that eye. The eye that he tries to hide from the people around him. That eye, his eye.

He wears no bright colours, nor dark. Khaki greens and washed out greys and the kind of shoes favoured by those who take long walks, an inconspicuous coat and the startings of a beard. He is ordinary, time has etched premature lines in his face. He has the expression of one that does all the watching, he sinks into his sketches as he sinks into the surroundings; no one would watch him, he isn't there. He is colourless. He sees everything.

And yet, in his periphery he is being watched. Blue eyes follow his pen and his face and wish that they too had a note book to scrawl in. Both observers look now to the same face, just woken up and tilting the corners of his mouth downwards. The bottle in his hands is bent and almost empty but he still drinks from it, as if it is a lifeline. Perhaps, it is.

The invisible man stands, it's his stop.

And mine.

Wasteland

2010-12-27T17:26:00.003Z

Everything is white, the fields, the roads, the pathways, the sky. Everything is covered in the pure absence of colour. Nothing stirs, nothing disturbs the peace that is found there. Only the clouds roam above, their faces staring down at the sleeping wastelands below.

She sails foward, arms outstretched, pulling her cloak behind her. Her flight is as silent as the world below, her cheeks are rosy and her breath clouds the air but she is cold. Her hair flies behind, brittle as ice and her skin glistens, the moisture it may have once had gone. Her pure white eyes stare down at her creation, her season, her time and she smiles a wry smile.

In years past people had asked, begged and prayed for her to bless them with the tiny flakes of her dominion but she had not relented. She could not. But as she sat in her throne, resting between that last rule and this she had heard the other seasons plotting, warming and pushing her out. They were all so different, so separate from her, they all wanted the warmth, they wanted colours and she was neither of those.

There was nothing she could do but wait. She could not act while another was in power. The months seemed to her like years as her plan formulated, wound itself around her fragile senses until there was nothing else and ebbed away at her. Then the time came. Her time, and she leapt from her throne with a mighty cry. To those below it sounded like nothing but the whistling of the wind.

She cast her eyes on the other seasons, her smile moving to light her cold face, and she remained there for a few moments, allowing them to look upon her and think about what they had done. She said nothing as she left them and began her descent, throwing her vast cloak upon the world until everything was covered and no one moved. No one could. So cold was the world that nothing could break through the white, nothing could cry out to the other seasons and even if it could they would not be able to answer.

Her work was done, her frozen dominion created and the others looked on, powerless, as they watched the world suffocate under the cloak of their sister. There was nothing they could do.

Winter rose up and returned to her thrown, looking down upon her wasteland with a sick sense of triumph. This was her prize. This was her place. It always would be. Cloaked in the cold, pure white absence of colour.

Moleskine

2010-12-22T16:37:00.004Z

It has a life of its own and the figures move inside it when no one's looking. They may be messy and some might be unfinished but they take on the pages as a knight might take on a dragon. The book was coveted, wanted for so long and now that it sits closed on the table, I can't help but reach out for it, grasp the pen and scribble more life onto its pages.

Welcome to the family.

Where Else

2010-12-07T01:58:00.004Z

I don't like this, this ever-growing cycle of negativity. It's ugly and it's cold.

But there's no other way. I can't say how much it hurts. I can't say how each beat labours against my chest. I can't say how it feels to lose that breath, that life. I can't make it go away. I can't give some reason, some meaning behind it. I can't make it stop.

So this is my canvas. These words are all I can do.

Nothing can stop this repulsive, retching spew of of ice and burden and evil. Nothing can quell this shivering fear.

So where else shall I do this? Where else but here.

Music

2010-12-02T13:49:00.002Z

There is happiness in these notes, even if the words do not agree. There is a smile waiting there in the sound of each instrument. Each track is new and exciting and each track makes me listen. I do so gladly.

There's nothing quite like it.

Curve

2010-11-26T17:49:00.002Z

It's getting there, slowly. It's not, nor will it ever be, perfect. It's almost right. Almost. It will be. Soon.

Keep it up, girl. You're getting there.

2010-11-24T01:17:00.002Z

'I died the day you disappeared so why would you be welcome here?'

A Fine Frenzy - Elements

Gratitude

2010-11-24T00:42:00.003Z

I tell everything to these pages, and to you, and they and you both listen. Rare is an explanation, rarer still is any further mention but still they and you remain and listen. The words aren't clear, each typing breath pulls its riddles close and keeps its secrets, but there's always that comfort that these pages keep, that you will read it.

I never really say thank you.

I should.

Everything

2010-11-23T23:33:00.005Z

Everything is sped up, except the time. The time stays steady and constant as the world and I thrum around it, thrumming and thrumming until something clicks to make us stop. Through the speed I see shapes and visions and memories and moments just out of my reach and I feel like running to catch them. But I can't run. I can't stand. It gets light then, lighter and airier than it is already - and it is very light. I do not feel that I am inside this body and this body doesn't feel me. I keep thrumming with the world.

Everything is erratic, everything flicks out and snatches and catches at the air. I catch at my teeth as the words try to slip through, out of their cage and into the space in front. It is not the words and the mouth that misbehave; it is the letters and the fingers that tap out their treachery and I can do nothing to stop them. They just keep tapping and tapping and tapping and I keep thrumming with the world.

Everything is twisted, wrong and the wall doesn't look like it should do. Instead it stares out, each small lump gazing at me and following as I move. All the colours seem to have changed in this haste, as if they might be different when I'm not looking but quickly turn back so that I don't see them. I'm too fast for them now. I'm too fast and they're forgetting and they're different. The words on my wall pulse, they want to be read, they want to be known. I won't look at them, scared they may not say the things that I'm used to, worried that their words might twist and become darker. They're changing and twisting and they just keep tapping and tapping and tapping and I keep thrumming with the world.

Everything is so loud but there is nothing but the unfamiliar music drifting in and out of my ears, and the tapping. Still there is a buzzing inside my head and my room and the space around. Sometimes the familiar sounds creep up and shock me, I don't expect them but they come anyway and I find myself clinging to the strings between this body and I. If all was quiet and this music was away from my senses I would be forced to listen to the silence and the walls would continue to stare and I would shrink smaller and smaller until I was no more. But the music keeps playing. There is a buzzing in my head and they're changing and twisting and they just keep tapping and tapping and tapping and I keep thrumming with the world.

Everything breathes a scent remembered but it runs away and it doesn't let me hold it and recognise it as I should. I can't find it when it hides between the clutterings of this room; I know it's there but it slips past, it doesn't want me to find it. And I don't want to make it angry, so I let it slip. It keeps sliding away and between and there is a buzzing in my head and they're changing and twisting and they just keep tapping and tapping and tapping and I keep thrumming with the world.

Everything feels alive, my fingers recoil as if bitten and they don't stay in the same place for too long. They can't. They don't want to be caught and I don't want them to either. I don't understand why these living things are so eager to hurt and scrape and I don't understand why they're not moving. They stay still but I don't want to turn away. Just in case. They bite at me and it keeps sliding away and between and there is a buzzing in my head and they're changing and twisting and they just keep tapping and tapping and tapping and I keep thrumming with the world.

Everything is angry and sad and malovent but it still grins and emits happiness - so much so that it must still feel it. Everything is mixed up in this room and nothing knows where it's going and my body seems far away. I want to move towards it, to reclaim it like I should but everything is strange and I and my body keep moving further apart without meaning to. My voice doesn't work, I want to speak but nothing happens. It is still there, sitting in the back of my throat along with my body but I can't make my body use it, we're too far away. I want to tell everything to calm and to move back to their normal places and colours and sounds but I can't and I'm stuck here. It grins and they bite at me and it keeps sliding away and between and there is a buzzing in my head and they're changing and twisting and they just keep tapping and tapping and tapping and I keep thrumming with the world.

And I'm stuck here.

I, she, we

2010-11-10T00:51:00.004Z

I watch her, she moves differently and she thinks differently and she is not entirely there. And I watch her. I cannot say where I am; I've never been here before and I cannot tell you its name. She and I are connected, we hear, we see, we speak, we breathe the same and yet, I can't understand her. Not now. Not as I drift behind and I watch.

I'm out and she is in; we should be together but something separates us, something we can't see. We can feel it there, like a thin sheet not substantial enough to block out the warmth of our identical features. She is the concrete and I the abstract. It is a wrong sensation, it does not fit with what we know; we do not fit with what we know, we are different.

We move now, together, but still there is a breath between us and we remain separate. We remain two.

In this moment, I don't recall that normal sensation of being only one.

Treaty

2010-10-26T12:42:00.005+01:00

Pertaining to the events on the morning of November 26th in the year 2010 and the disappearance of Cedric.

It was weeks since the treaty was written and signed by both parties, the bigger inhabitant laid down specific rules for her tiny room-guest and he obeyed them diligently. Cedric was amiable in nature and as far as I could tell he did not have a like of trouble. He kept to himself mostly, only venturing out into the open to say the odd hello before scurrying back to whatever hidey-hole he had picked out. I saw him a few times daily. He wasn't a big talker, he much preferred to let me fill the silences with stories of my day and sometimes leant an ear to my complaints. We lived in harmony with neither insulting the other and neither breaking the treaty.

The treaty was as follows:

Any guest should feel welcome to stay any length of time s/he wishes so long as they respect the wishes of the present occupier. Guests should stay off of the floor and away from any of the occupier's extremities, guests should also stay away from the sleeping area of the occupier and not hang in mid-air as it is both dangerous and unnerving. Respect should always be given to the occupier and any other guests that may be present, as such no guest should mock, irritate or consume any other guest, no guest should bully or threaten any other guest and guests should always obey the occupier. Failure to comply with these requests will result in expulsion and exile, as decreed by the court of the occupier, fair trial will be given on most circumstances. However, should the occupier suspect any gross rule breakage and ill-intent she retains the right to exile without trial.

The weeks passed without event until the morning of November 26th 2010. Upon waking I went to the bathroom to have a shower, when I returned to my room I did not think to look up at the ceiling and so was not aware that I had two potentially new room guests. I discovered them when getting dressed - after pulling a t-shirt over my head I noticed a dark, blurred shape in front of my face and after some squinting (I was not wearing my glasses) I discovered, to my horror, that it was another room guest much larger than Cedric in breach of the treaty. I named it, for the purposes of simplicity, Not-Cedric 1. From that moment I knew that something wasn't right and scrambled for my glasses.

On the ceiling was the other potentially new guest, slightly smaller than the first, who I named Not-Cedric 2. As this was the first time I had seen them I presumed that they had not been informed of the treaty and so explained the terms, letting them off for the time being, and went back to my business for a few seconds. I lifted my eyes once more to the ceiling to find that Not-Cedric 2 had disappeared. I looked about the room, in each and every corner and couldn't find him anywhere. I knew he couldn't move very fast because he had been moving when I first spotted him. It was this search that lead me to discover that Cedric, himself, was also missing.

It was then that I approached Not-Cedric 1, who seemed to have a look about him that reeked evil. He ignored my every question and simply moved to and fro and danced mockingly on the ceiling. At one point he decided to practise his acrobatics, which were mediocre, I think. It was not until I was drying my hair, and keeping one keen eye on Not-Cedric 1, that a thought struck me: he had eaten Not-Cedric 2 when my back was turned and it wouldn't surprise me if they had both eaten Cedric while I showered. Not-Cedric 1 was certainly bigger than Cedric and certainly could have been quite the bully. But he did not scare me.

I endeavoured to give him a fair trial despite his complete and utter disregard for my wishes; the trial was long and he spent most of it ignoring me and moving through my room without, it seemed, a care in the world. The event that I now speak of was the final straw, the final note, the deciding factor in the trial, which lead to the trial being thrown aside for more extreme measures: he slowly began lowering himself towards my pillow. I tried to warn him, I tried to tell him not to but he did not listen. And that was how Not-Cedric 1 was exiled from my room.

I have no doubt that he will be back, trying once more to breathe a breath of anarchy into my room. His crimes should have condemned him to death but being the affable host that I am I do not believe in killing guests even if they do break my treaty. If/when he returns ... I will be ready for him.

Signed,
KeyChild.

Neglect

2010-10-14T15:44:00.003+01:00

My hands travel across familiar keys and my mind sinks into this familiar page as it sings apologies to the non-existent spirit that lives in its backdrop and in each letter and each pixel. It stays still, unresponsive but I know it will accept this gift of words, my offering, my plea for forgiveness. Still, I feel the flush fingers of guilt creeping up my back to circle my neck and force penance for my neglect.

But they ask no reason. They pray no explanation for the absence of my phrases.

I beg and crawl and beseech them to let me tell all, to let me draw the map causes and consequences. But they are not open to my voice.

Instead, they tap their nails on my skin and they wait for their message to sink in.

454000 words

2010-08-19T16:29:00.002+01:00

If a picture paints 1000 words, we have 454000 from a few hours and a lot of laughs. And that makes me smile. And they make me smile.

Always.

Bottlecap

2010-08-19T16:07:00.004+01:00

The blue looks like a potion, some spell, between my fingers. The glass is cold and the liquid shines. Twisting the tin cap, the bottle is relieved of its hat. They put messages inside these caps, some small uplifting words to make your day brighter or to make you buy more in the hopes that you'll get another.

I sip the sweet bubblegum taste as the cap sits, curled, in my palm. It tastes familiar and yet better all at once, I am reminded. Mouth wash. Braces. 6 months. Off. I smile. I had been looking for this flavour.

My fingertips trace the edges as I move the cap in my hand, pulling it into my eyeline. The blue winks up at me. I smile again.

She's sat in the next chair over, her hair is falling into her face as she talks of success. I grin and she responds with expected confusion. It knew. I read the words aloud, she takes them in, understands and smiles bright.

Your life will be filled with sunshine.

Yes. Yes, it will.

Detail

2010-08-19T15:26:00.002+01:00

The image is crisp, precise, delicate and I hold it with care. It has been a long time since colours last looked so vivid, alive and the light accentuated the intricate edges and patterns of each small surface. I look upon the world with new eyes. Glossy, glass, framed in a transluscent lilac.

Waiting Room

2010-08-12T20:33:00.003+01:00

There's barely anyone here as I wait and the sky applauds the rain outside. I watch it from my seat, here, by the window. Pathetic Fallacy, they call it. Pathetic.

They've started to turn the lights off and everything is slowly falling into shadows, heightened by the storm clouds outside. People come and go, never talking to anyone else. Except that one. He's strange, the one to my left, he's talking to himself and everyone else and he keeps dropping the phone in his hand as if unaware that it is there at all.

He wasn't alone when he entered, the other left his side and is yet to leave the bathroom. They look like the kind of people you stay away from but want to watch to see what they'll do and how. They have a danger about them that you can't tear away from.

"Who is it this time?" His too loud voice makes me jump, I glance towards him but quickly look away.

"Christine, the grey haired lady."

"Oh, I like her. She's good. She doesn't hurt me."

The receptionist laughs, it's a nervous sound that resonates through the room. I don't move until they call my name.

Room five.

Le Manège Carre Sénart

2010-08-02T18:47:00.005+01:00

It moves round slowly and its music echoes in an off tone, some notes are out and others are best left unspoken of. The animals, climb, spin, float mechanically and the people 'oo' and 'ah' and wonder if it's real. There's a smile as the french contraption slows, lowers, halts. It's like stepping in and out of a novel, like drifting in and out of a far off dream.

Wired

2010-08-02T18:29:00.003+01:00

Wires, born from a small black box with two blinking lights like eyes, slithered up and attached themselves to my skin. And when a button was pressed it would call out in shrill tones, wait for some minutes and call out once more. This thing, this machine, this parasite stuck, remained, held tightly before time bade me pull it free and send it back from whence it came.

It left a residue, then a mark. A mark still pasted to my skin, an off colouring. A claim.

I can't tell you

2010-07-15T23:29:00.002+01:00

It hurts. There are no metaphors or similes to twist the feeling into, to give it a meaning deeper than it already has - it just hurts. It aches and it stabs and it makes my head feel empty and light. It makes the world change, become less real. It's a little bit like a dream, the feeling in my head. But it still hurts. I can't change the hurt.

I don't know what it is and that irritates me. I know where it is, I can pin-point it almost exactly. I can tell you what happens when my heart beats faster than it should and what happens when the air refuses to fill my lungs. But I can't tell you what it is.

I can't tell you how much pain I feel or how tight my chest is and how cottony my throat feels. I can't give it metaphors or images. I can't compare it to something you'd understand. I can't tell you because I don't understand. And it irritates me. And I'm scared.

It hurts. And I can't turn it into a story. It isn't one.

Excuses

2010-07-14T16:59:00.002+01:00

My fingers move, picking up more reasons to delay the inevitable. The erratic weather cloaks my brain in its very own fog of insecurity. There are so many things I should be doing. But I won't, instead I will find another excuse, another reason why I can't do what I should do and what I need to do.

What happens when you run out of excuses?

Singing

2010-07-12T23:45:00.002+01:00

And they sing to the sound of the railway tracks. The song has no name but they're always chorusing and chorusing. No one knows why.

The Write Ways

2010-07-04T19:34:00.003+01:00

A fresh page, a seed, a cake mixture waiting to be cooked; another project barely started. It is new, it has no smell of its own, only that generic smell that comes with newness. It will grow into its own in time. It twitches lightly, wanting to move, wanting to live, to breathe life into something greater than itself.

And it will.

The Write Ways

We did it

2010-07-02T19:04:00.001+01:00

Relief falls in waves, neglect is erased and there's a happy sigh.

We did it.

On to the future.

Empty

2010-06-05T00:20:00.003+01:00

It's a wonder what a few books will do when neatly lined up on the mantle piece.

There shall be no sleep here tonight. This room is changed. Though everything is still present, it sits it different places and the light falls in different ways - the shadows take different shapes. It is new. There can be no comfort in new things.

Though drowsiness pulls attentively at the eyelids, there will be no sleep.

Brass

2010-06-04T23:56:00.004+01:00

"Rats!"

"What?"

"There are rats on the chimney!"

Ah, yes. The brass winks in the sunset, smiling as it glows in the autumn-coloured light like something out of a Gaiman novel. Pretty but decidedly Gothic, sat atop the old building. Perhaps, they guard. Perhaps, they curse.

The house below is nothing out of the ordinary, it sits within view from the wall. There are no conspicuously closed curtains or signs of oddity. It is perfectly ordinary.

But once again, my eyes are drawn to the highest point, to the tails that curl around the terracotta. A pigeon sits behind, two houses away. It watches as my eyes pass over the neighbouring buildings.

Tilting my head slightly, I scrutinise them further, "Odd."

Shells

2010-05-29T02:34:00.007+01:00

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?

Future

2010-05-28T22:19:00.003+01:00

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.

Post-haste

2010-05-27T13:57:00.004+01:00

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.

Smile

2010-05-16T21:31:00.003+01:00

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.

Bruises

2010-05-15T09:47:00.004+01:00

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.

Concrete

2010-05-08T23:09:00.004+01:00

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.

Shoes

2010-05-07T01:09:00.003+01:00

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

2010-05-07T00:49:00.004+01:00

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.

Fun House

2010-05-03T14:33:00.004+01:00

"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..."

Smoke

2010-04-25T01:04:00.004+01:00

Each voice is loud and each conversation drifts in and out of not-so attentive ears - it is the eyes that are captivated, roaming the fence-bound land in front, picking up specks of a forbidden language. A hand brushes, eyes sweep and linger, backs turn and shoulders hunch. Their voices are piercing but their actions deafen. Each one of them a world of reaction and a husky whisper in a foreign tongue. In their pairs, they make a universe, full of words unsaid through tongue and lips. For hours, they could be watched and catalogued, each movement, each subtle wave of feeling placed in the pages of an empty book - though it would be full within minutes.

They stop. Heads turn in one direction and there is unity for a moment -

It's bright, so bright that their faces glow and their eyes reflect an off colour, an inhuman colour. It starts small, then grows with the breaking of wood and the ripping of unread newspapers. Language is lost and all falls silent as eyes focus and stare, nothing moves but the curling of the flames.

But with each stare, a different whisper comes, growing louder as the smoke makes circles in the air and the floating black of burnt paper spirals upwards with the wind. The bodies shift away from the light as it licks towards them, begging and pleading for them to come closer. But they know to step back, every movement mutters a tense curse - some so loud they're shouting.

But they do not hear it with their ears, they just stand and watch the smoke as it mates with the air. Unaware of their screaming, their yelling in the language only the eyes can decipher.

Their eyes stare at the light, reflecting an inhuman colour and the smoke drifts.

Summer

2010-04-17T19:00:00.003+01:00

The shine pools in through the window warming bare shoulders and gently caressing a brighter mood. Everything feels better in the sunshine. The hills roll in the distance, like painted clouds, fallen and anchored to the ground.

From the old weather-worn and warped windows miles can be seen, the sleepy villages bedded on the hillside waking with the sunlight and the heat and playing beneath the cloudless blue.

And as the sun begins its slow descent beneath the horizon, the trees sway, dancing to the tune of the birds.

Mine

2010-04-11T00:39:00.002+01:00

It's late. It's always late when I decide to twitch my mind towards this chequered background and these winding words. Even with absences it still feels like home - there is a place here, a place connected to my founding organ. The link pulses with every beat, strengthening and binding itself. It cannot be broken. I sit in different places, different homes, different minds sometimes but it remains, here, safe, same.

As I am in transition, between two places and another, it waits. It is kind, forgiving. There is no ill, no abandonment. It is mine and I am its.

It waits here, a constant friend, ready at any hour. It's always late when I decide to come here but it's always waiting for me. Listening.

Cacti

2010-04-01T21:15:00.004+01:00

One day it will be all filled with cacti, tall and thin and up to the sky. If you could see the sky. Each visit, there is a new one in a pot on the floor. It feels exotic, though it is everything but. A smile, a soft accent, a new word. Cockahoop. It feels a lot like another home.

Frequency

2010-03-22T01:03:00.004Z

It does weird things to my head, this song. My ear seems to hone in to something that shouldn't be there. Perhaps, it is a message, a hidden frequency meant for only those who are in tune with it, with the sound.

Long shadows lure you in...

It is neither pleasant nor unpleasant but no instrument nor voice could make it. My ears strain each time they try to hear, as if it isn't there and it's only my imagination. And what if it is?

The more you look the less you see...

Pursed lips and a furrowed brow, face like a raisin lacking in colour - what a picture. But it's still there, that sound.

So close your eyes and start to breathe...

Ah! The song alters, slips into its ending with a change - the sound is gone. The hidden frequency. And I'm in tune.

Friendship

2010-03-20T18:55:00.004Z

Fast friends, that's what you could call us. There was a certain pull that drew me to you, I needed to come to you. And I did. You were always so accommodating that I couldn't help but stagger back to you. You opened yourself to me and I you. You didn't care how my hair looked or that I wasn't properly dressed, you just waited. You're loyal - I can't imagine you being so with anyone else but I know you could, your kindness is boundless. You ask for nothing but I know I must pay you back some how, you don't refuse me when I do, you just wait until I'm finished. I can't help but feel you smile afterwards, you appreciate everything. You're truly self-less. A true, loyal, ever-giving friend. Cherished and loved.

It's a shame you're a sink.

Mirrors

2010-03-17T16:30:00.003Z

I stole your face and put it on the mirror. It was the only way, the only way I could keep you. But now, every time I try to see myself, your face engulfs mine and fixes itself in that knowing expression. I try to tell you that it couldn't be helped, that I had to. But you don't listen. Your face stays and stares and I can't look at it anymore.

I covered them all, every single one. Even the windows. Just so you can't get to me. I know you want to. But I won't let you. I should never have taken your face and now you punish me, you follow my steps and giggle at my wandering thoughts.

You're still there. Even though I put the rest of you far away, I hid you. But still, you come at me, without your face. I point you to the mirror. But you can't see it. You have no eyes.

I suppose you just want to be with your face, on the mirror. So I'll put you up there. Piece by piece.

Pulse

2010-03-15T01:21:00.005Z

Close your eyes and dive, the pulse is all you know and all you feel and all you hear. It beats, changing every so often for a more tantalising atmosphere. You're alone, it's just you.

Open your eyes. There's a sea and you're swept with it. It has eyes and hands and mouths, teeth and tongues. It sings with the pulse. The crowd engulf the atmosphere and sweeps you into its hands - you're not alone.

The pulse stops. Darkness.

And then, they roar.

RE: Pro and Prod

2010-03-12T14:57:00.004Z

Pro sits on my shoulder, he leapt out of my brain when the thought of bringing Prod out for a time slipped into my mind. He shows me things, new things that I have never seen before, to tempt me, to stop me from remembering Prod. Suddenly I am itching to be creative, life is at my finger tips, waiting for me but Prod sits at the back of my mind, scratching at me and reminding me that I need to work. Deadlines. Deadlines.

But there is such fun to be had, Pro whispers from his spot on my shoulder. I sigh, I know he is right but I cannot succumb to him. Prod smiles from inside my head, he knows I will thank him for it later and I will.

Curious

2010-03-06T00:54:00.007Z

I lost myself once. I was falling and falling and falling and it was nothing like I'd ever seen before. Curious. But I scarcely remember, it escapes me how I came to lose myself - for a self is not an easy thing to lose, it is quite firmly attached to one's person. I quite often wonder if I'd gone mad and a small voice seems to agree with me most vigorously, we're all mad down here.

Down where? I'd ask myself and then I'd remember falling. Sometimes I fall into such fancy to imagine that I was chasing time itself and that was how I'd come to fall. But that would be silly. Ridiculous.

When I came to find myself, I felt as if I had found a lot more than I had lost. There was something different about the 'me' that I had found but I don't recall what it was. Sometimes I think phrases like as mad as a hatter and feel I know something I shouldn't. But it's all fancy. All fantasy.

But I can't help but wonder why the cat keeps grinning at me...

Reverie

2010-03-04T15:38:00.004Z

Last night's make-up lines my face as if some southward emotion plagued me as I slept. The liquid reaction, only made evident by the black lines, makes my cheeks sticky. I raise my hand to them before moving to the sink. Cold water, fresh, livening. I don't remember my dream but I know that it didn't come unexpected.

I brush my teeth, the sick, night-old alcohol taste moving out of my mouth and into the sink with the tooth paste. It's refreshing. There are no after-affects from the vigorous liquid consumption of the night before. The only thing it had an effect on was the change in my purse and my state before I slept.

I remember vaguely what felt like walking in a dream but I know, with perfect clarity, that I was awake. But I didn't speak. Six familiar voices floated around me but I didn't join them, I simply listened while I walked, eyes starward. It was the first time that I had looked up to the ink in so long. I'd avoided the stars as best I could.

But when I looked up in my dream-like state, I saw nothing. Black ink. Cities, stars disappear in cities. An unfamiliar feeling of dread welled up in my stomach, it shouldn't be empty.

One voice pulled me from my reverie. Let's go on the wall, it's above the light and you can see the stars.

There were more steps than I'd expected and the stone barrier that would stop you from toppling off of the wall was lower. I looked up. There you are. I traced constellations with my eyes, ones that already existed and ones that I had created myself. I thought of stories, then and I was almost sure that they thought of me too. Then memories.

I tore my eyes away and looked down to the road far below. I should've been nervous, shaking. Heights. But I wasn't. My eyes moved to my hands, only now noticing how cold they were - too cold. The familiar, painful tingle swept from my tips up to my arms. My teeth ground against each other as I pushed the sensation back. The voice again, Come on, we're going.

We walked down the stairs, his arm around my shoulders and singing something that I can't remember. As we reached the bottom, we laughed and I spoke again.

March: Aries

2010-03-02T23:31:00.005Z

Aries March 20 — April 19
If you leave the house with an industrial magnet hidden under your hat this week, you could lose your footing when the bus arrives. The fates are sending you messages on street signs. If the "Don't Walk" sign flashes your name in Morse code, you might want to step into traffic. Don't.

-Taken from ReadWritePoem.

Beneath my hat and hair is a world of ideas and they're out to get them. I know. Whenever I cross a street they lurch towards me, rage evident in their lumbering forms. They're fast, faster than they look and they tower over me as I am pulled away. Until that moment I remain unaware of their presence, lost in the life and activity around me as it paints pictures in my mind. The pictures are prettier than real-life, imbued with such shuddering colours that I can do nothing but halt my movements and stare - the oncoming traffic can wait.

I can feel the earth in my stride, it calls to me, telling its secrets so that I may write them down with the flourish of my pen. Don't walk, not yet. My mind fumbles over the words confused over their intentions even though the meaning is clear. I feel the pull of the tarmac. I hear it whispering sweetly in my ear, though it is far away. Don't walk. Please, don't walk.

My foot readies to step on the road.

And I'm on the floor, panting, as it roars past. A concerned face sits behind me, still holding onto my arm. The earth breathes a sigh of relief but I only look confused.

Crystals

2010-02-27T18:24:00.006Z

It's dark outside but I didn't notice. My eyes are fixed on the screen but occasionally glancing at the crystals that sit beside. They're pretty and free from dizzying thoughts, like those that are in my head. They're beautiful, sparkling colours, delicate in their very existence. They'd need only a small touch to be shattered into the white dish they stand in. They confuse me. I don't understand how they work and I cannot touch them to find out. I crave answers to their beauty. But the answers won't come from looking at it.

I sit back and sigh. They remain a mystery and my eyes remain enthralled.

Distracted

2010-02-26T23:07:00.010Z

I can't concentrate, my eyes flicker at every sound, every tick of the watch that lays discarded on my desk. My hands twitch to every object, foreign, familiar and settle there for only moments before moving on. I can't think straight, every line curves and splits and zig-zags across my inner vision. It's chaotic, like a dance to more than one piece of music. I press my temples and the world stops spinning.

Though every sound is heard, it is not taken in, not understood as it should be. I flinch at words that should amuse, become sensitive and ignore the speech that drifts through the air and into my ears. It's a little too much to handle. I withdraw, sit inside myself, inside my mind for a while just listening to the cogs as they turn, powering me. Their machine. With one subtle click the auto-pilot turns on and takes over - flickering at each noise and tapping fingers on each available surface and as inattentive as I would be were I in control.

My mind creases under the weight of my thoughts and I find myself lost in their labyrinthine walk-ways. Shafts of light catch me as I run and branches scrape at my skin. Too deep now for the outside to notice but a hand across my eyes, attentive and fixed on the grain of the wood in front of me, pulls me back out of the labyrinth and into the world where hands are always kept busy - tugging, picking, flicking, twitching, turning - and I hear every tick.

I don't notice when it stops, the ticking sounds and the talking, I am too far off again in my own world but the wood doesn't seem so interesting. It is only when I think of it, through my haze of muddled threads and strings, that I notice it isn't there. I glance to my left, pick up the offending object and look at its face. It's still going. Holding it to my ear doesn't make it easier - the sound is absent. I frown. It has my full attention now. But still there is nothing.

Though no longer trapped in my labyrinth I am still far away, this time held between three hands, in motion and yet not audible. It is only when I distract myself from it, with a glance towards the scattered doodlings on my right, that it returns. The ticking. But every time I register, every time I look towards it the sound fades. It taunts me. I glare down at it, pondering its motives and wondering what I could have done to make it want to trick me, to harm me.

I close my eyes, the muffled sounds of life outside of this room pervading my senses. They are alive, active, and they laugh. I exist, wandering these halls and streets not really there but not all gone either, distracted - something's missing. There's too much going on inside, it's hard to concentrate, hard to act convincingly there. Hard for me. But to them it seems normal, right, true.

My mind twists again, puzzling the pieces it left behind. Eyes still closed and sleep still far away and an emptiness tugging at my stomach. My mind wanders; too much, too much. It slips.

I sit, it knows when I'm looking at it, as soon as my eyes leave it begins again. Tick, tick, tick, calling for my attention, begging almost. It's so loud. But as soon as my gaze fixes upon it, it stops. Unconsciously, I shake my head, what am I doing?

Vision

2010-02-25T14:41:00.004Z

It takes you, pulls you in and drags you under. But it's not unpleasant, not at all like drowning. It's more like swimming in a sea of clouds and shimmering raindrops frozen in place but still soft, living, movable. Each move you make is a ripple, as if in water, that moves the time around you. It's mystifying, new, it's a world you've never experienced and yet you know it. It is familiar.

Though you're high in the air, and the air is like water, you're not cold. You feel the warmth around you like an embrace, close your eyes and sink in. It pulls you further past every pigment of colour, which flash beneath your eyelids and swim through you mind.

A cool air caresses your face like silk as you open your eyes, it carries you like a leaf settled on a quick shaft of wind and there's nothing that you cannot see. Everything is in perfect detail and every colour in perfect clarity, you see each metaphor as it creates itself, each allusion, each rhythm as it starts.

You are the creator, the believer, the puppeteer and musician. You are the King, Queen, ruler and this is your kingdom

RE: Going Without

2010-02-23T01:27:00.002Z

But what if the sleep does not claim me and the nagging gets stronger? What then do I do with my time in the late hours? What then do I use to distract myself from its pull?

My mind tells me: use what you know, what you don't have, what you do. But it's hard to memorise when the words jumble in my head, tickled by the fingers of the nagging hand. My sheet is crumpled but I cling to it. It cannot uncurl my clasping fingers even though it tries. But what if the sleep never comes? My fingers loosen. It will. Tighten once more. It's just lack of sleep, the tiredness eating at my form - it's nothing. It just makes you weak, not having that bliss of rest and it likes it when you're weak, sleep tells me. I nod, agree. You're right.

It is in the late hours that I wonder about myself, about what drives me and what fails me, about the nagging in my mind and the sneaking at the corners of my eyes. And before I sleep I doubt myself and I wonder 'what are you doing here?'

Silence.

Going Without

2010-02-23T00:54:00.004Z

I feel at a loss without it, without this thing that I do. This almost compulsive need when the twinge is there. Without it, I have so much time. So much flowing between my hands and through my toes that I don't know where to store it all. I don't know which box to keep it in, which shelf to reorganise so that it all fits neatly. I thought it would be easy, without it there to tempt me, without it open and wriggling across my palm until I finally give in. But it's not. I find myself wondering if it's worth going out and buying something, just to give me somewhere to put my time. Something to stop me wasting it. To stop me craving it.

It's going well. The hollow feeling can be dealt with until the late hours. Then it's hard - it wriggles into my mind, begging and pleading and wanting. Tasting me and my need. It nags at the corners, fraying my thin sheets as it picks away at the threads. The late hours are the worst. It has gone past a feeling of victory and on to a question: why? I wring my fingers as if they will give me answers. My head thumps, go to sleep, but the nagging continues, the begging grows more insistent. I close my eyes. Ignoring it gets easier as the sleep pulls at my arms and my legs. It's better this way, it whispers. And it is. It's the better way, the good way. The other way was dangerous, it tells me, this way is sensible. It works.

I feel at a loss without it, without this thing that I do. But when sleep pulls me in I don't notice, the begging fades and does not come back until the late hours return. It's a circle, a cycle of want and need and rejection. It's waiting for me, waiting for the snap in my resolve, the crack that breaks through, the rip that tears from the frays in my thin sheet.

It's waiting.

Need

2010-02-23T00:33:00.003Z

It clings to you, like something out of a too-old sci-fi movie, and it doesn't want to let go. It makes everything slow and sticky and hard to get out of your system. It needs no reasoning, it just is. That's what they say. But it hates you, such writhing hate that it could hardly breathe if a breath was something it needed. Yet, it needs you, loves you, wants you to stay - wants to stay with you. So it sticks, clings, claws with all its might. Sometimes it manages it.

Until you breathe. Close your eyes and realise that it's all over. It's finished. It's done with.

It changes hands and it's gone, with nothing but a green slip to remember it by.

Fate

2010-02-14T22:39:00.007Z

I wrote of you, in the beginning, and asked you how it felt to live but I didn't realise, didn't see that you were only an image, only a thought. Only a record in the space of a dream. Now, you live.

I saw you sat there on the shelf and had to look twice. You winked at me then, called my name and whispered to me your secrets. I picked you up, caressing your textured cover and I knew you were mine.

"Do you need a bag, miss?"

"No, I'm fine."

Hello, Other Blog. How are you feeling now that you really exist?

RE: Performance

2010-02-06T23:22:00.003Z

We're trying. We're laughing.

And we're good.

Wherever we end up, these are the times we'll remember. And we'll laugh.

Performance

2010-02-04T20:13:00.004Z

Coloured lights diffuse through smoke as a lilting acoustic drifts, the room is calm. Crowded. We sit on steps aware of each note and cadence, comparing notes in our minds.

We could do it better, if only we tried.

But instead we sit on steps, comparing notes in our minds.

525,600 Minutes

2010-01-28T03:35:00.006Z

Silver-lined tears and smiles - we're all playing, living, breathing, existing, experiencing silver-lined songs, soundtracks, lives and loves. Breathe. Sing. Move. Live. Love.

A leaf falls, remembering forgotten autumn as the birds sing in the small of the morning. No day but today.

Targets

2010-01-26T19:31:00.003Z

Prints dance across warm faux-metal colours, painting their ideas into the program - it is funny that such logic, such a thing made from numbers, symbols and things that most don't understand can be made home to such creative thought, such vastness, so many worlds and peoples. It is strange that such freedom can be held under such a tight schedule. Two thousand a day, no less. More is allowed, more is always allowed, welcomed and respected. But never less.

Progress comes from these dancing fingers as they make their mark on the program, weaving such beauty that the program, if it had feelings, might collapse onto its hypothetical knees and pray to the spectacled gods that created it.

And it should.

The program pales beneath the life it holds in its hypothetical hands as the dancing print-steps continue on in regimented specs of progress.

Two thousand a day, no less.

Words

2010-01-25T14:39:00.001Z

The travel in great numbers, quickly spreading their rune-like shapes across the white of my page.

Anon

2010-01-24T18:29:00.004Z

So many faces, blinking, speaking, screeching. Passing by and living their lives, as you'd expect it. Crowded streets are always so fascinating, so indescribably full of ideas and moments that you could get lost just looking at them. And you do. I see it in your face and I watch it as it grips you, takes you in and drags you under.

It is a happy coincidence that you and I are to be sat here on the same day, watching the street and cataloguing the faces. Your face in mine and mine in yours. The anonymous stranger sat two tables away, wondering what it is you could be thinking.

Decorating

2010-01-24T17:43:00.004Z

It's like playing chess, having a backdrop such as this - an eternal game, as eternal as it gets in the ferocious grip of cyberspace. Things change here, a lot of things. It only takes a slash or a space or a semi-colon and something is different. Not noticeable. But still - different. It's your move, sir.

There are always things to do and things to change, little details that aren't quite right and need a little thought before altering. One might not even notice them once they are changed... but knowing they have been leave satisfaction and pride.

The welcome mat is always important. It must be pleasing, inviting - unless, of course, you don't want anyone to visit. Then one would ask, why? Why are you here? This place is so public, so far from private that you must want a visitor. And you would sit. Smile a little and say once again: It's your move, sir.

Pro and Prod

2010-01-22T16:06:00.003Z

Pro is controlling, he sits on the grey matter with that spark in his eye and that smirk that gets exactly what it wants. Trying to talk to him leads only to a snappy remark; "Only friends call me Pro." Others don't get a name for him, they aren't worthy of addressing him but they know who he is and what he embodies. He won't talk to them after that. He's very stubborn.

Prod mopes. Sat in his little cave beneath the grey matter Pro keeps him locked up. Some say they are one in the same. A schizophrenic separated into two imaginary bodies. Prod is not happy but anyone can call him Prod - he has many friends.

He doesn't see them. Not in his little, pulsing cave. Pro stops him from doing everything and anything he wants. He isn't allowed. He's bound to doing exactly what Pro says.

He isn't happy.

But sometimes, if he concentrates and tries hard enough, he can slip through the bars and move up to the surface without Pro noticing. He smiles then. And get's everything done before going back to the little cave Pro keeps him in.

Crawl

2010-01-12T18:06:00.004Z

Sitting on her throne, of sorts, she makes sounds filled with false-care and comments weaved from from a vague sense of immitated feeling - she is above us, it is her right. Her words seep with the sense that she is better, more talented, more deserving of the air around her. Slowly she slips in hints and crawling phrases looking to fulfill her craving for praise, recognition, attention.

But it's not about her, the stage is not for her to woo her unenthusiastic crowd. It is for us - our growth.

And still she stands - her words niggling at our ears, not listening to what we say and infecting us with the crawlers. They bite at our withered brains.

Again. Again.

With a tick it's over, we're free.

You

2010-01-10T00:40:00.002Z

You are the awkward phone call, you're the alarm that doesn't go off. You're the food that's gone cold and the ice that melted too quickly. You're the shower that's too warm or too cold. You are the sleep that ended before its time and wouldn't come back to life until another night was over.

You're the mediocre dream, with no excitement or colour. You're the nightmare that won't go away. You're the headache that sticks messily to my head like hardened honey. You're illness, the cancer, the tumour. You're the strawberry scent of death, cold on my neck and my cheeks.

You're the darkness that I can't see through.

You're the cold in my room, the thick, insufferable, mindnumbing cold in the corners that creeps without a sound into my eyelids as I sleep.

Snowblind

2010-01-05T22:00:00.002Z

It's not that usual blindness one gets up mountains from the sun's reflection on the never-melting snow, it's a different kind. More invasive. And yet, in its own way, it's enjoyable - the feel of the cold on my eyes and closed under my lids, the way it floats down upon them when it knows I don't want to blink, can't blink and won't blink. It's cruel but I enjoy it, want it even.

Everything is a haze of glowing amber, shapes of muted colours float past slower than they do in reality - everything's slower when snowblind.

In slow-motion, my life flutters past upon the wings of an all-too-freezing moth trying to make it's way to the warm light behind a window pane. I see moments in sepia tone, and I think, I remember. I close my eyes and melt them away.

Open again, I look up to the sky. Shimmering diamonds on blue velvet.

Eulogy and Birth

2009-12-31T00:52:00.003Z

As she sat in her throne for the last time, feeling the painful throb of new life ebbing one moment then surging the next, 2009 looked upon the winter of her last days.

She'd known what was to come, as all Years do, and when December came she was not surprised at the ever increasing body within her womb. She had been one herself twelve months before. She knew her fate.

She closed her eyes as she thought of it, thought of the job she had done, the choices she had made and the choices she may not have made had she her time again. But she knew that time was not in her possession any longer and it was to time that she would give herself in her last few moments.

She looked down upon the world she had cared for - a count down to her ending was being displayed in sparkling, red LEDs. It was unclear when she would really end, as the world had many varying calendars and its people could not agree on anything but she knew it would be with great light and colour and a loud booming which could only be man-made.

Her breath caught in her throat as the surging quickened. She did not want it to end now. Not yet. She tried to hold it back, clenching and unclenching but it only made the pain worse.

She stopped then, thinking about what was happening. Her frown uncreased... her face changed to what one would imagine to be a crisp, clean, white sheet - freshly washed and laid upon a bed. She smiled, looking upon her swollen stomach with a small sense of pride.

2010 would be a good Year, she thought as she closed her eyes.

Down upon Earth, the fireworks started - a loud booming to a cheering chorus - loud enough to cover the sound of a baby crying on the throne of a new Year.

To see my non-fiction, 'me' New Year post visit KeyChild. Welcome, 2010, treat us well.

The Inventor

2009-12-20T16:00:00.003Z

He'd worked for years to get this far, so many years of countless experimenting and disordered findings. He was the top of his field, though what that field was no one could tell. His name was not well-known, nor was his existence. He lived a solitary life, at the top of a tower, the rest of which lay uninhabitted by any living form.

The ticking was what made it noticeable, the clockwork tick that rang clear through the forest in which the tower sat. It was a lucky coincidence that the travellers from the nearest town just so happened to be passing when the ticking began it's annual mournful chorus. They say that the mechanism cannot feel emotion but they did not know his creations - they felt as well as any human being. Their loss was great.

Their existence was nothing but walking in circles, up and down the great tower. They had no purpose, not anymore. They were lifeless beings, simply existing. Their universe was a tower in a forest and nothing more. They knew nothing of the outside world and they did not need to. Their mournful movements fuelled them, kept them going.

But one day, it stopped. As the travellers walked the steps to the large brass doors of the tower the ticking stopped - silence swept through the forest with a chill like no other. And there they were - frozen mechanical figures like monuments in a churchyard.

He'd worked for years to get this far, surrounded by his machines. A skeleton trapped in a mechanism in a museum made from stone.

Fiction

2009-12-14T00:35:00.004Z

Flash. With one taste your hooked. Flash. Scared, even. Flash. Addicted to the taste of that which has caught your eye. Flash. Not knowing whether it is fact or fiction. Flash.

You don't know when to stop. Flash. Whether you can stop. Flash.

It's hot, this feeling. Flash. There's a pounding in the chest. Flash. Adrenaline. Flash. You feel the want, the need to run. Flash. But there's nothing but air. Flash. Trapped in the freedom, you stumble. Flash.

But with one small click. It's over. You're free.

Symphonic

2009-12-12T19:25:00.004Z

An oral potion, to be heard and not consumed - a beautiful composition, a concoction fit for the gods.

I breathe you in, close my eyes and the world changes.

9:34, 10:46, 10:55

2009-12-05T18:18:00.005Z

Slowly it creeps, dragging itself round in those last, laboured pushes of life. But still, there's a light beat and rhythm - the same as there always was. Though it is dying, the tick hasn't changed. It carries on, quest-like and determined. It longs only to live. Just one more day, just one more day.

It counts its last days with a soft tick and the slow-spinning of a skeleton head.

9:34, 10:46, 10:55

Hot Chocolate

2009-12-04T22:12:00.005Z

Mug out, spoon in, powder, press button, wait.

The red glares through the window, captivating and hypnotising before being evicted once more to the joy of the impatient ones before it. The blind is half closed but the colour still slips through. Red. Orange. Green.

Touch kettle, tap foot.

Metal monsters move past at speed, faceless beings swallowed in their warmth - away from the winter. Red. Orange. Green. Music blares a tuneless beat, it's melody lost in the metalic barrier with only the thrumming bassline slipping through. He taps on the steering wheel. Red. Orange. Green.

A small click, steam, pour, stir.

Passersby look inside, oggling at what they imagine is there. Cars still sit as the door closes and the light goes out. Red. Orange. Green.

Hatter

2009-12-03T20:40:00.003Z

He stares down at me, watching my every move with uneven, unblinking eyes.

The patron saint of the mad on his throne. There, upon my wall.

He stares down at me, fueling each word I write.

Sickness

2009-11-29T20:21:00.003Z

The growls come, each more lengthy, needy than the next. But they're not as persuasive as they'd like. That feral begging falls on deaf ears as it fades away into the night. There's something oddly sympathetic about it, something pleading - a cry that arises the need or want to comfort. But it isn't enough. Again, the growls fail but still they come.

It's the emptiness that's sickening, rising and falling like a tide on a stormy night. But still, there's a will that beats against it, a will with no reason, no justification, not even a little bit of sense - but it's there and it's enough. It's a strange dilemma, a subtle sickness, far beyond any logical understanding.

Don't ask, it won't answer. It's not that easy, it's not as simple as a black and white photo of a lone, leaveless tree.

Some call it the sickness worth having.

It's not.

Birthday

2009-11-26T18:26:00.002Z

Today, it's your birthday. And I'm thinking of you. Or rather the absence of you; the hole that, until recently, had gone unnoticed. It doesn't hit hard or even often and when it does I am struck with confusion rather than a dull hurt and bruise. But I don't ask why, I don't seek never-coming answers. My eyes don't cloud and showers do not pour from them. I do not miss you.

But still, it aches. A small ache, barely bigger than a five pence piece. Barely noticeable after it has landed, spun, toppled and found a place to rest. I can barely feel it if I don't go looking. But it's there.

You're not gone but you're not here either. You swing between - an indecisive child with an unknowingly cruel mind, picking on ants and next keeping them as pets, oblivious to the damage caused unless someone tells you. But they won't. I am the ant to your magnifying glass, to your ant farm filled with sand.

There's guilt there, between the cracks and tunnels, like the ant that got away. Being wrong, in the wrong. It's not your fault, they'd say as they cling to what little they know. But then the question would come. Then whose? Silence or hapless blame. An answer crafted with lies to cover up what isn't known. And I'd be back there, wondering, wandering. Waiting for your glass or farm to come again, trying to guess which it will be.

And it will repeat.

I'm thinking of you, for the the first time in eons, it seems. And it's your birthday. And I don't know if I miss you.

Envelope

2009-11-06T17:00:00.004Z

It sits there, the table, mocking me. Smiling silkily at me and begging me to approach it, pick it up and look inside. But I can't. And it knows. It knows and yet it still begs and calls come closer, come closer... in its all too seductive tone. A wicked creature, it is, luring and lulling my hand.

But, there's a higher power, a loyalty to keep. My hand is stayed. It still screams its pleading words and sends it's sugar-sweet lust my way. It wants to be open, to be seen, to be freed. But I wait. I wait until that word comes floating into my periphery and into my mind and then, only then, will I given to its cacophonous coos of come closer, pick me up and give me life...

Notice

2009-10-30T19:46:00.004Z

He sits back straight and not looking at anyone, as if looking might make them explode or worse. He's sat at least two seats away from everyone else, pretending that he doesn't notice them. He's frowning as he watches his world go round, all of his belongings in that one metal tub. He's not how he looks, he's not anything you've ever seen before. But you wouldn't know it, you'll never know it, because you simply don't notice him.

Stillness

2009-10-27T18:43:00.003Z

There's a stillness in this room, not the sort of stillness that you'd want or enjoy - not peace. It's the stillness you'd find in an unlife, an existence with nothing but that mechanical movement which all are destined to perform. It is not life.

This stillness sits at the back, writhing and infecting all, even if they do not perceive it. In this room you wouldn't notice. Words are spoken, fade away and are never heard nor spoken of again. This room, it seems, is a stop in time, a place where moments move slower and you leave feeling like you've lost more than you've gained.

The stillness does its job and is smug in its victory, watching as you're being made its puppet for that slow hour-and-a-half drawl. With the lights low and no sound but the labourous scratiching of reluctant pens and the talking, which you don't really hear, that you begin to notice the stillness as it creeps around the room.

It would eye you, if it were a thing with eyes, wink and then move forward to spread the ailment and enforce it so that you couldn't slip out of it if you tried. Thinking becomes slow, dizzy, hazy and incoherent until you cannot think at all.

But if you could think you might find that you realise that it is not the stillness at all but the being at the front who paces back and forth and says words that no one remembers.

Sunday

2009-10-25T13:19:00.002Z

Sunday is evident in this house, there's barely any noise and what noise there is is lazy and slow. It floats, sweeping past doors and making sure that any action that might have been planned is changed to resonant inaction, you might want to do it, you might have planned to do it with every detail spoken for and no room for error. But, Sunday is here. You're not going to do it.

Some are lucky, Sunday cannot change your mind if someone else, not in the house where Sunday currently haunts, has decided your plan of action then Sunday cannot stop you. Her ethereal features move to a frown when she realises she cannot keep you. She doesn't like it, not at all. The thought of her toys leaving her well-preseved play area is not one she enjoys or expects. When you do leave it, through your own will, she lets out a wail hoping that it will stop you in your tracks and bring you back. But it doesn't.

There are noises, getting louder as the time speeds past. Sunday begins to panic, the house is no longer sleepy, it is alive and moving. She's running out of time, soon she'll have to move on and find another house and more people to keep sleeping and calm and unproductive.

She closes her eyes, a frown still on her face and a pout on her lips, turns to the door and slips through, as if she were never there at all.

Stars

2009-10-21T00:42:00.000+01:00

There are no stars here, the world is dark and the clouds take a purplish hue. It's different here, things have different meanings. The world is topsy-turvy and there are no stars.

It's more evident up here, that feeling. It's more powerful, more pure. There's a longing there too deep not to notice and too deep to take hold of and set free to the wind. But there are no stars here.

It's different here, feelings change, surface and drift like leaves in a breeze. They'd go unnoticed if they could but up here, up here it's strange and there are no stars.

Cycle

2009-10-20T00:48:00.000+01:00

Leaves fall in showers and Autumn moves faster - your instrument of change a walking stick with a hooked end. You talk of fate, control and life itself. You cleave the leaves from trees, weeds, plants and they fall, feather-light, to the floor.

You walk in circles, always circles with your words circling themselves, over and over. The speaking never stops it's eternal hum of questions, only questions.

It spins, swipes and falls to the ground with a wooden clatter. You look up, curse, then start the cycle once more. Leaves, fate, control, leaves, circles, questions, leaves, fate, control...

Watching

2009-10-18T21:14:00.000+01:00

The growling subsided but we've not moved. We've stayed still, stopping in our hunched places. Only our hands moving from time to time, eyes flickering and dancing across the room we sit in. All is quiet, save for the few feral grunts and yellings and the gasps, which come from none of us. We're observers in this.

The voices change, low, old, slow. Each breath, like the wind through dead trees. When the rage comes, the slowness sinks away and the pace becomes almost lethal. It doesn't seem possible. In fact, it's not. It's not happening, not really. But still, we make no noise. Only our hands move from time to time and our eyes flicker less.

A Book made of Buttons

2009-10-18T18:14:00.001+01:00

Hello, Other Blog. How are you feeling now that you exist? It's strange to think that, earlier on today, you hadn't even been thought of, let alone written in and planned. So quickly life is created, though, you're not strictly alive are you? No. You're only alive when I write in you. It must be a sad existence, even if it is new. It must already be sad, living only when someone else wants you to. But we mustn't dwell on sad things.

If you were a book, I'd imagine you to be completely covered in buttons, sewn onto your cover precisely and delicately. You'd be purple, of course, and though you wouldn't see it for the buttons, you'd be made of a nice material, something soft and smooth to the touch. Your pages would have that antique feel, smell. That crusty too-old but still living sense that old books have. You'd be a paradox in yourself, a new-old book and I'd write in you with a feather quill and purple ink. You'd seem like some sort of magic, to me anyway with my imagination tying itself in knots just to understand you. But I wouldn't. You're too complex. But you're loyal, I could see that from the moment you were made - if I were to write my secrets in you they would simply dissolve into nothing and reappear again if I wanted to see them.

It's nice, isn't it? Imagining what you could be like, if you were not caught in the web of the cyberspider, which we all bow down to daily. One day, I will make you, for real and I will write a new entry, just like this one just for you. No one else, it will be our little secret.

Hello, Other Blog. How are you feeling now that you exist?