Letterhead #10



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Dear writer, reader, blogger,
I have a question.

When are you going to realise
That you aren't going to be saved?
By your parents
By Jesus
By faith and hope and love
By the system
By your blossoming future
By a girl
By a boy.

That you will wilt
And shrivel and wither
That you will die
Drown in your loneliness
In your despair.
That you can't rely on anyone else
Anything else.

Or, alternately
When are you going to realise that you can save yourself?

Possession

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it envelops her once more
tucking her up
neat and trapped
inside its suffocating fragile embrace
a frosted gaze
unnoticed glazed
look betrays her
as her heavy mind catches alight
dangerous rampant sparks
tease the blackening white
of her papery cage
the corners furl
forgotten smoke pressing on her
she reaches out
now she's burning those near
and fear takes hold
of her frayed reins
soon she'll have no control
she's running in and out of ways
to make this right
she'd try to warn
anyone who tries to stay
but she's lost hold
her mind's ablaze

you want the world

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you want too much

what if

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to be an existentialist would be such a despair-ridden and liberating thing

the time you slipped

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Looking back, you can see with a near-certain clarity that you jumped into a void. You may not have realised its depth, or the weight you were carrying, but you jumped nonetheless. And, as seems the way with these things, eventually someone realised you were falling. That you cannot jump from such a height without hurting yourself.
With time comes lucidity, and it is now grievingly obvious that you were going to land after all. That although nobody knew what was at the base, it would be painful, perhaps even more destructive than the initial leap. And yes, it was destructive, that reaching, loving leap.

Even if, at the time, you thought you were flying.

she said

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There is nothing more unforgivable than not living up to someone else's expectations

nights



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Moments flicker
twist
jump
into and out of one another
you are at a party
by the bonfire
at the sink
talking to bella
fallon
peter
on the phone
you are
refusing
giving in
failing to hold yesterday's convictions
by yourself
quiet
still laughing
looking in the mirror at someone else's life
buttery fingers try to hold on to awareness
it slips away again
in a car
walking
talking
trying to act
how you normally act
talking too quietly in an attempt
to ease suspicion
you are sneaking back in to your house
trying not to trip
you are in bed
trying to fall asleep
you are sneaking back in again
at the party again
looking at your blood-shot eyes again
wondering what you're doing, again.
You get the feeling
that you are skipping through moments that are grouped together
-moments that are happening always-
as you try and fail
to stay in the present.

Excerpt #7

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She hadn't eaten anything for breakfast. That's the first thing you need to know.
And she was sad, that's the second.
That morning she had looked into the speckled mirror. She had taken her eyeliner and -hypnotised- drawn a curved line beneath each eye. She had smudged them until they blended with the real shadows under her eyes, the soft ones. Until she looked as tired and as unwell as she felt. After that, she had smiled.

Later, she walked to the bus-stop. The air was cold, it slipped past her many layers, seeped into her chest. The wind streamed through her ribs, tore inside of her. She felt like she had no body. She felt insubstantial. She decided it was better than the other feelings.

After the novelty had worn off, she would tire of it. She always does.

with jack, with everybo(d)y

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"But with every word she was drawing

further and further

into herself,

so that he gave up,

and only the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away,

trying to touch what was no longer tangible,

struggling unhappily, undespairingly, towards that lost voice across the room."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

tired

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I can't sleep.
I don't sleep anymore.
Instead,
I dream.
I dream myself in and out of reality
Weaving between fears
And Hopes.
I'm always tired,
My body may rest but I don't.
I never do anymore.

thought

i hate lying
i swear i do
but now it seems they are all that is holding my world together
by holding my two worlds apart

knowing

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I get it.
That in the quiet moments, you can't ignore it.
When you are in the shower with it's too-warm water pounding on your face
And water droplets gathering like granules on your back.
When you are walking to the bus-stop, your hands fiddling with a shirt-button.
When you are at a party and for a moment your thoughts stop.

I get it. That in the quiet moments,
You can't ignore how unhappy you are.

then

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In my younger years I used to say hello a lot.
I would write it repeatedly on a piece of paper,
Speak it quietly when lying in bed at night,
Scream it when I was at an empty beach.
I wasn't waiting for someone to reply or
for someone to hear me
though sometimes I suppose I was.
It was more that I was revelling in the pointless beauty of the word.
It's complete lack of meaning.
I was proving to myself that although
we place so much importance in communication
it is so empty, it so empty.

festival

i swapped my heartbeat for the bass guitar's.



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Excerpt #6

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Guilt eats at her.
So she eats at the chocolate
that he gave her,
it's her favorite.
She has never felt more guilty.

tub

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my hands are limp,
mute and white.
they float
against my naked body
occasionally nudging the bleached tub
their bones, sharp,
peer out at the bleak room
through a thin layer of film
almost kissing the air
they are contrasted by the-
contrasted.
i imagine the day
they will be contrasted
and i will have no eyes to see it.

Stolen

Kudos to Lily for posting this, I just stole it.

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“I wanted to kill the me underneath.
That fact haunted my days and nights. When you realize you hate yourself so much, when you realize that

you cannot stand who you are,

and this deep spite has been the motivation behind your behavior for many years,

your brain can’t quite deal with it.

It will try very hard to avoid that realization;

it will try, in a last-ditch effort to keep your remaining parts alive, to remake the rest of you. ”

—Marya Hornbacher

Calling

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I want to let it consume me.
To slip backwards into the warm ocean's thick embrace
and float, swim even.
I keep forgetting
that there are stones in my pockets
there are stones in the lining of my clothes
are stones tangled in the locks of my hair
stones wedged in my throat
in place of my eyes.

I keep forgetting
I will sink.

eternity

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It's all in my mind
But is it real or imagined?

Letterhead #9

Dear Peta,
I'm sorry I'm a shitty friend.
That I don't feel like seeing you a lot of the time
and that I can behave so bipolar.
I'm sorry that I take a lot,
I'm sorry I want you to be someone you aren't.
I'm sorry that sometimes I love you but not always.
I'm sorry I don't normally like hugs.
I'm sorry that your mum died,
I tried to make it better, but I'm sorry I couldn't.
I'm sorry I don't have the courage to say this to your face.
With love,

Dear Peta,
You remember that time I said I didn't think we would stay friends for much longer?
(But you've never listened to me) I was being honest.
I still believe it.
Sorry I forced you to believe it, too.
Stay good.