The Haunting

photo.   

you make me ache
there's a feeling in my chest of
how many girls left a mark on you?
i want to be sick
but i can't get her face out of my mind's eye
would she mind i sleep where
she's slept
like i mind
she's kissed your lips
cause right now I'm at the lowest of my high
there are shadows from someone else's dreams chasing me
and i ache for my own missed memories
how many people
have left a mark on me
who are they out haunting
i can't listen to his song
without thinking about the last one i loved
and if he's loving someone now
we are just a chink in the chain of this never-ending
story of heartbreaks
and moving on

Metamorphosis

photo.   

Lover, I'm sorry
but I am not always flesh blood and bone
I'm not talking of reincarnation
I don't know about metamorphosis
but sometimes
after days
I lose myself.

They say we are made up of
millions of pieces of stars
that my right hand
is made up of the dust
of a once-sun
but somedays I just feel like dust.
It feels lonely to be made up
of something
that died so long ago,
whose home is in the sky
and would blow away
given a moments notice
to get back there.
I don't want to be lost in the wind
if you are here.

Once, I crawled through the soft
sleepy sheets of your bed, to tell you
that today I was made of shells
every time I moved my fractured body
I could hear pieces of me grinding
against one another
pieces that did not fit perfectly
but left pockets of air throughout me
when i reached out to touch you
a gaping hole appeared
in my chest
you could see right through me
I do not want to be made up
of the armour of dead molluscs
no matter how tough they are.

For a time
before I met you
I was a ghost
it started with
my shadow softening
voice dampening
the tips of my fingers fading
one day I looked in the mirror
all I could see left of myself
were the bags beneath my eyes
packed and ready to go
it hurts to look at
when your body is a whisper
of something you said
as a sad child.

Tagore said
he found his lover in each life
I'm not talking of reincarnation
I don't know about metamorphosis
but lover, with you
I am solid
I promise you
my temperamental body
is yours
in all its forms.

bird

photo.   

lightly feathered, you lie
sprawled.
desperately clutching and releasing
a thousand tender
capsules of air
inside your tiny lungs

The Beginning of the End

photo.   

The fluorescent light from the bathroom presses greys and blues into the shadows of the darkened room. I'm lacing our fingers under the duvet.
"Maybe two weeks." He says.
"You're kidding!" I react, "Please- tell me that you're kidding!"
"I'm joking," he laughs, "maybe three months- maybe more."
I smile at him. "I can't imagine sleeping with anyone else."
"Me neither."
I kiss his hand.
"I don't want to break up yet." His last word dominates the sentence. My stomach hurts.
"Me neither."
As we lie against one another I contemplate the shift that has occurred between us. For the first time in a long time I can feel the edges of myself. For the first time in my memory, I feel lonely.
"I love you." He says, it sounds different. For reasons I don't fully understand I want to cry. I can't see his face in the dark but I can feel his gaze, he's waiting.
"I love you, too."Is it me or does it sound lighter?
My cunt is still wet with his saliva.



In six months I will break up with you. And I will wait two weeks.  It will mean something. 

Letterhead #17

photo.   

Dear Jack,

I am so, so sorry I fell out of love with you.

If it means anything, I didn't want to fall out of love.

But I just…I felt so far away from myself.

I tried so much to make it work. And I did for a while. 

And we were happy.

I was the perfect girlfriend. But I wasn't me.

I fell out of love with you when I fell in love with myself.

And that's when I stopped wanting to try.

It's not your fault and it's not mine.

We both changed until we stopped suiting each other.

Thank-you for being the perfect first love.

I hope we can still stay friends.

With love,

Food, water, shelter.

photo.   

She no longer takes care of herself.
You can see the sun through her skin, it's too thin (like eyelids). It won't hold a shadow.
Her hands are soft and pink and splotchy.
She won't stop trying to distract herself.
She won't turn and face her troubles instead of continuing these futile attempts to ignore them.
Somebody tell her to get a grip.
Caring for yourself takes more than this.
It's time to wake up.

untitled

photo.  

my skin
rises to meet your hands
i can tell
i have no control, that
this is unconscious
it's automatic
instinctive
this
this is bigger than you
or me
this is chemistry
and nature
and DNA
this is written into my body
into the patterns of your palms
as they glide
down my spine
over my stomach
this is different
and new
and it makes my heart
beat
in time with something
there isn't a word for.
this might not be love but
it makes me believe in it.

The Apiarist.

photo.  

there is
a storm of bees
swarming, forming
around her head
on days like this morning
people passing
pretending
they can not see
any bees, can not see
the honey
dripping from her
eyes
knees
thighs
there is no smoke, today

one young man
nears her
does not wear
a beekeeper suit
but still, leans in
and licks the honey
off her swollen chin
and licks the honey
off his velvet lips
i think, maybe,
he knows
today, she doesn't like honey
i think, maybe,
he knows
she doesn't like to be
a beekeeper
always.

she wonders
if he exists
to prove the bees
don't have to.

A different Anna (a story).

The last time Anna’s hands had touched this wood she had been sitting beside her Grandmother ten years ago.


Eight year-old Anna had been scraping into the top layer of the curiously soft wood, only halting to flick out the remains from underneath her fingernails. Her mind had wandered as the monotonous voice of Murwillumbah’s parish priest filled the air, punctuated by his hoarse cough, like a bark, Anna had thought. Every time he coughed like this, her Grandmother’s eyes would flit to Anna’ busily working fingers and she would perse her lips in annoyance. Anna was sullen with frustration and boredom as her blank gaze drifted from her handiwork to the priest in response to her Grandmother’s disapproving eyes. More than anything Anna had wanted to be back at home in Sydney with her friends.

Anna sighs, she had been such a brat when she was young. She pulls back her legs to make room for her Auntie’s boisterous figure as she bustles past her to sit next to her Dad and the strong scent of gardenias fills the air. Anna twists in her seat to peer at all those who have come. There are plenty of people, most of whom Anna doesn’t recognise; some aged with years of rough laughter and crinkled smiles, others’ skin still smooth and sombre. As the organ starts up, Anna turns back to the front in time to stand with everyone else. But the faces linger in her mind, they are friendly faces, she thinks.

Twelve year-old Anna had been tugging absent-mindedly at her lower lip with her left hand, while her right arranged and rearranged the seven lettered tiles in front of her. GF IAYLM. MAY.YAM. LAY. MAIL. GAILY. FAIL. Anna frowned at the last option as her eyes flicked towards the score board; she was coming fourth...

“Come on, Anna.” Her Grandmother’s words awoke her from her reverie,

“I’ll just be a minute,” she had muttered; discouraged by the impatience and her own low score. She glanced at the tattered paper again before scoping the cramped board for spaces.

“Well, I should hope so. At this rate we’ll be here ‘til Christmas.” Anna looked up at her Grandmother for this snide remark, but it was softened by her smile, as she leaned in to offer Anna some advice, her hands deftly moved the pieces. FAMILY. “If you place it here, you can get 22 points.” she whispered discreetly, as Anna’s Dad came back from the toilet and her brother walked back with a wooden bowl of Smith’s Crisps.

It had taken her another four years until she had finally won a game of scrabble without any help, Anna muses. The priest’s voice is ringing out through the church and Anna keeps catching phrases, “you may not grieve as others do who have no hope…The word of the Lord”. She nibbles her lip as she fails yet again, to join in on the congregation’s response: “Thanks be to God” they murmur, unified.

Fourteen year-old Anna had been lying with her left cheek against the itchy carpet of her Grandmother’s flat against her left cheek, as she gazed blankly at the television screen which had been playing cricket for the last four hours. She sighed heavily and her grandmother had taken pity on her and suggested she read a book. After much persuasion Anna had unenthusiastically began reading Pride and Prejudice. But by the end of the week, Anna had clutched the faded copy (now her very own) to her chest as she had finished reading the Darcy’s letter. A new fervour could be found in her eyes.

As the organ and congregation wobble into Psalm 23,Anna’s mind returns to the present and her hands, sticky in the north-coast humidity, gripped the bench’s edge; she can hardly believe what she saw on the back of the pew. It is still there…the furtive and wicked ‘A’ she had carved there ten years ago. Anna surprises herself by suppressing a smirk that quickly evaporates as her eyes are drawn once more to the mahogany coffin on her left. Anna thinks about her Grandma and Murwillumbah and a part of her feels like if she leaves the town tomorrow afternoon, she will have finally lost her grandmother. As the priest’s parting words ring out through Saint Patrick’s, Anna’s hand finds her mum’s.

Afterwards, Anna once again sits down at the empty pew, her fingers trace the rivets and she leaves, feeling satisfied. But only after carving her grandma’s initial beside her own.

Group Hallucination

I am so sick
of these ancient, iron cages
that separate
us. They separate
the artists from athletes
the scholars from blue-collars
the known from the unknowns;
the Romeos from Juliets.
They separate people from people.

I do not think
such persistent,
such acceptable ideas,
should remain unchallenged.

I cannot wait
for the day
they rust away.

(Sometimes, I think we make them up inside our head.)

Excerpt #10

There is anger in her.

The kind that's been held for too long, and it is now spilling out of her.
There she is, kneeling on the wooden floor of her bedroom, rifling through a dark, wooden box. She keeps opening pieces of paper, reading them and then tearing them into confetti. Occasionally she burns things. One time she does both. She's trying to rid herself of all the things that have been destroying her.
Photos, quotes, poems, writing, ideas, plans and pills, bandaids, lyrics, memories.
She has a soundtrack playing loudly so she doesn't need to think. She keeps going until there are only three things left in the box. A neatly folded piece of paper. A photo. And a now-blank notepad.
She puts everything else into a glass jar. The jar is filled with paper and water and ash and ink. She thinks she is free.

In a few days she'll realise the jar is still in her room, she'll want to get rid of it, but she won't.

photos.

I don't know what happens next.

don't ask

photo.   

She was Numb. Numb. Numb. Sometimes she whispers that word to herself, when she gets strange looks she smiles.

What is there to tell you about her? She drinks. She smokes. She starves herself. She does whatever it takes ease the numbness, or distract herself from it.

The other day she cut herself. Seventeen slits, on her left forearm. She used the razor from a pencil sharpener -just scratches, she tells herself. Today she accidentally let them show as she was taking off her jacket. Nobody saw, she doesn't know whether or not she's relieved.

She goes home and listens to music that gets in your head as she goes on Tumblr for hours. Around her, her friends are kissing boys and laughing and studying and growing. She writes things that are similar to the young Tim Burton's poetry. About girls who will grow up before their time. She is in a blur. When she looks around, all she can see is fog.

hypocrite

photo.   

at times
i have written
against girls
talking talking always talking
about boys.
i've wanted
girls to live for themselves
to be okay with themselves
without a boy being okay with them
first.
but i hate to admit
i may start (writing) soon
because there is a boy
who meant a bit more than a kiss
and even if it doesn't go
anywhere
right now
i wanted to write
about him
and how nice
his kisses were.

(please get out of my head.)

it would be a lot easier

morbid curiosity

photo.  

Raindrops are drumming against your window. You can feel their icy whispers gathering around you. The room is dark except for the glass which reveals the greying street, and the cold glow of the laptop's screen which illuminates the dim forms of a bed, chair and closet behind you. There is the thick taste of a hard-boiled lolly in your mouth. Behind the rain you can hear the vague outlines of Sad by Pearl Jam humming in the background.
All this, with the mixed, broken scents of hair and rain and cotton sheets and lavender, holds you for a moment. And you pause in your typing, your fingers hesitating on the keys before you continue typing, in a more assured manner then before. This is who you are, now, in this moment you feel more yourself than you often do. And it's like a breath of fresh air. But even as you type you wonder whether you will post it.
And a small, dissatisfied part of you thinks about why people read the erratic, endless writings of others shadowed by the anonymity of cyberspace. And you can't help but feel it's for the same reason that humans stretch their necks to get glimpses of car crashes.

But maybe you shouldn't think about that right now. Maybe you should just finish your sentence.

For someone else

Feelings flood inside you. And that's the thing about feelings, you say you want them, but you never really do. And you always do. They are some of the most beautiful and contradictory aspects of life. And it all depends on you. If you are a well or a puddle or a duck's back. And it's okay to be any of those things but they will always leave you feeling unsatisfied.
Because, a part of you knows, that you want someone else to feel it with you.

Excerpt #9

photo. 

She nods to satisfy his question but she is no longer listening. If you watch closely you can hear the ringing echoes -of whatever song holds her head today- swinging through her mind, taking her over. He is still talking but she is already gone. She has slipped away.

She treds along the dusty corridor and when she reaches the opening of the stairs hers eyes brush the shadows, that linger at the bottom of the stairs and the hallway beyond. She hesitates when reaching for the lightswitch, and her fingertips almost graze the hardened plastic before she pulls her hand away.
As she descends she finds herself wondering if she will fall.

Waking



photo.   

The thing is, she had realised she was asleep. After more than 6 months, by an almost-year, she had realised and often consoled herself with the fact that all sleeping things must wake (and if not it is said to be the best way to go, dying in your sleep). And I know that when you realise it is a dream you are meant to be able to control what happens, and she tried -I swear she did- but she found the dream slowly fell into a nightmare around her. And a part of her relished the fact that she was slowly losing faith, that she had lost control. So she dreamt.
She dreamt she was running from something she couldn't escape
                               suffocating                              
                               being torn apart
                               lost in the wind                              
                               and the whole time falling, falling, falling,
and then, just before she hit the ground, she woke up.
                              
                         

Asleep

It's funny because the whole time she slept, she felt tired. 



photo.   

 I don't know why she fell asleep, or when, but she did.
At first it was sporadic, but as time wore on she would be unconscious for days at a time, and then one day, she didn't wake up. And it stayed like that for a long time.

Weeks passed. Months.
She was unaware of the exterior world, instead tuned in solely to this battle raging within her, these dreams and thoughts and emotions that swelled internally. And on the outside, people tried to wake her, first casually and then in frustration, by the end they could not hide their panic.
Eventually, she began to sleep-walk, and that eased their worries. Allowed her to sleep in peace.

i promise

photo.  

YOU ARE NOT THE SUM OF YOUR MARKS

                                             OF YOUR WRITING

                                             OF YOUR APPEARANCE

                                             OF YOUR WORST MOMENTS

you are so much more

i promise

and even if you can't see that now,

please, just hold on to it,

hold on to it until you can.

anna



photo.   

There is a small smile playing on her lips, and as your eyes follow her you get the feeling she's smiling at her own private joke. She walks, head high, long strides across the stage to accept her award. Smiles as she shakes his hand. There is an air of unashamed intelligence about her, a calm manner that suggests not shyness, but a level of confidence in which attention-seeking is not necessary. That is probably what is most appealing about her, that wicked smile and quiet air -it makes you wonder what she's thinking, because that's all you can do, wonder.
I suppose she's pretty, in a dark-haired, olive-skinned way. In a sweet-smile way. But what makes you look at her is her eyes, not because they are beautiful, but because they are deep and dark and steady. Because, she has this way of looking you directly in the eye without ever meeting your gaze.
And you wonder if she's slipping away from this world as you speak to her, like gradually she's distancing herself until all she needs to do is pull the trigger.