6 things I should tell you but haven't

1. You are giving me growing pains. I have stretch marks showing up, on my hips, lips, thighs. I never knew I could be this much.

2. I'm sorry for all my past and future mistakes. I am still getting the hang of this. I want to be better.

3. Sometimes my stomach hurts when you kiss me. Being with you scares me. You are miles away from my comfort zone.

4. Last night you told me you loved me for the first time, during a drunken fight. You're an idiot. I love you. I've loved you for weeks. I can't remember what it's like not to love you.

5. I write and rewrite texts to you. It has been months and I still can't control myself. I will not stop trying for you.

6. You still leave me speechless. I can't remember how to string words together because all I can think of is your lips. I have tried writing two dozen poems about you. None did you justice.

Release

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"But why acting?"
"I'm not sure,

it's just what has always felt closest to right."

"But it doesn't anymore?"

"No...I don't know.
         I feel like I owe it to myself I guess."


"To your former self or to who you are now?"

"Former."

"Even if you don't want that anymore?"
"Yeah

...I don't know."

"Let me ask you something, when you were a child and people asked you what you wanted to be when you grow up, did you say an actor?"
"No."
"What did you say?"

"I said happy."

Promise

Don't forget to look up once in a while.

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Force yourself 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.

fighterfighterfighter

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i have this humming in the back of my brain
to remind me i'm not dead

maybe if i etch it into each rib it will be true

i need to remember

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“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late
or, in my case, too early
to be whoever you want to be.
There’s no time limit,
            stop whenever you want.
                   You can change
                   or stay the same,
                   there are no rules to this thing.


We can make the best or the worst of it.

I hope you make the best of it.

And I hope you see things that startle you.

I hope you feel things you never felt before.

I hope you meet people with a different point of view.

I hope you live a life you’re proud of.

If you find that you’re not,

I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

things that make me happy

this is a tag by katherine i havent been able to do until now. 
write a list of things that make you happy. she is lovely,
this idea is lovely. I tag:
P.s. I Am Me
and    
Francesca

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the moments when you suddenly remember how beautiful everything is
lovely children with shy smiles
goofy laughs
licking icing
hot baths
90s movies
warm, sunny weather
shy boys with lovely smiles
books you can't put down
singing when you're home alone
fresh fruit

by Dylan Thomas

Do No Go Gentle Into That Good Night 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The World Through Beryl

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Pausing for barely a second now and then like a motor gently missing, Oriel stopped to watch Beryl, who had grown paler still. That woman will disappear if she keeps fading like this, she thought. What was it with Beryl? Hunger for a man? What man deserves a good honest woman like Beryl? Even as she watched, Oriel saw Beryl fading by the window. She saw the mulberry tree through the tall woman's translucent, veiny arms. The sky moved behind her. You could see the whole world through Beryl Lee.
         Take a break, Beryl.
         No, I'm right. Truly.

(excerpt from Cloudstreet by Tim Winton)

Broken

By P.s. I Am Me from Shades of Green and Grey

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It would be easy to fall apart.
Piece by tiny piece.
And it’s hard to be put back together again once this happens.
Because, like with all puzzles, pieces get lost.
Maybe you’ll never be whole again.

Sleep-washed

A poem by Saba Vayani-Lai

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This,
This simplicity,
This sleep-washed morning,
The raindrops dancing gently
Upon soft glass,
Reflecting the sleeping forms of
Living poetry,
Of us,
Lost in a mindless tangle of limbs and
Sheets and sticky puddles of light.


At last,
Letting the words and the yearning finally,
Finally,
Spring from the page and into motion,
Into reality,
Into this tangible mess of feeling,
Lazily looped not in ink,
Not in restricting monochrome and colour-starved
paper,
Not caged in the heavy iron lattice of forced rhyme
-
But in the mixing of our breaths,
In the mingling of a million miniscule atoms,
Air cocktails slipping, shared,
Between our lips.


And then…
I feel the resignation festering,
Wild mushrooms growing in sad lumps, slow
and hungry,
Around my tired heart –
Such joy,
Such interdependent joy,
It cannot last.
It can only cling
As raindrops do to a spider’s web,
Desperately hoping the wind doesn’t lose
Her temper.


But I have traced stars
With fearless fingertips –
Traced that pale harmony between living and
Expressing
In the creases and valleys
Of your skin.


To have known such joy,
Even just for a moment -
It is enough.

This,
This simplicity,
This sleep-washed morning,
I watch our lazy forms reflected
In rain-speckled glass –
All drowsy smiles and
Poetry,
Alive at last.

(This is in the 2009 winners if you follow the link)

writing letters

By Melee of The Midnight Train Of Thought

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Dear You,


Whenever I write, I always feel the need to address myself to you.
You, you! It's so ambiguous. You could be male or female. You could be my mother, you could be the dog next door.
Sometimes I'm not even sure who you are. You are my lover, you are my enemy. You are a sonnet, you are prose. You are sufficient; you will never be enough.
But you know... you always know. I can tell you those things I always wanted. Whoever you are, I need you. Because, in writing to you, I feel a little less lonely: you're reading along.

Thank you.
Ever and Ever,
Me

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.

i can relate

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You would hate it.
There are good days, and bad days,
and you never know which it's going to be,
until it is.
Or, on those rare, unlucky occassions
when you realise the night before
that tomorrow is going to be a terrible,
terrible day
and you can't do anything about it,
except know.

don't ask

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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.

morbid curiosity

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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.

curiousity killed the cat, repeatedly

If insanity is the fire then drinking is the match.
And in my eagerness to see the room I'm standing in, I keep believing I will be able to light a candle.
Even though all I can smell is gas.

Fuck.

Excerpt #9

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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.

if you are sad

the good people don't make it worthwhile

but they sure make it easier

let them

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Awake

I want things again.
Plural.
And I really want them, I care about them, I have enough energy to try and get them.
So this is about all the things I want, to remind me if I ever forget again.

I want to dye my hair hot pink

I want to appreciate people and personalities



I want to finish the HSC and do well, not because I need to but so I can be proud of myself

I want to kiss someone who I actually care about

and when I do I don't want to be numbed

I want to act

I want to read

I want to write

I want to travel

I want to meet people

I want to experience

I want to fight for who and what I believe in

even if that means breaking the rules sometimes

I really want to remember the inherent goodness of humanity

even if it's hard to see sometimes

And honestly, part of me

wants to go back

but not for a bit

And until then, I want to remind others about what I so easily forgot

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Thank you for everything

You all helped me a lot.