Summer Lovin’!

Sun covering every inch of your body like second skin, and love, getting swept around the city in the Cape Town wind.

Not so long ago there was a sense of lethargy in the Cape, I think people were tired and waiting for the festive season to finally arrive and bring with it the sun; it came late this year but now that it’s here we’ll all hold on to it for as long as we can.

I’m a true winter girl, but this year I am so happy it’s finally summer, bringing with it warmth and a sense of nostalgia and expectancy for me, because last year was the summer I fell in love. Last year, a million years ago.

Long days, festivals, hot tar and laying in as little as possible in sauna-like rooms with unhelpful fans smoking our cigarettes.

Attempting swims in the freezing sea, unbearably enduring car rides to faraway places, beautiful sunsets and delicious cocktails and kisses.

Incandescent nights, faces aglow with perspiration and the day’s sun marked on noses, violent red.

Fashionably promoted tunes everybody knows the lyrics to by the end of the season, together with the soundtrack to our own personal summer solstice.

I can’t wait!

As Good as it gets

A fairly recent arrival in the post got me thinking dot-dot-dot about relationships.

It is so easy to fall into comfort and routine, and subsequently lose the passion that ignited the relationship in the beginning, but I believe it is essential to keep lit the fire in your care.
So often relationships become visual fallacy; hollow and just for show. A sophistry to both the couple and the people around them.
The couple becomes as dead inside as Benjamin Barker. Chapter one becomes the end.

There is a certain lack of expectation that comes with long term relationships, if you let it. A pathos of sorts that allows couples to cease making an effort to impress their partners. The eagerness to be with each other all the time fades away and it somehow becomes a duty. A necessity instead of a necessity.
When do we lose the flutter, the tingle of first kisses? I think that is up to us. I never want to lose the soppy, sloppy, slushiness I feel in the presence of my love. I see it lost a lot and in a good way it inspires me.
And honestly; what is the point in being with someone who doesn’t induce breathlessness in us, who doesn’t make us feel alive?
When do stop devouring our partners, inhaling their words like cigarette smoke?

Relationships are difficult and they need constant nurturing, constant attention and communication. They are complicated but there are things you can make simple. For instance: the bickering and arguing over the mundane and unimportant. It can be helped with a little effort, the effort being patience and compassion and addressing the real reason you’re fighting, not simply because he arrived 5 minutes late or she keeps clogging the shower drain with her hair.
I have noticed lately that there are a lot of couples together because they are. And maybe what keeps them in this state is that they have the memory of the way love should feel. They remember when they first fell in love and they know they did so for a reason. There was something about the other person that resonated in them, something chemical, and something pure.
But somewhere along the line that is forgotten. They begin to tire of the very things they still found adorable a year into the relationship. Have they simply fallen “out of love” or is there just work to be done?
Honesty is so critical; otherwise you end up with a dress you can’t take back, a venue all paid for and 200 invitations sent out already: an expensive mistake.
Even worse: going through with the wedding anyway and wasting away your life for years. Warning: cliché ahead;
Life is too short.

All I know is I do not want that to happen to me and I get a little antsy when I see couples like this, who have accepted the state of just being, existing together for no other reason than that it is comfortable and safe.
They don’t grow together but apart and eventually they’re waking up to strangers.

I recall hearing this quote in a Woody Allen film long ago: “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies.” And I’ve always remembered it and believed it.

Candy’s Love or; Something Mushy

My love

He is the inspiration to my words, my male muse.

I lasso as many hours, minutes, seconds of his time as I can, simply because he is who he is and he just so happens to be the single most incredible creature.

In the corporate fishbowl, he makes the dance look new. He has the passion and the drive; the humility and kindness required to be so amazing.

He stirs in me a sweeping will to do better, to achieve greater.

With the sexual exploration and honesty of Anais Nin; if she were a man, he opens me up to possibilities and endless pleasures.

The sight of him turns me on; the smell of him.

Unearthly beauty.

Before him; emptiness easily explained: a dream unreachable and improbable, to a fairy tale scene with a dash of supreme reality.

Moments that spoke of mistrust, fear, jealousy, and anger never long stayed.

And now those moments speak of all that’s happened, of all the precious, priceless time shared between us, being alive.

Mostly they say: I love you.

And only you.

The New Romantic Comedy or; Soft Porn

Gone are the days when Tom wooed Meg, when Richard defended Julia’s honour and Ethan pined broodingly for Winona. Almost gone are the days when boy meets girl and it’s classy and romantic and schmaltzy.
The norm nowadays is filled with dirty sex and even dirtier jokes and language, created for a younger audience.
It’s almost as if American Pie launched a new genre in American film targeted at teens and college kids: raunchy romance.

Although there are still movies such as Made of Honour, 27 Dresses and P.S I Love You, more and more romantic movies are becoming decidedly perverse. Take the two Dane Cook films: Good Luck Chuck and My Best Friend’s Girl.

The former is a story about Charlie Logan.
He has to break a sexual curse. A woman sleeps with him once and the next man she meets will be her soul mate, this, of course, makes him extremely popular with the ladies and once news spreads, he begins upon a voyage of sexual pleasure, until he meets the girl of his dreams.

The latter is somewhat cruder.
Meet Tank Turner. He gets paid by jilted men to take women on the worst possible dates of their lives in order to make them realize how awesome their former boyfriends are. His tactics include playing derogatory hip hop loudly in the car, getting completely wasted and taking them to strip clubs. He then faces a monumental dilemma when he falls head over heels for his best friend’s crush when said best friend hires Tank to take her on a lousy date because she is losing interest in him.

And the latest; Zack and Miri make a Porno. This is my favourite one. The characters, especially Miri played by Elizabeth Banks, seem so natural, and believable. It’s not just silly things happening to silly people that you know would never happen in the real world.
The story goes something like this: Zack and Miri are friends. Strictly platonic, no deeper feelings harboured by either of them. They both have serious money problems and less than serious jobs, so, after a hilarious scene involving “granny panties”, in order to combat their massive debt, they decide to make a porn movie together. As the porno filming gets under way, the duo start to see they have more feelings for each other than they originally thought. And you can just about guess the rest.

And it has to be said: I enjoyed all three of the above films... I laughed in all the right places or; wrong places as the case may be and I was shocked / horrified when I was supposed to be.

After watching When Harry Met Sally, a classic from the late 80’s, it just seems to me, as the years go by, what was considered truly outrageous a few years ago is what we are all so used to now.
The question is: is it a good or bad thing, or is it just a progression?

I wonder what romance will look like 10, even 5 years from now.

Bowl of Oranges

"Enough. These words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life we have refused
again and again
Until now
Until now."

This David Whyte poem found its way to me recently. It reminded me so much of where I was a year ago, and years before, stewing in a thickening pot of questions and complaints, inertia and self inflicted insecurity. When I think back to that time I can hardly recognize myself except for that nervous smile which I still carry in my care from time to time.
I feel removed from the words she spoke and I wonder if she ever really meant what she said. She often put on a guise of strength she very rarely felt and I feel she and I have finally come to meet.

I feel an inner similarity to one of my favourite Mary Oliver poems called The Journey.
When something happens, you see something or someone or you hear or read words that move you and suddenly you realise you have that moment to change, when your whole past can be swept up and the north easterly can blow it all over the city so populated with resigned moods and careful laughter. You decide to fall.
And I remember the day I fell. I remember the journey leading up to that and honestly, although it was full of uncertain thoughts and unfulfilled feelings, I wouldn’t go back and re- do any of it. Ultimately it lead me to the moment I found myself in, where I allowed the notions I had created in my mind over the span of my 22 years to dissipate. The lesser experiences I had had concerning love, lust and all the confusion between the two, I realised, was leading the way to something, for lack of a better word, real.

Indeed; I decided, enough.

Enough with the bottomless excuses vaguely answering the question: why?
Enough hiding. Enough torturous blaming and finger pointing. Enough self depreciation.

It took me a while to learn I was human. To discover that yes, mistakes and bad judgement were all part of growing up into the person you dreamed to be when you were young. And another while to find out that not many people end up becoming that person anyway.
And at the risk of sounding completely unoriginal, I realised how enduring, how absolutely essential true happiness is, from the inside out.

I feel, every so often, I need to take a tentative step back from my life and myself and see what’s there. The existence of love and beauty so easy to see when looked for.

I’m going to end this personal lament with another quote, this time from a song:

“But if the world could remain within a frame like a painting on a wall.
Then I think we would see the beauty.
Then we would stand staring in awe at our still lives posed like a bowl of oranges.”

On My Writing

I have been thinking about why I gravitate toward the sad and disturbed in my writing. Is it me, or a combination of the movies, books and real world I have seen?
Do I feel hopeless about situations and unresolved feelings, so that when I set out to create a purely fictional character or story, that part slips in accidently with the result being unlike the idea I had every intention of perusing?

A brilliant man once told me you need to see the grotesque, and the sadness, in order to notice and appreciate beauty and happiness.

I don’t believe I am an overly pessimistic person, nor am I high on life all of the time. I’ve always faired somewhere in the middle.
Candice: the perpetual fence sitter.

It’s quite strange but I tend to go with what the general feeling is with the people I’m around. And then think oppositely. For instance: If I’m with a friend who is down and unsmiling, I will be the clown. And I’ll point out all the good things; I’ll be queen of the positive world view.
Now here’s where the weird comes in: as much as being around sunny people can lift your spirits, what happens sometimes to me is quite to the contrary. I’ll see that happiness, and delight in misery. Strangest thing.
Of course, it can go the other way too. Misery loves company, and happy-just-because moods are becoming harder to come by so when you have it in your grasp you hold onto it tightly and anyone around with their lip on the ground is not particularly welcomed.

I’ve come to realise it is how you perceive the world and all of the disasters and wondrous events it holds for each individual and all of us together as a whole.
So; on any given day, I could be feeling disappointment, enlightenment, suspicious, care-free, or maybe little pieces of all four emotions and this comes through in the words I write.

We all, after all, have various different sides and personalities inside ourselves. Who knows what character tomorrow may bring?

Manson Revisited

You’ll want to know everything. How it all began, how it ends and every other degraded detail experienced throughout. Well I won’t tell you, simply because I have a sustained belief in the advanced knowledge gained from your own involvement, the encounters you endure and the way you endure them, this is all exposure to life, a life you must lead through your own eyes. I am unwavering on this.

Thus, I will decline from showing and telling anything crucial or definite. What I will say, you need to pay very close attention to.
If you are in pursuit of answers of a certain, absolutely unequivocal nature, stop here and scroll away.

Our infamous villain dispenses none. The enlightenment I received from him came from myself, together with the realisation that there is, in fact, no unanimous answer. Everyone’s is different. And like everything else, there are things you actively agree with and there are things that you don’t. It’s hard to say which rules in this case, the former or the latter.
I read through Brian Warner’s words at first as though they were pearls of wisdom to devour, to absorb, simply because I like that he dares to go against the grain and bothers to have his own opinion rather than just mindlessly believing in things, I have fallen into that trap myself. But very soon I discovered that was the antithesis of what he was trying to do. This was not his vision and pretty early on in this memoir of sorts I understood this and then began upon a journey into the mind of this self proclaimed Antichrist.
This together with a peek into his childhood, relationships and career make up Marilyn Manson’s The Long Hard Road out of Hell.

Written almost a decade ago, before the Columbine witch hunt commenced, this book will see you divulge in a world of grotesque confessions, debatably inhuman acts of sodomy and nihilism and uncover the secret but unconcealed life of rock stars, unveiled like you have never seen before.

To end off this quasi review of a life that can only be described as horrifically intriguing, I will leave you with a quote from Mr Warner which sums up the overall message of the book, “I never said to be like me, I say to be like you and make a difference.”

Discovery or; More than Just Bad Luck

Not original in the slightest. Not colourful or worthy of remembrance in any way. Even his name suggested a certain lack of importance.

An identity belonging to another man already.

The way his hair fell into his face not unlike every other man with that hair style.
No, there was nothing to separate him from any other person.

Well, except for one small thing. One small... Talent.

You see, Henry Miller had a gift not many people have but that didn’t set him apart, it certainly did not set him free.
Henry was full of ideas. All day long, no matter where he was or what he was doing, Henry came up with the most amazing ideas, novel ideas; inventions. He would look at something and think of ways to improve that object.
But the problem with Henry was the thought that came after that thought. Somehow he thought that these ideas, characters and inventions were already in a book, or a type of sewing machine or something he’d seen before somewhere. He thought he had heard all of his ideas before, and thus he did not write anything down, he did not take his ideas any further than a seed in his overcrowded mind.
He always got excited when he first thought of something he believed to be a true original; his heart always beat a little faster.
But that feeling would soon blend into the dirt on the ground and eventually he would forget.

Henry was always treated as average, always satisfied with crumbs of attention from people; colleagues, friends; family.
But he felt he earned a place in history every time he thought of something ingenious, something the world needed and would praise him for bringing to it; then reality would set in and he’d realise he’d heard it all before.

So Henry carried on.

Henry lived alone. He enjoyed the solitude and the late nights out in his garden. He loved walking in his garden in the midnight hours; his Eden. He had an immaculate view of the moon and he liked to lie on the moist grass because it didn’t remind him of anything. He just lay there.
Henry was all Henry thought he needed. I suspect he thought this way because there was no one else.
Henry had a bad heart. Not the kind that didn’t give a homeless man a quarter but the kind that would stop. Just cease. Like the sound on a T.V with no reception. His doctor had warned him of this on several occasions, but of course it was something considered so far in the future, so pointless to worry over now.
Then one day.

Henry was walking to work on an average Tuesday morning. He walked past a hot dog vendor; the man looked as if he hadn’t bathed since winter began but the new fallen snow made him appear clean.
That is what Henry adored about snow. Life seemed fresh and hopeful. The city appeared to him a pretty virgin, untouched and expectant.
Deceptively innocent.

Henry walked through a small mall where people-watching was not a pleasant activity; a short cut to a cafe he would frequent.
He passed empty store windows like vacant eyes staring out at him as he carried on, past mannequins displaying pagan nudity, to his final destination.
His usual hazelnut latte.

As he got to the front of the line and gave his order to the tanned brunette with full red lips behind the counter, his eyes grazed the front page of a newspaper so pleasantly placed in his eye line.
A sinking, sickening feeling.
Henry began to laugh, like laughter in a dream, it felt to Henry; pure bizarre. A fragmentary sound.

If he weren’t constantly drowning in routine he may have had the chance to escape the news that ruined his life. He could have gone on without the knowledge and lived a peaceful life.
You see, Henry never read the newspaper. He never watched the news.
But this is not our Henry. Our Henry saw the newspaper at the coffee shop he went to everyday before work and by extension, saw the fairy tale future he hadn’t realised he had being handed to someone else on a silver platter.
Henry saw his dreams coming true for another man, he saw his idea in some unknown’s bank account, in some unknown’s relative’s proud smile.

And he died right there in the coffee shop covered in steaming brown liquid.

The Almost Bride

There’s was a love envied by the gods.

Romeo would blush were he alive, were he real, at the romance that dripped from Logan’s lips into the eager ear of Amanda’s.

The wedding was a much anticipated affair, drawing crowds from far and wide to relish in the splendour of a union so holy and so right.

To be around such a love, these travellers hoped there was something in the air. Something contagious... A dream they could catch perhaps, if they were in the presence of it.

Amanda was elegant, she had a grace and beauty so refined. She was quiet and most often withdrawn; arrogant and cold. But at the same time you could feel in her presence a passion. A fire, if you will; a burning yearning. A youthful glow in her green eyes suggested she was a little girl trapped in this woman’s body, in this woman’s life.

She fell in love with Logan rather quickly considering her disdain for anything expected of her. She knew that soon she would be required to get married, whether willing or not, and so, being as stubborn as she was, she refused to meet any suitors. She decided to wait until the real thing happened. The love thing.

And now, standing in a room in front of a grand mirror on her wedding day; she couldn’t imagine a greater love. She felt intoxicated and wild inside.

A feeling she reserved only for her lover. Her soul mate.

Everyone else took the back seat in her parade, a smaller, if not minute role in the play, nay; the musical of her life.

She had the airs and lyricism of a woman in love, love; a word she was frequently heard to say, among many others that suggested her complete infatuation with her future husband.

If Logan had any feelings to speak of, he hid them with a quiet persistence, to Amanda and to the rest of the world.

He was irresponsible and fickle and found his lost youth in Amanda’s child-like eyes.

But he was a wanderer by heart, a fact he hid well and truly deep down. He loved Amanda, desired her and he knew, like Amanda knew, his time was coming. He would be expected to get married, have children and live a humble life in the country.

Logan was not ready nor did he ever think he would be for such a life. He craved adventure, moments in time that belonged to him alone, feeding his spirit with the wonders of the world and all that it had to offer, and he knew; it had to offer all of the things he wanted.

Nevertheless; the wedding date was set. Preparations made and invitations sent out. And they seemed happy.

Amanda’s breathing was shallow and constant.

The phone rang harshly.

And as her lips received their colour, she thought about the Buddhist belief that when you find your soul mate you’re calm, not nervous, not agitated. And that is how she felt.

Ramona, Amanda's maid, who's voice had been a constant, hushed murmur in the room for five minutes, put the phone down gently.

After the final touches to her cheeks were made and she had slipped into her shoes, she made her way to the door and motioned for one of the helpers to open it for her; she was ready.

Silence.

Ramona got up and slowly started toward the door.

And in a whisper said “He’s not here Amanda.”

Amanda touched her hair that was so beautifully done, a mass of dark curls and the shine of white beads.
“What is taking so long? Is he almost here?” She asked with a tone so sweet with hope.

The ladies who were helping her with the task of getting ready all looked down to the magenta coloured carpet, avoiding the questioning gaze of Amanda, standing so tall in her white gown.

“Madam...”

“Wait.” Amanda held up a perfectly manicured hand and took a deep breath.

She looked like she might continue; she opened her mouth as if words would pour out, and then closed it just as quickly.

He wasn’t coming.

Ramona later recalled that Amanda had been, in that moment, the most naked person she’d ever seen with a dress on.

Nothing more needed to be said and to spare any more shame; embarrassment, all the girls left the room, including Ramona.

Amanda wondered inwardly; had her sentence always been written? Was this to be her fate?
She sat on the rough beige stool made of straw and metal, gazed for the thousandth time at her reflection in the mirror but saw someone decidedly different. She had become, in the space of a few minutes, who she knew, then, she was destined to become.

The person without.

The woman she feared. The woman she loathed. She, alone; unwanted.

Had she been so naive and without foresight all this time; or had she known this all along in the silence of her soul.

And so it came to be; the gods who envied a love like theirs did not exist and the enthusiastic crowds ran away back home and shut their doors.

Diary of an Insomniac

23 April
I glance at the clock on my bed side table, 6:57am, and wonder for the millionth time why I even bother setting the alarm when I always wake a few minutes before it is supposed to go off.

Sitting in the staff kitchen, sipping the remainders of my vanilla iced coffee and picking at what's left of my croissant, I stare out the window, at the morning traffic. I smile, glad to be here, bored, rather than sitting bumper to bumper out there in the blistering heat.The restaurant is deserted.I sit, blocking out all the noise around me and daydream. If I could make a career out of daydreaming I’d be a billionaire by now. The thing about me is that I don't have any real career goals or aspirations to speak of, though in my dreams I’m a successful person, never living the same day twice, brilliant at everything I do, which ranges from being an international superstar (singing being my talent of choice) to an air hostess.
In reality, I’m a waitress. I serve tender grilled octopus and rooster pasta six days a week at a Greek inspired restaurant in Brooklyn.I make $3.90 an hour so I rely heavily on my ability to fake a friendly smile in order to make reasonable tips. I don’t love my job.
Mostly; I dream of love.Ever since high school I’d been either in love, on the verge of being in love, or heartbroken. I was tired. And now I had gotten used to being on my own.And while I was waiting for my happy ending, I found beautiful solace in dreaming.

24 April
Number 40 Lenox Avenue has been my home for almost three years. East Orange is not the grandest of locations but it’s affordable, it’s comfortable, it's home. Connla and I moved in together after high school. We were eager to satisfy our craving for independence as soon as possible.It wasn’t much when we first moved in but over the years we’ve managed to create something quite special.
The hardwood floor and Spanish tiled bathroom are our most prized characteristics and our little garden paradise has accommodated us on many a summers evening, relaxing after a particularly laborious day with a glass or two, or three of the cheapest wine and a box of cigarettes.
My bedroom is hot pink. Hot pink, the mood I was in on that cloudless day in November. Before the cold came in. When Connla and I were painting each room and I decided I didn’t want to have another tired, almost-colour, only slightly differing from my room back home and my heart leapt at the sight of this luminousness before me, I shouted a categorical yes! And it was mine.
I was unwavering in my decision to keep the décor to an absolute minimum, despite Connla’s urging me to spruce it up. I bought a couple of lilac lamp shades for the two bed side tables and a single stainless steel photo frame for my parents’ wedding picture. It is the thing I would run to save if ever there was a fire.I also purchased a second hand dark wood shelf, for all my books, of which there were many. All unread. My closet was in keeping with my minimalist approach, accidentally. It wasn’t at all too small; I just had much less clothing than your average 24 year old.

27 April
Sitting in nothing but an old shirt, sipping red wine and watching an old romance the doorbell rings. It’s 10:01 on a Saturday night.I dash into my bedroom, throw some pants on and head for the door. I open the door.
My lips part. The bottom one hits the floor. I shut the door, I am hallucinating.
I open it again. Is this some kind of lugubrious joke. Words are swirling around inside my mouth but nothing finds its way out. I reach out. I touch him. He’s solid. I start to cry, hysterically.
He reaches out, takes my hand and pulls me close to him. As we stand in the hallway he strokes my hair while I weep. How can this be?
I said goodbye to Jake over 3 years ago. I still remember exactly where I was, what I was wearing and how I felt. It’s so easy for me to go there, even after all this time.
Still thinking I must be going insane I pull away. He’s still there. He’s still the same.
His head's still shaved.
He’s wearing tight denims and a well fitted hoodie, grey.
He looks like an angel. Is he an angel?
Am I dead too?
I was rendered still.

28 April
I open my eyes. I rub them and realize they're still wet, from tears?
It was a dream.This isn't the first time he's visited me in my sleep.
A few days after the accident I had the most vivid dream. He was so beautiful. My eyes start to water. You’d think that after 3 years the memory wouldn't still cut like it happened yesterday.
But it does.
We were dancing in the air, in a great ballroom. I remember every detail. I held onto every detail as tightly as I could. It was an old fashioned fairy tale scene, complete with the proper ballroom attire and great crystal chandelier. I used to think it was his way of saying goodbye.

06:59. I lie, staring up at the ceiling. Remembering, feelings surfacing that I’d suppressed for such a long time.

1 May
I’m standing in front of my full length mirror. I still look the same. Maybe my hair's a little longer. And lighter. I have blonde streaks now. I think of changing back to black.
I throw on my favourite Beatles t shirt and a pair of old jeans. I pull my hair back into a messy bun, grab my bag and leave. I need air. I feel like a zombie, like maybe I’m sleep walking. I feel light, like a ghost. Ghosts. Is he haunting me? Ghosts are known for their vengeance. Imprisoned on earth to take revenge on those who did them wrong. When I get home I’ll crash.
I’m sitting on a park bench. Crossed legged, smoking. Thinking.
I remember his bedroom. It was typical. Posters of hot blondes, clothes strewn across the floor, alcohol bottles lined the shelf. There was a radio. It was always on. I can't remember what music played. I wish I could.
We’d drink. We’d banter. We’d laugh and we’d kiss.

My cigarette is finished. I’m exhausted.
I start walking along the outskirts of the park and there he is. Walking towards me. In public. In broad daylight. Can anyone else see him I wonder? I look around.
My heart is about it stop. A ball rolls by his feet. He picks it up and throws it for an over eager bull terrier. He’s real. My legs won't move. I feel paralyzed.

"Are you really here, alive?"
"Here, yes, alive, no."
He says this like it actually makes some kind of sense.I reach out and touch him; I feel the woolly fabric of his sweater and the warmth that radiates through it. I slowly move my hand upwards and touch his flushed salmon cheek. Quickly, I withdraw my hand and look down at the grass.
“How are you?” He asks. I look around and wonder hurriedly if in fact anyone else can see him for fear that I might look certifiable. The park appeared to be pretty deserted so I risked it.
“I haven’t slept well, well in a while. Ever since you showed up actually.”
These words come out laggard. I continue.
“I’m grappling with the idea that you are real, tangible. Here, you know? I don’t want to be insane. I don’t want to believe you are actually standing here in front of me three years after you died. Three years after I saw you, in a coffin, being wheeled down the church aisle.”
Words to this dead person are coming easier now. He is just standing, listening while I speak, shifting his weight from left to right and back again.
“Am I an insane person Jake?” I ask this with the utmost sincerity but at the same time I’m hoping it comes across as a rhetorical question. Why is it that we are always afraid of the answers to the questions we so desperately want answered. Why do we even bother asking?
He doesn’t say anything and his silence is starting to unnerve me. I don’t like it when people are quiet too long, when it happens I start suspecting we’re not exactly on the same page anymore.
“Are you going to say anything? Jake?” I plead.
He frowns. He speaks.
“You are not insane Scarlet, you’re exhausted. Not only in the literal sense but in every sense of that word. And you have spent so much of your priceless time thinking of things that can never happen. Things that have passed. And after you got over thinking about those things you started blaming all of your circumstances on those things you think you missed out on, unfairly. And Scarlet, those things, they never belonged to you, they were never meant to be. That, that is something you need to face, admit, know.”

The truth is, I demolished our relationship. For reasons I am still quite unsure of, I crushed, and then proceeded to throw up all over the image he had of me. For some reason I began to hate him and I wanted him to hate me.
The truth is, I thought I had forever. I thought I’d always have the time; I’d always have the time to change.

“I know all of this Jake, Jesus; you did not have to come all the way back from wherever the hell you were to tell me that. I hear you, hey but I already know.”
There is no hiding the immense irritation in my voice. He turns around and walks away from me.

The funeral. It was a rainy day, which is not uncommon for late march and definitely fitting for this event.I got lost. I drove around for ages trying to find the church and part of me hoped I wouldn't. I parked the car when I eventually found it and walked towards the entrance. The first thing I saw was the coffin. It was bigger than I imagined it would be. It amazes me how quickly the funeral comes around, after someone dies.

When he died I felt bad. Sorry. I hardly knew him and all of a sudden I wanted to. My indifference, my coolness concerning him and us melted into something almost real. As if he and I had meant something more to each other than we had. Maybe we had.

4 May
Connla sees herself and likes what she sees. I cannot pretend to know what that kind of confidence feels like and I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for it. I believe that any confidence I may have felt in the past for any reason was just an illusion. A fleeting illusion.I am usually so overpowered by my stoicism it’s hard to see a light at the end of anything. It’s difficult to see any light. Jake's death did not mean the end of light, it made lights absence appear from where it was hiding and scream.
Any delusions I may have had on the simplicity and the delight of life were shattered on that day. Now it appears I have an understanding. It seems I have a truth.
It was different when my parents died. They died when I was young. They were young too. After the accident I moved in with my mother’s sister. She was a single mom with two young boys and loved me like I was her own. I don’t know why but I suppose it is because that is how it was. I didn’t know them. I don’t remember what my mother looked like; I can’t picture her face in my mind without consulting a photograph.
I don’t remember what my father’s laugh sounded like.My aunt always said it was his trademark; you would here his laughter and could not help but laugh with him, even if you had no idea why he was laughing. It was different when they died because I had not yet grasped life, let alone death. It is by no means less painful, just in separate ways.
I cry for everyone, and I cry for myself. Because life is mostly sad. There’s always the sadness, the desolation, the darkness. The question mark. It’s always in the background.
It wasn't clear until his demise. It might have been there but I didn't see it until his body was ruined.

What does he want from me now? An interview I read comes to mind. Mary Ha, a woman who claimed to have come back from the dead. She said "Evil is dead people and they're everywhere."I know that when you die that's it. Our bodies become food for other creatures. Our ashes become the rain.

11 May
Another quote I remember from my childhood, "The dead are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise." Isaiah 26:14.
I’ve never had much faith in the Bible; it's nothing I’ve ever grasped. It’s something I’ve always, to some extent, faked an understanding of.
How can I believe a book to be true that has been written and rewritten, by man, for thousands of years?
Every so often I think about if God exists, and that, if he does I’m almost definitely going to hell. I often wonder if such a place even exists.
I hate this inner debate so I usually stop it there.
If only I could just know for sure.

14 May
Dizzy is playing in the background. I’m at home. It’s Sunday evening and I know I have work tomorrow but I can’t seem to fall asleep.
“…and inside, there’s no rainbows…”
Ever since Jake died I’ve been anxious about love, too timid to feel. Because if I could cry like that for someone I liked, if I could feel that much for someone I hardly knew. Imagine.
“…and inside, I play with shadows…”
I can’t sleep anymore. It seems the reappearance of Jake has replaced it and no matter how much I want it, no matter how much I need it, I can’t find it. And I’m beginning to grow tired of looking. This is when I seriously consider medicinal assistance. I resolve to pay a visit to my doctor in the morning.

15 May
Morning comes quick. And I still feel like I’m in the middle of an eerie hallucination. But I see him standing at the foot of my bed and realize I still have to figure out a way to get rid of him and save my sanity with some sleep. This ghost. Jake. A phantom from my past that won’t leave me alone.
A sort of ex boyfriend from another life, which is so far from the life I lead now. He doesn’t fit anymore. Anyhow.
Why is he here? Why do I see him?
I ask him these very questions.
His reply. “Because you need me, to let go.
”That’s funny, because I thought I had done just that, and wouldn’t him reappearing like a phoenix kind of put the brakes on any hope of ever letting go, if I hadn’t already done so. I didn’t consider the fact that he might have been referring to something other than himself and why would I?

This is all terribly deranged. I have been in a perpetual state of perplexity and disarray, not to mention sleep deprivation, since Jake appeared at my door. I can’t go on like this. I need to see someone. Someone alive.

Joan is singing yeah, yeah god is great and I’m humming along. I remember this song.The receptionist looks impatiently in my direction and unceremoniously motions for me to enter the doctor’s office. Doctor Miller is a stern looking woman in her late forties I presume. She has honey coloured hair and a Swiss nose. She smiles.

“Scarlet, how are you today?”
I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear and say a shy “fine, thanks.”
“What can I do for you?” she asks.

This is where I begin pouring forth words of a completely unintelligible nature. I am certain that if she cannot see I am in dire need of drugs which will induce sleep at this point she must be incredibly blind and if she refuses to prescribe the strongest medication available she is just plain cruel.
A half an hour later I breathe a sigh of relief and relish the fresh air entering my nostrils. The kind doctor, after hearing of my sleep deprivation, wanted to know what I thought the cause may be. I panicked for a moment and then I realized I could not possibly tell her the truth about why sleep had ceased. I couldn’t tell her how my sort-of ex boyfriend had left the grave he was buried in to visit me. So I calmed myself and decided to tell a half truth. I told her about Jake, changing a few details in the story. Making it falsely normal. After about fifteen minutes of half truths and half lies she opened her drawer and pulled out a prescription pad and a plucked the pen from her breast pocket and began scribbling. She explained what the three sets of pills were for, dosage and when to take each. I half listened. We exchanged a few more words but at that point I was already gone.

Anonymity. Somehow I have always found myself being torn between a desperate craving to be faceless and a veiled yearning to be the centre of it all.
It’s not easy deciding who you want to be.
Assuming I’m the latter rather than the former at this point, I’m relieved. No eyes on me now would only enhance the feeling of isolation that is currently occupying all the space in my soul.

Connla calls. She wants to have a drink, catch up. I have taken too many rain cheques so I say yes and ask where and when. Juju’s. 2 o clock.

That evening as I lay my head down, after swallowing my accessories to quiescent, I saw Him again. Him. I decided then that before I allow these pills to send me into complete comatose I would discover once and for all why Jake was really here, from six feet under to six feet from me.
I sat up and switched on the bedside lamp, squinting at the sudden light.
“So,” is where I began and end, because as soon as that word left my mouth Jake was gone. I rubbed my eyes, blinked and reopened them. No one was in the room but me. Me and Monroe, who was lethargically licking himself in his basket by the door.
If it wasn’t made clear enough to me before, it was absolutely crystalline now. It was all just a drawn out hallucination, some sort of phantasmagoria.
I lay my head back down and it sinks into the softness of my pillow and I feel entirely languish and calm.
But still; no sleep.

16 May
I see Connla strutting towards me, catwalk style, and I feel better instantaneously. I can’t explain why but the mere sight of her makes me almost forget myself. I’m in her world now, mine just fades away.
She sits down with a dramatic sigh.
“What a day.”
It seems this is the jumping off point to all or at least most, of our conversations.
We’re sitting inside a not-so-trendy-but–perfect-in-it’s-own–special-kind-of-way café downtown, Juju’s. A waiter slides over to take our drink order.
“A glass of your house white for me, scarlet?”
I consider this question for a moment, eventually deciding on iced water, with lemon. I feel dehydrated, and the thought of any particular taste on my tongue makes me want to gag.

I dive right in.
” Do you think I’m emotionally dead?” I ask.
Connla looks taken aback but still manages to throw me one of those inevitable of-course-not-honey looks, the one that seems to come so naturally to most. I ignore and plunge forward.I continue.
“Do you think I secretly don’t want to fall in love, or have any real relationships so I never give anybody a chance? Because I’m afraid? Because of Jake?”
A long pause.
Longer still.

“I think you’re an eternal pessimist. I think you secretly beg for knives in your back so you won’t have to admit you’re completely jaded.” This is my friend’s reply.

Isn’t it sweet? How my back almost secretly begs for knives.

“I think you’ve ridden jakes death to the end of the road and you’re running out of reasons to cry, and feel bad and this is worrying you.”

Risk it. Risk being told what you don’t want to hear. Being told all that you already know but have thus far refused to let anyone else get wind of your knowledge. Feign ignorance. It is, after all, bliss.

“I think you need a holiday. You’ve been working double shifts on virtually no sleep at all and you seem really stressed out. Maybe take a couple of days off and relax. Sleep late; get a massage, clear your head.”
This kind of generic advice makes me want to get sick but I smile and say I will. I say I will try and relax. Like this is easy. And while we finish up our drinks I am thinking that this person in front of me doesn’t know me from the person sitting at the table next to ours. And that I am partly, if not wholly, to blame for that.
“Are you alright?” she asks after growing slightly uncomfortable in the silence following her advice.
“Uh, sure, yeah I’m ok.” I smile. I haven’t the energy to carry on this conversation.
“I better get going,” I begin.
“Look,” Connla interrupts. “I’m sorry you’re not sleeping. I’m sorry you’re not happy. You know that right? I know that in time, when you are ready, you’ll let go of all this…stuff and live the way you are meant to live. And be happy. That is all I want for you.”
“Thanks Connie.” I get up and give her a kiss on the cheek.
The afternoons drink with Connla has deflated me a considerable amount. I want to sleep.
Work beckons.

I’ve grown so tired of living in the self induced shame of something I cannot understand. Of something so far away.
I have hidden things under the bed and everyday that they are there my shoulders slump lower under the weight of it. It’s oppressiveness; it is infinite dejection and stupidity.
Jake is no longer an issue. I haven’t seen him in days. Connla is right, he really does not have any effect on my life today, and I am just using him as something to conceal myself from the world.
Maybe I am just meant to be one of those people who are alone and that’s the way it is for them. And they like it better that way. Those people do actually exist. My boss’ brother’s girlfriend knows one so it’s not just a myth. Maybe I’m that person. It’s an avenue worth exploring at the very least.
The loss of him. What do I think I lost that November? A potentially great love affair. Possibly but highly unlikely. I don’t know how things would have turned out had Jake not been vanquished from this world. Had we had more time, would things have really turned out that much more differently?

Probably, we would have ended up slow dancing in a burning room.
I lost a sense of immortality that day. I lost the desire to do anything worthwhile because what is the point when it can all get taken away so quickly without you having anything to say about it. Gone just.like.that.
I lost a lot of important things that day which begs the question, was I really grieving for Jake or was I mourning the personal things that died with him?

4 June
Agnanti Meze is characteristically busy this evening and I am mustering every ounce of energy I have to run around introducing myself, taking drink orders, placing food orders, making drinks, taking food out and attending to bills. I have not had a proper night’s sleep in I don’t even know how long and I am literally running on empty as I haven’t been able to stomach anything solid in days. The kitchen is unbearably hot and noisy and I feel like at any moment I will just collapse into a pile of whites. I just want to sleep.
I haven’t seen Jake since our last encounter. Reminding myself of that fact calms me to some degree. I silently send up a prayer of thanks.

It’s 11:30 pm by the time the last tables begin the process of dispersing. At 11:47 pm, at last, there is only one table left, right up front, two men. Both seemed to be in their later twenties, the one facing me had dark hair and pale eyes, almost grey. The other, whose back was facing me, had thick hair on the blonde side of mousy. I hadn’t noticed them at all throughout the evening and was starting to wonder if maybe I knew them because each time I walked past they’d become silent and survey me as if they wanted to say something but thought better of it.

As I was putting my coat on and preparing to leave for the night, the dark one put his half smoked cigarette into the full metallic ashtray and stood up with a peculiar sense of urgency for so late in the evening. There was something exceptional about the way he moved across the room. An alien feeling arose in the pit of my stomach. I became suddenly aware of how hot it was inside the restaurant, I immediately wished I had at least gone to the ladies room to observe my sorry state in front of a mirror and perhaps freshen up. I realized it was too late and concluded that it wouldn’t have made much of a difference and it definitely wouldn’t matter anyway because he was probably only coming over so he could exist through the front door which I was standing right in front of and which was a perfectly common occurrence.To my utter surprise, and abhorrence, he stopped in front of me, so close I could smell his musky cologne.
“Hi, sorry to bother you, my name is Christian…” he paused. His voice was rough, gravelly.
“Hi, I’m scarlet…” I held out my hand and he took it.
“Hi scarlet, uh, I was wondering if perhaps you would like to join my friend and I for a drink, we’re on our way to Bar Baby, it’s just a few minutes’ walk from here.”
I looked around nervously. It had been such a long time since I had been approached by a stranger I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. He noticed my hesitation and spoke, this time with undeniable assertion.
“Think about. We’ll be there, probably till pretty late.” And with that he sauntered off.

Bar Baby made me feel old. Old and desperate even with the knowledge that I was in fact meeting someone rather than going to meet someone. I had no idea what to expect, all I knew was that time and life were slipping quickly away from me and if I didn’t do something about that, I would never have a chance. I needed something.

And there he was my help, in the form of Christian’s body. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see me and my irritation with that observation quickly disappeared when I noticed how happy he seemed to see me. Excited. It made me excited.

And after a few drinks I was even more excited. Smitten. Conversation came easy, the whole evening felt easy, and not at all how I remember first dates to feel. No awkwardness, just ease. Effortless and for the first time in a really long time I felt worthy. I felt like I deserved to be there, with this wonderful man. I basked in the glow of his attention, which I noticed was the envy of half the single women in the room. Drunk on more than the wine I was consuming I didn’t hesitate when he offered to take me home, which I knew to be code for him wanting to take me to his home.
“So what do you say?” he asks. He, he not being devoid of anything I am interested in.
“Sure.” Is my answer.

His apartment is clean. His apartment is white and clean and I feel dirty. He offers me a drink. Something red, something dry.
It seems impossible for me to resist the seduction of cynicism, although others have always regarded me as someone who looks for the brighter side. Finding and declaring it, and in turn neglecting the matter with today, which solves nothing.
Back to square one. How long can you stay positive for? Where do you find the energy to concern yourself with such things?
The truth is, I fake it. I feign a sense of hope that I don’t have inside myself anymore.The truth is I’m beginning to feel convinced it was never really there in the first place.

The truth.

No matter how hard I try to fight the urge to surrender to the sullen villain that is myself sometimes and demystify the way my mind works before acting out all of what I’m feeling, I can’t do it.
I get deprived of sight and fall into this obscure and well hidden pool of insecurity and hopelessness that is becoming harder and harder to drag myself up and out from.

The gorgeousness I felt so strongly not even an hour ago had, somewhere between the taxi ride home and Christian’s front door, vanished.
But I wasn’t going to give up that easily. Even if I had to fake it to really feel it again. Who ever know anyway?
We made love that night. Banishing every dating rule ever thought up. And it was good; it filled me up when I needed filling. And I resigned myself to the fact that he may or may not call. That resignation gave me some of the power.
It turns out, I didn’t need that power; he called. And called. And called. And all of a sudden I was in a couple bubble, and I thought it was quite great.

16 June
To labyrinthine my life more, I do believe I am happy. Which I realize seems absurd considering my dysphoric countenance. But what have I got to be melancholy about?
This man has nothing to do with anything from before. I can breathe and be new with him. It has taken a long time to get here, in this moment, with a companion, and I’m feeling fine. I haven’t seen Jake in a while but I haven’t slept in what feels like forever. Physically I’m down; emotionally I’m raw but healing.
I could fall in love with this man. I could let it happen. Because I’m starting to believe in happy endings. I still need sleep.

6 July
The happiness I felt in the first few weeks of this new relationship has started to dwindle, all the feelings I’d stuffed in the back of my closet to gather dust with the clothes I decided I didn’t want to wear anymore were starting to come forward again, as I knew they eventually would. You can’t hold these things down too long. Eventually they rear their ugly heads.The paralyzing insecurity.

Dear Christian

I think you’re just with me because I appeared when you were deep in loneliness and needed someone, anyone, to fill the void that was your life.
This is my biggest fear and if I ever found it to be true it would kill me.
I am an insecure creature, it comes so naturally. To question the reasons for the love you claim to have for me. I’m so afraid I’m not all that you wanted, I’m afraid you’ve just settled for me, the next best thing.
And I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you. Because I know you are a good man.I know this like I know the sun will surely rise tomorrow. I know that you don’t ever want to hurt me, and I know that you do love me. It’s so difficult to explain.

But maybe I’m not who you want. Maybe there is someone else out there that you think of when I want you to think of me. Someone else you think of when you want to think of me.
Someone you know would make you happier than I can make you.
The tears stream down my face because I know you are the only one who could light the fire inside me and keep it burning for a lifetime, without a doubt. How will I ever know if I am that person for you?
You say the words and I’m sure you want to mean them but what if you don’t.

I didn’t think it possible for me to think of only one person. But I only think of you. I only dream of you and I wish, how I wish, I knew for certain that you werethinking of me too. That you were dreaming of me too.

This is my fear.

I want to open my heart to you. But this fear is so suffocating, I’m hiding underneath the smoke in the room and I am choking.
I wonder if this is all me, my wicked imagination. Maybe I read too much into things and create this false reality that you seem completely unaware of. Do you know?
I feel like a shadow of a person hiding behind a pretty face that no one looks beyond.
The truth is I think too much. The truth is I can’t decipher between the reality of a situation and my warped interpretation of it. To me it’s one and the same thing. To me, you could leave any minute, once you realize yourself.
Don’t you see how much I want to be all the things you wish for me to be? All the things you hoped you’d find in me are there, I just can’t show them to you because of the strong barricade.

And what if I am all that you want? And all this uncertainty and this grief are for nothing? What if I ruin our relationship because I didn’t believe you? Because I don’t believe you know yourself or how you feel. Because I think I know how you feel better than you do, which I couldn’t possibly. Or could I? It would be my fault and I would be unhappy for the rest of my life knowing I had this love and thought it away.

If I sent this letter would you even still love me? If you knew how I felt would you still think me beautiful? Worthy?

What is the point of a relationship if you can’t tell your partner everything? This person is supposed to be your confidant. This person is supposed to be your ally.
This person is meant to know you.

All I want is to know your heart. I want all of your love and I want all of your attention and I want to know things I know that I can’t know, not for sure. So am I destined to be forever unsatisfied by you and what you are and aren’t willing to give to me?

Are you ever going to be mine?

Love, Scarlet

I take the Zippo from my handbag and light the letter. I can’t explain but somehow I feel better, even though Christian will never read this, or know this. I feel like it was something I had to say. It was something I had deal with, on my own.

27 July
I am still relieved I’ve not seen Jake in months, and still paranoid that he’ll pop up when I least expect it, maybe even whilst I’m having dinner with Christian, or in bed with him.I still need a good night’s sleep.


2 August
Tonight was special.
A truly wondrous moment in time, when everything stood still. Everything went quiet.As he slipped the black diamond onto my pale and sallow finger the weakness in me fell down to my toes and I believed in that moment with those eyes staring at me that this man was mine. I possessed his love. In that moment we were perfect.

9 August
I’m sitting at home. Alone. Christian, being, as it turns out, an incredibly busy and important business man was on his way to the West Coast for a rather large event and would be back “before I knew it”. I still find it hard to comprehend the fact that I am engaged, and once I relay this information to the people in my life I will not be the only one. There is so much to do, so much to plan and all I want to do is sleep. I’ve taken the day off work in the hopes that I will find myself some. So here I sit, with the bottle of Diphenhydramine hcl, Cymbalta and Wellbutrin that the good doctor prescribed for me months ago, which I have taken rather religiously since, on the bedside table next to the stainless steel photo frame of my parents on their wedding day and a glass of rose in my hand. I just want to sleep. To sleep per chance to dream.

I’ve managed to grab a few hours here and there at awkward times, and albeit awkward places on several occasions, but not nearly enough to be an actual functioning human being andthe temptation to take more than the recommended daily allowance to sleep deeper and longer is overwhelming. It’s an alluring prospect for a weakened soul and it overpowers.

I want to sleep. I take two; I take four, six, and eight, of each.
And I take more, for good measure. I can’t recall how many that is now.

I run a bath in a sedated state, swirling the water between my fingers as it pours from the tap. I step inside and my feet burn.
I lay there and drift away. I can feel myself slipping away.
I hear the song that was playing at dinner in my head, “…you were so beautiful before today…”.
And then I see him again. Jake. He looks forlorn. I feel something like relief, or acceptance.
“…and nothing felt like how it should be…”
Beautiful release.

I always wanted to fall in love with someone who would become part of me like breathing. Someone who was no one I’d ever met and everybody I loved. And I did. I did.
And sometimes time runs out.

I jerk up, suddenly aware of how the Spanish tiles seem to be closing in on me and how hot my cheeks are. They’re on fire, I’m certain of it.
I fall out of the bath, not able to lift my head at all.

Facedown on the bathroom floor, burning cheeks, wet eyes and sticky hands.
I don’t know how long I have been here. My stomach is hollow, my mind vacant.
I just want it to be quiet but I can hear the phone ringing. The sound makes me want to die.
I can’t close my eyes but I can’t keep them open. The ringing doesn’t stop.
All traces from the song in my head from before are gone. Now, I can’t even remember the melody. The words are long gone. Anomalous peace washes over me.
The ringing stops. Silence.
Sleep.

Not So Long Ago

Haunted by the ghost trace of the words, I still see them, a little less than constantly. And it makes me wonder.
Am I just a play thing among many? A toy?

What did it mean?

I’m wearing a hooker’s stained red dress and I see her face with a fire white halo hanging above it.

I remember.

The colours from the screen started to mix with the fierce light and my faithless eyes until I could no longer see any words. They disappeared and left me with a headache, which was not aided by the tears that fell.

This is me and maybe I’ll never understand.

But I will always try.

Something For My Lover

In the ethereal gloom of the mornings without him
She sees this tragedy weekly,
Her body accepts the torture of being without his;
But only because it has hope for the future.

She dances delightfully in the sun like Friday’s child
Awaiting his eyes like rain; like light and champagne.
To become intoxicated on one glass of him,
One glass has the power to make sure she grows so beautifully
His eyes are where she finds her home.

She seems sure they are the 8th wonder of this world
The 1st in her world.

Like the Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow, they bring colour and value and so much warmth to a place so cold.
Like the Christ Redeemer in Brasil, the goodness in them is visible for all to see, they watch over her like a saviour. Her warrior, her king.
Like the Pyramids in faraway lands, they are perfectly symmetrical, perfectly perfect and made to last forever.
Like The Great Wall of China, they go on and on, a never ending display of pure love, love that she knows is hers.
A love as ancient as the Colosseum in Rome, though new to her every day,
She embraces it, she treasures, she cherishes it. This magnificent masterpiece is hers. And she feels sure they are the first to have ever sailed this silent sea of true love.

Nervous Inertia and Misdirected Rage

He waits in the car. The song on the radio barely audible. The time: 10:11pm.
He tries to fight the urge, his daily war.
The urge to get out and get her. To tell her that he loves her too much to let this carry on. To tell her that they’ll find a way. A better way. Better than this.

10:24pm.
The heat from the heater is starting to make him feel nauseous. It is becoming hard to breathe; the stifling dead air and the asphyxiation this situation causes him all melts into the grey plastic ashtray together with the cinder from his long burnt out cigarette. He lights another.

10:39pm.
He winds down the window to let the hyperthermia inducing cold wind rush inside, freezing his bones. He turns the radio up in the hopes that the sound will drown out the voices in his head; the murmurs, the shouts; the tone.
He sees a crazy man in a yellow shirt sweeping rubbish in the wind outside a 7-11 beneath a sign that promises “Fresh Fish”, talking loudly to himself as he continues this pointless task. People walk by and don’t even look his way. It’s amazing what humans can get used to.

He asks that question. The one he’s asked of himself about a thousand and one times in the last 12 months. Why?

They were happy. They had a future. A future that certainly did not involve a constant stream of bachelor parties and private shows; cash in hand and phone calls late, or early, depending on how you look at it.
A future that did not include other men, disease, abortion.

Gina was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her eyes, a windshield wiper detergent blue. A fake blue. Her hair; dirty blonde.
There was no one else for him and he knew it the moment he said it out loud.
And now he often wonders if he is paying some kind of karmic bill.

10:52pm.
Becoming impatient. Becoming aggravated. Nearly sane.

Billy sings Beautiful and the man thinks back to the moment he saw her face. The perfectly placed dimples on both her cheeks, the way her lips would pout in their stationary position. The way she looked when she thought no one was looking.

And now; every man who cares to can look at those artificial blues, that pout and the rest of her, anytime they want. Any way they want.

Gina decided she wanted them to move away. She wanted to start over, turn over a new tree.
But first; she, they, needed to obtain more medium of exchange; they needed to make enough legal tender. Gina took it upon herself to wear the pants.

Or; not wear them, as the case was.

She had even begun learning Chinese.
She was learning Chinese because the rich business men who usually wanted her services were Chinese. She was really starting to get into it.
Maybe enjoying it a little too much.

These are the thoughts this man is thinking, as he sits in the hot box car, waiting for the love of his life to finish with her private party for two.

11:09pm.
Almost over. He doesn’t think he can take it much longer.
It’s always like this, as soon as the hour reaches its end, he feels as if he’s about to explode.
Harsh jealousy, harsher insecurities.
Lost dreams and fading memories.

She feels the same.
She longs for the time way back when it was just her and him. Man and woman. Husband and wife.
She knows that sometimes things change irrparably. Some things shift and never find their place again.
She cries because she knows it's over.
Hopeless.
He doesn't know.
And they still try to prove something to a love they don't believe in any longer.

And later in the night as he lays on the bed watching comedy reruns, she stares at him, thinking of his funeral...What she would say, who would be there. Her eyes begin to water and she wills herself to stop the torture and asks; why, why, why does she think about these things all the time. She slides down and snuggles in the nape of his neck and wishes the mental preparation for the worst further and further away.

Finding Harry

What I love about children’s literature is that it’s magical.

The combination of the words with the pictures and the glossy pages. I want to make that.

And I hope that one day I will gather enough faith in my corner to stop dreaming, write from the child within me, be brave and find Harry in my Olivia.

"Olivia closed her eyes as fast as she could
And opened them again even faster.
Alone on the beach, she thought she had gone mad.
Looking down at her empty hand
Then looking up at the sight before her
She realised she hadn’t gone mad and she knew almost right away what she had to do."

A story

Imagine a day in late September. A day so imperfectly perfect in every way.
Consider a girl. A girl almost hopeless.
Almost.

Then the sun gives way to the stars as she applies her lip gloss and sprays her perfume. Unexpectant. Unobserved.

Her phone sounds, a beep informing her a message awaits. Excitedly, always excitedly she grabs it and her eyes begin to pour over the words, with every letter they capture her.
Her heart... it lifts. It beats harder, faster, louder.
She resists the urge to jump in the air, but only for a second.
She jumps.
Disappointments of yesteryears still hang like mist in her mind.
Let’s just wait and see...

And she saw.
This girl, she saw her dreams, her life. She saw everything in the boy.
The boy with the dark hair and the darker countenance.

She found something.
What Tiffany’s was to Holly Golightly, what she searched for, a place to buy furniture for, a reason to give the cat a name.
A home.

In her 22nd year in the world,
She discovered the world.
The beauty of him was indescribable.
She would never forget that night, she knew, or that face, or what she was wearing.

The remarkable boy put his spell on that unsuspecting girl.
And she knows, like she knew, they would live happily ever after.

Litera Scripta Manet

This post will be under construction constantly. It will be a gathering of all my favourite quotes and lyrics and those I pick up along the way. Enjoy

“Between the covers of the books that no one had ever read again, in the old parchments damaged by dampness, a livid flower had prospered, and in the air that had been the purest and brightest in the house an unbearable smell of rotten memories floated.”

“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”

“Ottilie was used to boldly smiling at men; but now her smile was fragmentary, it clung to her lips like cake crumbs.”

“It may be normal, darling; but I’d rather be natural.”

"She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy.I said, "Be careful, his bow tie is really a camera."

"But if the world could remain within a frame like a painting on a wall. Then I think we would see the beauty. Then we would stand staring in awe at our still lives posed like a bowl of oranges."

"In this heart lies for you
A lark born only for you
Who sings only to you
My love"

"It's useful being top banana in the shock department."

“I wanted to believe his words, to be the truth of the story he told.”

"O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;
Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, earth;
Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth
With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs
She hath no questions, she hath no replies."

"Enough. These words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life we have refused
again and again
Until now
Until now."

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let it find you.

"I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

"I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break; and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter - the Eternity they have entered - where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness."

“Wonderful a fistful of snow in the mouths
Of men suffering summer heat
Wonderful the spring winds
For mariners who long to set sail
And more wonderful still the single sheet
Over two lovers on a bed.”

“All those years, that ugliness hadn’t even touched them, hadn’t changed them, hadn’t hurt them, hadn’t even occurred to them until now. That’s th real surprise, one of the girls would say to the other if she could speak to her now, if she could call her best friend on the telephone from her bedroom, if she could lean over and turn the radio down as they drove together into the weedy green of June, and say something, anything. If she could glance at her friends’ reflection beside her in the girls-room mirror, put down her hairbrush and smile, she’d say; that’s the miracle... The real miracle... All the goodness all our lives."

“The truth was that I could not manage my soul, and I was becoming aware of old age because of my weakness in the face of love.”

“How wonderful, she said. I’ve always said jealousy knows more than truth does.”

“Humans have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”

“To hurt is as human as to breathe.”

“Hope springs eternal.”

Great Expectations

“You’ll always be this handsome and your weight will never gain and when I give birth to our children I will feel no pain.”


I am not going to lie. I am in love and the latter lyric Sandi Thom wrote is almost exactly how I feel about my future with the man of my dreams.
As unrealistic and as improbable as these expectations are, and as moderately intelligent as I consider myself to be, I still find myself believing, nay, expecting these absurd day dreams to be a reality some day. Of course the said lyric above takes on a deeper meaning, so rather than just looking at the words and the immediate impression they make in our minds, I decided to consider the things underneath the surface of this seemingly ridiculous statement.


The likelihood of labour being anything less than excruciating is laughable, sure. But imagine if you will, having a baby with a man you adore. This is not as frequent an event as we’re lead to believe. Sure, it’s going to hurt, a pharmacy full of drugs will be your fantasy at that point, but the knowledge that you are having a child with the most gorgeous man you’ve ever seen, that is, in itself, a pain killer.


To love somebody so much that you do not even consider the fact that he may, one day, obtain a belly that is twice the size of the one he holds now. That he may eventually wrinkle. So as I sit with thoughts of my beautiful boyfriend, I stop and wonder: as delusive as it is to anticipate your lover always being how he is in his very best moment in time, is it damaging to the relationship to hold such expectations, or can it actually help make it last “till the end of time”?


To dream so extravagantly used to come so easily, and without apology, up stairs playing with our Barbies when we were 5. We dreamt up perfect husbands for our dolls and they would indeed live happily ever after. They would do anything you said, anytime you said it and they would only have eyes for you. But being in the dating game for any extended period of time, and by extended period of time I mean anything as short as 6 months, can really make you rather sceptical. And the longer you are in the dating game, the more pessimistic you become about true love and other urban myths.


So that when the most amazing guy comes along, we are not capable of comprehension. We do not know this species, and unfortunately we reject what we do not know. I’ve seen it time and time again with friends of mine. One bad relationship after another, for years, and then fate literally hands them prince charming on a silver platter and they have no idea what to do. Inevitably, they screw it up. Goodbye happiness.


The truth is, there are just way too many frogs out there, and way too little princes, that is, I’m afraid, the dark and depressing reality. If you are one of the rare lucky ladies, like myself (sorry) that happened upon a one in a million man, aren’t you reserved a right to be a silly little school girl, are you not permitted to behave accordingly? He will never get fat! He will always be this sexy and when you go into labour with his child, ok let’s just be a little realistic here; it’ll only hurt a little bit.