A deep yet shadowy vice; this immersion, he ponders. A cold book store at the end of a street not far from anywhere else, a man, this man, is sliding the rough tip of his finger along the spines of aged books.
He glances at passersby, young, dirty hands turning glossy pages of rhyming words and colourful pictures, teenagers pouring over celebrity gossip magazines; middle aged women too.
He looks back to the bound pages of knowledge before him and slowly walks down the aisle.
This is his safe harbour; his port in the storm, a storm which rages every other minute he is elsewhere.
He scrunches his nose upward as his eyes take careful note of the title before him, so familiar. A work of fiction he had read a long time ago; with her. John Irving’s story had entertained them for months, they grabbed hours every chance they got to submerge into the world according to Garp.
He looked briefly at the cover, an almost teal green, turned it over to glance at the back, and then swiftly squeezed it in between the two books housed on either side of it again. He tried to concentrate on the next row of books but his mind kept remembering, wondering. He hated to think of her.
Feeling an emotion rise up inside of him like a troublesome wave in the ocean he decided to leave. He stepped out into the heat which was a shocking contrast to the coolness of the store and immediately focused his adjusting eyes on the commotion across the car strewn street.
An indirect brush with mortality; he saw ambulances and tow trucks and people in uniforms; he heard sirens and hooters and gasps.
He wondered silently, as he stared at the mess, how long he had been immersed in the book store, the bodies, or what was left of them, were already gone; all that was left were the vehicles, almost unrecognizable to him now, crushed.
For a minute he stood rooted to the sunny pavement, pondering whether or not he should get into his car, this sight made him think twice. How easily this could happen, how quickly, he thought. In the blink of an eye, life as you know it ends.
This man was never one to stand and gape at such spectacles, normally he would try to avoid looking, driving by as quickly as possible, but today, this sight sent something down his spine and he couldn’t move, his eyes darting from smashed car to smashed car, this calamity had him in a trance of some kind.
He focused on each vehicle; zooming in, he could see blood, a lot of blood and he felt he could almost smell it in the air, as if an unkind breeze was sending the acidic, rust-like smell toward him. His stomach tightened for a moment and relaxed again; it was just his imagination.
He wondered how the paramedics had gotten the bodies out of the cars, it could have been no easy feat, he wondered if there were any bodies to retrieve, or if there were only parts of bodies to retrieve. He shuddered involuntarily, he could not look away, and he stayed fixed.
All of a sudden he wished he’d never left the book store, he wished he could retrace his steps, start the day again and avoid this encounter as he was having an unusual reaction to it, it surprised him and he wasn’t sure how to respond to how his emotions were behaving. He thought of her, and he thought of how fragile the human body is; how quickly, how easily it can be destroyed.
He felt his eyes begin to burn, with what? He rubbed them as if he’d gotten something solid in them and when he looked down at his hands he saw the tears there, staring up menacingly at him.
He felt confused, strangers passing by, the sun frying his face as he stood and stared. He felt a tug in a direction he was unwilling to go toward, such a familiar tug, such a sensation!
In the presence of life and death he felt strangely high. He felt a strength suddenly, and his legs began to walk, and walk, and walk.
They took him to her house. The house looked the same, the grass was the same length, the trees the same height; it was as if no time had passed, he could have been here yesterday or the day before, last week even. It had been 6 years, 4 months.
He saw his finger come up in front of him to press the doorbell; it felt more like he was observing someone else’s finger.
He waited out on the doorstep for what felt like an eternity, but in actuality was no more than a few seconds, until finally, the dark door opened a crack and a single misty blue eye peeked out at this man.
All that had happened did not disappear, their hearts did not suddenly forget, but their eyes locked and all the years, all the resolve, melted away like an ice cream in a child’s hand on a warm day and what was left was a sweet, thick liquid, a happy day.
A happy day was all they had, and they knew it.
January 30, 2009
Windswept, rushed, afraid
Ahead I see you, bright colourful lights shining behind your head; you’re motioning for me to take your hand.
The cars on either side of us seem to be flying at an unfathomable speed and I feel something like panic.
My hair is tangled and whipping violently at my face, I can barely see; but I see you and I’m holding your hand.
The lights get brighter and it makes the scenery behind me seem dull, lifeless.
I feel dull and lifeless; a momentary lapse in self esteem,
You bring me back again and the wind turns into a slight breeze, calming to the core.
The cars on either side of us seem to be flying at an unfathomable speed and I feel something like panic.
My hair is tangled and whipping violently at my face, I can barely see; but I see you and I’m holding your hand.
The lights get brighter and it makes the scenery behind me seem dull, lifeless.
I feel dull and lifeless; a momentary lapse in self esteem,
You bring me back again and the wind turns into a slight breeze, calming to the core.
January 29, 2009
Bruise
The shadows under her eyes reveal her tender state – she has been thinking a lot lately, perhaps she’s been thinking too much, but she feels, she knows, a change is coming.
She needs to decide what is valued highest and what she can live without, because sidling on the edges leaves her tired and nauseated and fed up. In a day, in a month, in a year things can change so drastically, as they have for her, your mind could still be spinning, your heart could still be racing, and in all the craziness you can realise things you were blinded to before, and sometimes your dreams can make you wake up and realise them.
It happened to her. She woke up, on a chilled morning sometime in January, after having dreamt something seemingly arbitrary, and she knew almost certainly, what it meant. The days, the events leading up to that late night show in her subconscious tie into it so immaculately, making it hard to button and harder still to ignore.
She knew it would be a hurt, a pain to live with for a while, but worse still would be denying the reality; the reality of how she felt and the reality of how they feel. And they don’t feel as she would, and they don’t know all that she does, and they don’t care.
She will be bruised for a while, but the truth heals wounds; eventually.
Because you have to weigh the good and the bad, the things you can live with and the things you would rather not.
She needs to decide what is valued highest and what she can live without, because sidling on the edges leaves her tired and nauseated and fed up. In a day, in a month, in a year things can change so drastically, as they have for her, your mind could still be spinning, your heart could still be racing, and in all the craziness you can realise things you were blinded to before, and sometimes your dreams can make you wake up and realise them.
It happened to her. She woke up, on a chilled morning sometime in January, after having dreamt something seemingly arbitrary, and she knew almost certainly, what it meant. The days, the events leading up to that late night show in her subconscious tie into it so immaculately, making it hard to button and harder still to ignore.
She knew it would be a hurt, a pain to live with for a while, but worse still would be denying the reality; the reality of how she felt and the reality of how they feel. And they don’t feel as she would, and they don’t know all that she does, and they don’t care.
She will be bruised for a while, but the truth heals wounds; eventually.
Because you have to weigh the good and the bad, the things you can live with and the things you would rather not.
A Perfect Design
She still can’t fathom herself deserving of such good fortune; you.
Such an imperfectly perfect design; made with the finest touches and the finest brushes.
There’s nothing about you that is normal, or plain; all of you is magnificent – from your eye lashes, reminiscent of a fine black feather duster, to your hands, strong, patient.
To look at you is to look at art of the highest quality, of the steepest value.
And she has you.
And she, feeling as though some balance has been put out.
She hears the words and looks dripping from you, from your mouth and from your eyes and she stands amazed; unbelieving, but sure.
Such an imperfectly perfect design; made with the finest touches and the finest brushes.
There’s nothing about you that is normal, or plain; all of you is magnificent – from your eye lashes, reminiscent of a fine black feather duster, to your hands, strong, patient.
To look at you is to look at art of the highest quality, of the steepest value.
And she has you.
And she, feeling as though some balance has been put out.
She hears the words and looks dripping from you, from your mouth and from your eyes and she stands amazed; unbelieving, but sure.
January 27, 2009
Rotten
Ill smelling, a head the size of a cabbage, and as attractive as one, he decides he needs a cat.
An inelastic smile; he masks his envy with civility – congratulations!
A man who is hard to please; a trait formed due to no one’s attempt to.
His calamity is your joy,
He remains tight lipped.
Share your news but take heed: there are two animals worse than snake.
An inelastic smile; he masks his envy with civility – congratulations!
A man who is hard to please; a trait formed due to no one’s attempt to.
His calamity is your joy,
He remains tight lipped.
Share your news but take heed: there are two animals worse than snake.
Sick
I lay there, clear liquid forming and falling out the sides of my eyes, hands firmly shaking as I place them on my chest in an attempt to calm my heart.
This attempt fails quite splendidly and a shortness of breath ensues as I stare up at the ceiling; helpless.
How could this turn so quickly, without warning? I feel hunger, emptiness at the bottom of my stomach – I wonder silently if it is a hunger which can be eased by food or by comfort. I wish it could be filled by the former.
Scared sick as I lay there, alone in the darkest room, I can barely see my hand if I display it right in front of my face; it drops back down to my heaving chest, calm seeming fatally elusive.
My legs are restless, they move involuntarily, up and down, up and down, stretching, I can’t adjust myself for some comfort, comfort; I am aware of its scarcity as well.
Losing something, feeling it slip away, slowly; uncontrollably. There is uncertainty, perhaps some sparkle of hope left in my care, I know there is, yet I am
Shaking, empty, helpless, hysterical, fevered:
Sick.
This attempt fails quite splendidly and a shortness of breath ensues as I stare up at the ceiling; helpless.
How could this turn so quickly, without warning? I feel hunger, emptiness at the bottom of my stomach – I wonder silently if it is a hunger which can be eased by food or by comfort. I wish it could be filled by the former.
Scared sick as I lay there, alone in the darkest room, I can barely see my hand if I display it right in front of my face; it drops back down to my heaving chest, calm seeming fatally elusive.
My legs are restless, they move involuntarily, up and down, up and down, stretching, I can’t adjust myself for some comfort, comfort; I am aware of its scarcity as well.
Losing something, feeling it slip away, slowly; uncontrollably. There is uncertainty, perhaps some sparkle of hope left in my care, I know there is, yet I am
Shaking, empty, helpless, hysterical, fevered:
Sick.
January 21, 2009
A Tribute to the 90’s; The Grunge Era
Boot legs, spaghetti straps, crop tops and the Spice Girls – wow – good times.
The 90’s had me wearing a peculiar combination of attire, in grade 7 it ranged from Chinese inspired fashion to surf wear, and grade 8, the last year before the new Millennium, saw me in anything with a label, and anything before that; I cannot be held accountable for!
Amidst falling in crush, and falling out, sharing secrets and discoveries with best friends and growing up, a lot was happening in the world around me and although I was aware of the main events and happenings, I don’t think I grasped all of what was happening around me, the changes, the dark undertones, and the light, and so now as I reminisce I see things in a new way, with a clearer vision and I see that I, unbeknownst to me, actually did take it all in, I remember it all.
We were introduced to Kate Moss and so began the “heroin chic” look. I remember leaning down on my elbows in the house of the boy I liked when I was 12 and having to listen to him wax on about his undying love for her whilst staring up at the famous CKbe ad on his wall, which he had torn from a magazine and stuck there with prestick.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the very same thing is happening to a girl of 12 right this second because Kate still holds the title of “cool” and she will always be timelessly stunning.
And who could forget Elizabeth Hurley’s uber revealing Versace dress, held together by large safety pins? I recall seeing that dress everywhere, I think it was around the time when her then boyfriend, actor Hugh Grant, got caught in his car with a prostitute named Divine Brown. Needless to say; their pictures were in all the rags. The highly sought after “Rachel cut”; Jennifer Aniston’s short, layered hair style, with light streaks in the front, I remember seeing it on the cover of People Magazine and every week on Friends.
I remember watching Beverly Hills 90210, and having to search for the audio on Radio 2000. At this point T.V shows were a family affair and all the good shows were watched together; The Highlander, which inspired my mother to demand that my father grow his hair and wear a pony tail just like the one Duncan Macleod adorned, Tropical heat and the hilarious Mind Your Language.
World news in the 90’s was both exciting and terrifying: Nelson Mandela became president, the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in Ellis Park on June 24 1995, a sheep was cloned, abortion became legal as cigarette advertisements became illegal, Rwanda experienced a horrific 100 days in 1994 during the Genocide and two high school students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, walked into their school on April 20 1999 and shot 12 of their classmates and a teacher, wounding many more and killing themselves after their plan to blow up the school had failed.
We lost talented and inspiring individuals to drugs and depression, and fame. Fashion’s muse Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Al Fayed’s tragic death in Paris, 1997, shocked the world and made our mothers cry profusely, River Phoenix’s death on a sidewalk outside The Viper Room saddened the world much like Heath Ledger’s death did last year, causing us to shake our heads and say: what a waste. Grunge god Kurt Cobain was found dead with a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head and, to this day, die-hard fans still blame his demise on his wife and chic rocker Courtney Love. Jeff Buckley, who’s first and only studio album, Grace, still induces goose bumps and melancholy in the listener, drowned in the Wolf River in Memphis, Tennessee in May 1997, his body was found on June 4.
We listened to Roxette and Hanson, Alanis, and Mariah Carey, back when she still sang, really sang, and had naturally curly hair and style. We cried our eyes out when Mufasa met his end, thanks to his evil brother Scar, and later watched as Jack and Rose fought for their love and failed on the doomed ship of 1912 which was reintroduced to us by James Cameron. A modern day Romeo and Juliet blew our minds, Jim Carrey made us laugh till we cried, and The Silence of the Lambs sent shivers down our spines while Jurassic Park set excitement and awe in the hearts of boys all over the world. We got hooked to songs like the Macarena and Barbie Girl, which I still can’t quite fathom when good music from bands like Bush and Smashing Pumpkins were available to us.
I grew up in the 90’s; I went through all the fads, from Jelly Bean shoes to Hello Kitty. All that surrounded me inspired me, shaped me into this person who sits here and laments on a time, nostalgic for the greatness and newness of the past; an apparent oxymoron. A dark and hopeful time simultaneously.
Perhaps what I adore most about this era is my familiarity with it, the joy I experienced in the centre of it. The years in which you grew up and experienced many things for the first time will always hold a sacred place in your soul, moments in time become and remain a part of your make-up, and nostalgia often seeps into our lives today, bringing with it a knowing smile or a regretful tear.
I look on times long past and thank my lucky stars I was born when I was and grew up when and where I did, I wouldn’t change a second of it.
The 90’s had me wearing a peculiar combination of attire, in grade 7 it ranged from Chinese inspired fashion to surf wear, and grade 8, the last year before the new Millennium, saw me in anything with a label, and anything before that; I cannot be held accountable for!
Amidst falling in crush, and falling out, sharing secrets and discoveries with best friends and growing up, a lot was happening in the world around me and although I was aware of the main events and happenings, I don’t think I grasped all of what was happening around me, the changes, the dark undertones, and the light, and so now as I reminisce I see things in a new way, with a clearer vision and I see that I, unbeknownst to me, actually did take it all in, I remember it all.
We were introduced to Kate Moss and so began the “heroin chic” look. I remember leaning down on my elbows in the house of the boy I liked when I was 12 and having to listen to him wax on about his undying love for her whilst staring up at the famous CKbe ad on his wall, which he had torn from a magazine and stuck there with prestick.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the very same thing is happening to a girl of 12 right this second because Kate still holds the title of “cool” and she will always be timelessly stunning.
And who could forget Elizabeth Hurley’s uber revealing Versace dress, held together by large safety pins? I recall seeing that dress everywhere, I think it was around the time when her then boyfriend, actor Hugh Grant, got caught in his car with a prostitute named Divine Brown. Needless to say; their pictures were in all the rags. The highly sought after “Rachel cut”; Jennifer Aniston’s short, layered hair style, with light streaks in the front, I remember seeing it on the cover of People Magazine and every week on Friends.
I remember watching Beverly Hills 90210, and having to search for the audio on Radio 2000. At this point T.V shows were a family affair and all the good shows were watched together; The Highlander, which inspired my mother to demand that my father grow his hair and wear a pony tail just like the one Duncan Macleod adorned, Tropical heat and the hilarious Mind Your Language.
World news in the 90’s was both exciting and terrifying: Nelson Mandela became president, the Springboks won the Rugby World Cup in Ellis Park on June 24 1995, a sheep was cloned, abortion became legal as cigarette advertisements became illegal, Rwanda experienced a horrific 100 days in 1994 during the Genocide and two high school students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, walked into their school on April 20 1999 and shot 12 of their classmates and a teacher, wounding many more and killing themselves after their plan to blow up the school had failed.
We lost talented and inspiring individuals to drugs and depression, and fame. Fashion’s muse Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Al Fayed’s tragic death in Paris, 1997, shocked the world and made our mothers cry profusely, River Phoenix’s death on a sidewalk outside The Viper Room saddened the world much like Heath Ledger’s death did last year, causing us to shake our heads and say: what a waste. Grunge god Kurt Cobain was found dead with a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head and, to this day, die-hard fans still blame his demise on his wife and chic rocker Courtney Love. Jeff Buckley, who’s first and only studio album, Grace, still induces goose bumps and melancholy in the listener, drowned in the Wolf River in Memphis, Tennessee in May 1997, his body was found on June 4.
We listened to Roxette and Hanson, Alanis, and Mariah Carey, back when she still sang, really sang, and had naturally curly hair and style. We cried our eyes out when Mufasa met his end, thanks to his evil brother Scar, and later watched as Jack and Rose fought for their love and failed on the doomed ship of 1912 which was reintroduced to us by James Cameron. A modern day Romeo and Juliet blew our minds, Jim Carrey made us laugh till we cried, and The Silence of the Lambs sent shivers down our spines while Jurassic Park set excitement and awe in the hearts of boys all over the world. We got hooked to songs like the Macarena and Barbie Girl, which I still can’t quite fathom when good music from bands like Bush and Smashing Pumpkins were available to us.
I grew up in the 90’s; I went through all the fads, from Jelly Bean shoes to Hello Kitty. All that surrounded me inspired me, shaped me into this person who sits here and laments on a time, nostalgic for the greatness and newness of the past; an apparent oxymoron. A dark and hopeful time simultaneously.
Perhaps what I adore most about this era is my familiarity with it, the joy I experienced in the centre of it. The years in which you grew up and experienced many things for the first time will always hold a sacred place in your soul, moments in time become and remain a part of your make-up, and nostalgia often seeps into our lives today, bringing with it a knowing smile or a regretful tear.
I look on times long past and thank my lucky stars I was born when I was and grew up when and where I did, I wouldn’t change a second of it.
January 20, 2009
Glamorous
She politely recognizes your resemblance to herself; she admires it and imbues you.
She wears her skirts to show her legs, she’s worked for them and they work for her.
She is irrevocably aware of how she seems and how she stands,
She appears to you a fragmentary figure, all hips and bones and hair.
I see the truth in the night, late when she comes home,
When dark lips smudge and darker eyes smear;
And she realises to be alone is bad but worse yet
Is to be in bad company.
She lets the wind blow right through her again;
What will next year’s fashions be?
She wears her skirts to show her legs, she’s worked for them and they work for her.
She is irrevocably aware of how she seems and how she stands,
She appears to you a fragmentary figure, all hips and bones and hair.
I see the truth in the night, late when she comes home,
When dark lips smudge and darker eyes smear;
And she realises to be alone is bad but worse yet
Is to be in bad company.
She lets the wind blow right through her again;
What will next year’s fashions be?
What shall we do on this day?
What shall we do on this day?
Be lifted on a wave, be careless, and be extravagant.
A misty morning, what shall we do?
Breathe in the air, rush the silence and approach with glee, and approach with awe.
Be awake and be aware,
We are together, what else matters?
Be lifted on a wave, be careless, and be extravagant.
A misty morning, what shall we do?
Breathe in the air, rush the silence and approach with glee, and approach with awe.
Be awake and be aware,
We are together, what else matters?
A Tale of Another Time
I often wonder how it happens; how a friendship disintegrates, how we become slow strangers like a parent and a wayward child. Searching through all the avenues, all the apparent reasons leave me exhausted and nowhere closer to a confutation.
Resentment swirls in a vortex which lies underneath conversations and smiles and the undertone of things left unsaid becomes unbearably dizzying and I wonder: can this stay dormant till the end of days? Acrimony undermines my relationships and the way I choose to spend my time becomes the elephant in the room, the one that doubtless won’t leave.
Have we become bad friends? And if we have; where do we go from here?
Seemingly juvenile, a flashback of a time in maturity I don’t wish to relive, please tell me if you don’t care; then I can cease to wonder why. And this will ensure I begin to care less until eventually I won’t care at all either.
A callous woman, a sensitive one, and what a pair they make.
The friendship has become a tale of another time, a forgotten season.
Resentment swirls in a vortex which lies underneath conversations and smiles and the undertone of things left unsaid becomes unbearably dizzying and I wonder: can this stay dormant till the end of days? Acrimony undermines my relationships and the way I choose to spend my time becomes the elephant in the room, the one that doubtless won’t leave.
Have we become bad friends? And if we have; where do we go from here?
Seemingly juvenile, a flashback of a time in maturity I don’t wish to relive, please tell me if you don’t care; then I can cease to wonder why. And this will ensure I begin to care less until eventually I won’t care at all either.
A callous woman, a sensitive one, and what a pair they make.
The friendship has become a tale of another time, a forgotten season.
A Lament
Purple flowers grow along the edge of the road. Trees border the park where I sit and a slight breeze blows the strands of my hair that have come loose from my bun. All the while people pass by, walking their dogs, walking to their cars and I sit and think of you. You slip effortlessly into my mind as I hear the whirr of a truck and a singsong exchange between birds.
Perhaps the sunlight gives encouragement; inspiration. As I picture you, all of this surrounding me fades away so I see just you; a different kind of sunlight on my skin.
For 53 years you have been a lover, a best friend, my person. And as I lean back on my elbows, drop my head back and let the sun’s rays beat down on my weathered face, I rhapsodize, painting pretty pictures of us, remembering our years as they were; an adventure, a search and a discovery.
As we reach the more mature side of 70 and the aches and pains slowly begin visiting more frequently, our once immense appetites appear to be leaving us and our children’s children hit young adulthood, not so far off from where we were when we met, I’m still left with a pleasant burning feeling in the pits of my soul, an adoration, an admiration; pure love as I now lean down off my elbows and onto my back. I still love the sun. The way it warms you to the core, the way it makes you feel like you’re still growing, blooming.
We learnt a long time ago that the future never comes, life is now and always is and we lived that way, we still do.
We climbed the rocks and walked across the sand, there were some shells but no sharp stones; just milky sand, and we placed our feet in the opaque water and enjoyed each other and everything around us.
I’ve tasted salt on the back of your neck, the smell of the sea on your stomach, tequila on your lips and tears on your cheek.
We kissed in cinema seats, looked out of train windows on European trips in our search for new wonders of the world.
We danced to fun songs and sometimes we still sing to them, they’re always accompanied by a memory of a time.
We never feared silence like one might fear it as a sign of growing apart, we hardly needed words at all, but we loved them so.
Across the park, I see so vividly still, a bride and groom, an autumn wedding for two. The ground covered in browns and beiges and dirty whites, the air; Luke warm. A couple, like snowflakes falling together, touching. An old man claps in the distance, probably, he remembers his youth and he remembers love, in all its serendipitous forms and fancies.
Two lovers, impatient to go to bed in their Manhattan hotel, I remember. You removed your tie and I kicked off my shoes; our hungry skin.
As I sit in this park, waiting for you, I write this lament because If I don’t I fear I may boil over with what? Love? No, something so much more than that.
Life.
My life with you, my darling. Let these days be like decades, let them carry on and on, I want another lifetime, and another, living years together with craziness, care and comfort.
And then I see you, walking toward me, a sight I’ve seen countless times before and my heart melts like all the times before. The way you walk, your quick strides, the frown that protects your eyes from the sun. I adore these mornings with you, and on such mornings I come to realise what life really is amidst all of its many journeys and destinations, my life is you and yours mine, in the end that is all it is.
Perhaps the sunlight gives encouragement; inspiration. As I picture you, all of this surrounding me fades away so I see just you; a different kind of sunlight on my skin.
For 53 years you have been a lover, a best friend, my person. And as I lean back on my elbows, drop my head back and let the sun’s rays beat down on my weathered face, I rhapsodize, painting pretty pictures of us, remembering our years as they were; an adventure, a search and a discovery.
As we reach the more mature side of 70 and the aches and pains slowly begin visiting more frequently, our once immense appetites appear to be leaving us and our children’s children hit young adulthood, not so far off from where we were when we met, I’m still left with a pleasant burning feeling in the pits of my soul, an adoration, an admiration; pure love as I now lean down off my elbows and onto my back. I still love the sun. The way it warms you to the core, the way it makes you feel like you’re still growing, blooming.
We learnt a long time ago that the future never comes, life is now and always is and we lived that way, we still do.
We climbed the rocks and walked across the sand, there were some shells but no sharp stones; just milky sand, and we placed our feet in the opaque water and enjoyed each other and everything around us.
I’ve tasted salt on the back of your neck, the smell of the sea on your stomach, tequila on your lips and tears on your cheek.
We kissed in cinema seats, looked out of train windows on European trips in our search for new wonders of the world.
We danced to fun songs and sometimes we still sing to them, they’re always accompanied by a memory of a time.
We never feared silence like one might fear it as a sign of growing apart, we hardly needed words at all, but we loved them so.
Across the park, I see so vividly still, a bride and groom, an autumn wedding for two. The ground covered in browns and beiges and dirty whites, the air; Luke warm. A couple, like snowflakes falling together, touching. An old man claps in the distance, probably, he remembers his youth and he remembers love, in all its serendipitous forms and fancies.
Two lovers, impatient to go to bed in their Manhattan hotel, I remember. You removed your tie and I kicked off my shoes; our hungry skin.
As I sit in this park, waiting for you, I write this lament because If I don’t I fear I may boil over with what? Love? No, something so much more than that.
Life.
My life with you, my darling. Let these days be like decades, let them carry on and on, I want another lifetime, and another, living years together with craziness, care and comfort.
And then I see you, walking toward me, a sight I’ve seen countless times before and my heart melts like all the times before. The way you walk, your quick strides, the frown that protects your eyes from the sun. I adore these mornings with you, and on such mornings I come to realise what life really is amidst all of its many journeys and destinations, my life is you and yours mine, in the end that is all it is.
January 19, 2009
Fat Girl
You hate her because you see a reflection of yourself,
Something inside her that is you, you are her:
A disturbing truth; the birth of disgust.
She hides and eats and eats and hides and all the while
The coin she places the least value on is her own.
She’s a fat girl and it makes you want to kill her,
It makes you want to laugh and sneer and gape and cry.
She has the hope of Hell – a Heaven in comparison.
She’s a fat girl, why don’t you kill her?
Something inside her that is you, you are her:
A disturbing truth; the birth of disgust.
She hides and eats and eats and hides and all the while
The coin she places the least value on is her own.
She’s a fat girl and it makes you want to kill her,
It makes you want to laugh and sneer and gape and cry.
She has the hope of Hell – a Heaven in comparison.
She’s a fat girl, why don’t you kill her?
January 18, 2009
A Simple Chronicle of a Love Lost
It was kind of the sun to shine that day, surely it didn’t have to. The moon came out too, to offer the night sky an equivalent; a substitute. And I sat on the hard and uneven tar, wishing this moment away, closing my eyes tightly like a child in the hopes that my blindness would induce the world’s blindness and nobody would be able to see me and nothing would be able to touch me.
If Heaven knows everything, it didn’t let on; Heaven never shares. That night I slept soundly, peaceful in the quiet of my house, in the quiet of the dreams in my subconscious.
A Disney-like morning scene greeted me at 8:02, minus the blue birds plaiting my hair and the friendly mice bringing me tea. Everything was perfect and sunny so that when the phone rang abruptly, the phone always seemed abrupt, I hopped out of my white winter duvet and answered; unhesitant.
He looks at me as the waiter pours the Moet into our glasses and I wonder how I got so lucky, so quickly. I stare down at the ring, which shimmers like water in the sunlight, the ring which represents a life, a ring which stands for love and love’s promises.
My legs are the first to go. They buckle underneath me and for the life of me I can’t figure out why I am suddenly in a pile on the floor. They just gave way and I’m still holding the receiver; blinking rather rapidly.
His shirt is grey, faded to look as if he has had it for years; I know he bought it just yesterday. I am wearing red. I never wear red unless I see something absolutely unavoidable, something I will dream about until purchase and this dress is one just like that. Silky, a shining compliment to my recently acquired tan and my raven hair.
Next: my hands begin to shake, uncontrollably. The messages that are meant to be communicated from my brain to my hands seem to be intercepted somehow and I drop the phone into my lap. A few seconds pass and a message gets through, I pick up the phone once more.
We toast and we laugh, we smile and we smile and we smile. It seems like an obsessive compulsive disorder of some sort, all this smiling. The room is carefully air conditioned, keeping the heat of the evening at bay, at least for a few hours. The music reminds me of a movie, though I can’t remember which one; I feel I am in it, a movie of another time, because everything is as it could be.
Wait, wait, wait, I say. Liquid begins to form on my hair line; it is cold on my fevered forehead. I feel I need to throw up; the messages from my brain to my stomach seem to be working just fine. It feels as though my brain is oozing from my ears, but it is just the combination of perspiration and headache.
I feel his hand close over mine, an inevitable occurrence due to the romance in this restaurant, next he’ll ask me to dance and we’ll go to the middle of the floor and hold each other barely moving because neither of us can actually dance.
Words suddenly come to me, “nothing is lost that can’t be found again”, and I scoff. And then I scream.
You’re gone.
With these tears, I want you.
I long for you to be with me like you were that night in the restaurant.
If Heaven knows everything, it didn’t let on; Heaven never shares. That night I slept soundly, peaceful in the quiet of my house, in the quiet of the dreams in my subconscious.
A Disney-like morning scene greeted me at 8:02, minus the blue birds plaiting my hair and the friendly mice bringing me tea. Everything was perfect and sunny so that when the phone rang abruptly, the phone always seemed abrupt, I hopped out of my white winter duvet and answered; unhesitant.
He looks at me as the waiter pours the Moet into our glasses and I wonder how I got so lucky, so quickly. I stare down at the ring, which shimmers like water in the sunlight, the ring which represents a life, a ring which stands for love and love’s promises.
My legs are the first to go. They buckle underneath me and for the life of me I can’t figure out why I am suddenly in a pile on the floor. They just gave way and I’m still holding the receiver; blinking rather rapidly.
His shirt is grey, faded to look as if he has had it for years; I know he bought it just yesterday. I am wearing red. I never wear red unless I see something absolutely unavoidable, something I will dream about until purchase and this dress is one just like that. Silky, a shining compliment to my recently acquired tan and my raven hair.
Next: my hands begin to shake, uncontrollably. The messages that are meant to be communicated from my brain to my hands seem to be intercepted somehow and I drop the phone into my lap. A few seconds pass and a message gets through, I pick up the phone once more.
We toast and we laugh, we smile and we smile and we smile. It seems like an obsessive compulsive disorder of some sort, all this smiling. The room is carefully air conditioned, keeping the heat of the evening at bay, at least for a few hours. The music reminds me of a movie, though I can’t remember which one; I feel I am in it, a movie of another time, because everything is as it could be.
Wait, wait, wait, I say. Liquid begins to form on my hair line; it is cold on my fevered forehead. I feel I need to throw up; the messages from my brain to my stomach seem to be working just fine. It feels as though my brain is oozing from my ears, but it is just the combination of perspiration and headache.
I feel his hand close over mine, an inevitable occurrence due to the romance in this restaurant, next he’ll ask me to dance and we’ll go to the middle of the floor and hold each other barely moving because neither of us can actually dance.
Words suddenly come to me, “nothing is lost that can’t be found again”, and I scoff. And then I scream.
You’re gone.
With these tears, I want you.
I long for you to be with me like you were that night in the restaurant.
January 16, 2009
The Sun Lady
The size of the house is deceiving; from the outside it looks much how you would expect a pensioners home to look, small, minimalist. You enter the steel gate and embark on a journey through an immense garden, filled with wild birds, to find the front door and your quick fix.
Inside; the house is narrow but seems to go on and on like a school corridor. Her home is beiges, pinks and creams and every room except for the dilapidated kitchen is carpeted. The walls around the kitchen counter are covered in shelves with ornaments of little children and flowers and bears and the serenity prayer is laminated and stuck on the wall with putty.
Photographs inhabit tables of every kind, pictures of her deceased husband; heart attack. She talks of him still, almost as if he is still with her, somewhere in the back doing man-like things.
Her skin is brown leather, with blots of purple and marks that are plastered. She knocks one accidently and it bleeds; it doesn’t stop after that. She is the poster girl for the effects of sun, the effects of fake sun.
She can’t be older than 60, yet she waffles and repeats herself as frequently as your average 80 something year old and she often pauses, rather lengthily; trying to find the words? Attempting to remember?
Days of our Lives reruns on the television; a couple is lying on a bed telling each other how much they love each other and she says: sex, love, sex, love, these people don’t know what they want, she says this angrily as she hands me the sachet of cream with my name on it. She offers to do my back and I decline, slipping my shoes off my feet and ushering her out the door; she won’t leave if I don’t.
When I’m done, I walk back to the kitchen counter where receipts are written up and change is given and as I am putting a few coins into my purse, the door buzzer sounds and her next appointment opens the gate and begins her journey through the garden.
I say my goodbyes, a casual “see you later.”
And as I walk to the front door I pass the lounge, together with the smell of sweat and tanning cream on my reddened skin, my olfactory nerve notices another scent, far more pungent, far more disturbing. A smell like hopelessness, resignation; the lonely decay of a life that is just going through the motions, a life ended without ending.
Inside; the house is narrow but seems to go on and on like a school corridor. Her home is beiges, pinks and creams and every room except for the dilapidated kitchen is carpeted. The walls around the kitchen counter are covered in shelves with ornaments of little children and flowers and bears and the serenity prayer is laminated and stuck on the wall with putty.
Photographs inhabit tables of every kind, pictures of her deceased husband; heart attack. She talks of him still, almost as if he is still with her, somewhere in the back doing man-like things.
Her skin is brown leather, with blots of purple and marks that are plastered. She knocks one accidently and it bleeds; it doesn’t stop after that. She is the poster girl for the effects of sun, the effects of fake sun.
She can’t be older than 60, yet she waffles and repeats herself as frequently as your average 80 something year old and she often pauses, rather lengthily; trying to find the words? Attempting to remember?
Days of our Lives reruns on the television; a couple is lying on a bed telling each other how much they love each other and she says: sex, love, sex, love, these people don’t know what they want, she says this angrily as she hands me the sachet of cream with my name on it. She offers to do my back and I decline, slipping my shoes off my feet and ushering her out the door; she won’t leave if I don’t.
When I’m done, I walk back to the kitchen counter where receipts are written up and change is given and as I am putting a few coins into my purse, the door buzzer sounds and her next appointment opens the gate and begins her journey through the garden.
I say my goodbyes, a casual “see you later.”
And as I walk to the front door I pass the lounge, together with the smell of sweat and tanning cream on my reddened skin, my olfactory nerve notices another scent, far more pungent, far more disturbing. A smell like hopelessness, resignation; the lonely decay of a life that is just going through the motions, a life ended without ending.
January 15, 2009
Steeling naïveté
A dark desk on a floor of ancient books, their dusty spines facing the cracked ceiling above. The distant hum of industrial fans outside the room makes her think of humid classrooms. An aroma of foreign accents floats in the air and she feels strange, light; lost.
The interview went quick; she felt like a mechanical device, a robot of sorts, in these interviews. She hated the process of selling herself; she never quite worked out how.
And being one of many hunting vultures added substantially to her distaste of the process. Duplicity hung in the air like the hideously painted canvases hung on the navy blue walls.
Approval is what she craved.
The funny thing about approval: you want it, you need it; and you despise it. You can say you don’t until you’re blue in the face but everyone knows you’re only good if someone other than yourself thinks so.
Why don’t we trust ourselves? Why do we value a stranger’s thoughts above our own?
She hated the process but she wanted to be there, at least, she thought she did and that’s the same.
Santa Montefiore.
Santa was nothing like her name would suggest. She was not overweight, or gray or a guy. She was a frail looking woman, formless and untrained, with a mass of melted milk chocolate coloured hair and cadaverous skin. She had thin lips like somebody stern and with her arms limp at her sides she began the enduring decent back to her car.
This had been just another one of the many interviews she had been the guest star of for the past 23 days. She was spent; exhaustion personified.
She glanced into her rear-view mirror and almost gasped at the sight of the tenderfoot, old woman gazing back at her with listless eyes.
He wandered down the corridors, through passage ways and doors off their hinges, the smell of fresh varnish surrounding, entering him.
His pulse had not slowed to a normal beat per minute since he had opened his eyes, eyes which had hung at half mast for the past three days.
He was nervous; fidgety and overwrought. This position, which had miraculously been made accessible to him recently, had been his dream since graduation and now he had the chance to impress and excite the head honcho of the company.
His hands were moist with human steam and his spindly knees felt unsteady; weak. This was it.
A young secretary with cherry hair and bloodshot eyes led him to the unbalanced wooden door; she knocked.
A hoarse voice from inside grumbled something and she turned and gave Xavier a nod and started walking back to her desk.
Xavier took a rooted breath and entered.
Xavier Kasischke.
Santa and Xavier were two different people vying for the same position, the same life: a peculiar marriage between difference and similarity.
The young secretary with the honey sweet voice called a day later and Santa almost missed the call. Purposefully. It was, after all, the part she hated most about job hunting. The call.
They requested a second interview.
As she arrived and entered the aged building she saw a man, rather handsome, though he reminded her of Edward Scissorhands, minus the cuts and, well, the scissorhands.
He looked shy and nervous, his walk and the way he held himself reminded her so much of something unnameable. She ended up following him to the exact foyer she was expected to be in. They both sat down on the muddy coloured couch and fiddled with their appearance: Santa picking at her finger nails, Xavier adjusting his tie.
The secretary walked in and greeted them both and said Mr Lynch would be ready for them in just a moment and sat down behind her desk.
Santa and Xavier smiled lamely at each other and resumed their respective activities. And one by one they got called into the office with the asymmetrical door.
Sitting side by side, Mr Lynch eventually spoke.
The interview went quick; she felt like a mechanical device, a robot of sorts, in these interviews. She hated the process of selling herself; she never quite worked out how.
And being one of many hunting vultures added substantially to her distaste of the process. Duplicity hung in the air like the hideously painted canvases hung on the navy blue walls.
Approval is what she craved.
The funny thing about approval: you want it, you need it; and you despise it. You can say you don’t until you’re blue in the face but everyone knows you’re only good if someone other than yourself thinks so.
Why don’t we trust ourselves? Why do we value a stranger’s thoughts above our own?
She hated the process but she wanted to be there, at least, she thought she did and that’s the same.
Santa Montefiore.
Santa was nothing like her name would suggest. She was not overweight, or gray or a guy. She was a frail looking woman, formless and untrained, with a mass of melted milk chocolate coloured hair and cadaverous skin. She had thin lips like somebody stern and with her arms limp at her sides she began the enduring decent back to her car.
This had been just another one of the many interviews she had been the guest star of for the past 23 days. She was spent; exhaustion personified.
She glanced into her rear-view mirror and almost gasped at the sight of the tenderfoot, old woman gazing back at her with listless eyes.
He wandered down the corridors, through passage ways and doors off their hinges, the smell of fresh varnish surrounding, entering him.
His pulse had not slowed to a normal beat per minute since he had opened his eyes, eyes which had hung at half mast for the past three days.
He was nervous; fidgety and overwrought. This position, which had miraculously been made accessible to him recently, had been his dream since graduation and now he had the chance to impress and excite the head honcho of the company.
His hands were moist with human steam and his spindly knees felt unsteady; weak. This was it.
A young secretary with cherry hair and bloodshot eyes led him to the unbalanced wooden door; she knocked.
A hoarse voice from inside grumbled something and she turned and gave Xavier a nod and started walking back to her desk.
Xavier took a rooted breath and entered.
Xavier Kasischke.
Santa and Xavier were two different people vying for the same position, the same life: a peculiar marriage between difference and similarity.
The young secretary with the honey sweet voice called a day later and Santa almost missed the call. Purposefully. It was, after all, the part she hated most about job hunting. The call.
They requested a second interview.
As she arrived and entered the aged building she saw a man, rather handsome, though he reminded her of Edward Scissorhands, minus the cuts and, well, the scissorhands.
He looked shy and nervous, his walk and the way he held himself reminded her so much of something unnameable. She ended up following him to the exact foyer she was expected to be in. They both sat down on the muddy coloured couch and fiddled with their appearance: Santa picking at her finger nails, Xavier adjusting his tie.
The secretary walked in and greeted them both and said Mr Lynch would be ready for them in just a moment and sat down behind her desk.
Santa and Xavier smiled lamely at each other and resumed their respective activities. And one by one they got called into the office with the asymmetrical door.
Sitting side by side, Mr Lynch eventually spoke.
January 14, 2009
So What?
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.” – Hunter S. Thompson
Mia! Get out of there; you’re on in two minutes!
Mia sits on a leather sofa, white, in a room called the green room which is, in actuality, a red room. Her face has not yet been applied; her hair is still damp and unruly. Her manager’s voice bellows from outside the door and it makes her insides swim. She can’t do this.
Mark Masterson’s sweat is threatening to drown him. The lights from the stage and the perspiration from the crazed audience together feel like a fire is raging somewhere nearby, somewhere too close. And now, his most famous client is pulling a diva act, the show is set to start, now.
Mia! Get out of there; you’re on in two minutes! You ready? He shouts, trying to make himself heard above the rambunctious noise backstage.
Charlie Banks makes his way down the panicked backstage area, after a slightly tedious ordeal at the security gate. He searches for the room whilst bumping into rushed sound technicians and managers; they make him nervous. He stutters apologies all the while looking for room 207.
He sees scantily clad back up dancers stretching and people with clip boards constantly screaming down their phones and pointing their pencils, barking orders to whoever happens to be there. His palms are wet and his cheeks an extreme form of flushed; a cold burning sensation.
She’s tired. And her muscles ache, she doesn’t know why. This is probably the hundredth time she’s danced for Mia Waters so she is not frightened or nervous, just tired. As she stretches she spots a man, no, a boy, speed past, a look so petrified upon his young face. He’s black and tall and slinky.
She thinks about Jimmy and the question he asked unexpectedly the night before, and her answer. She couldn’t. This is her life, travelling with Mia, not settling down in suburbia.
Catherine! Get to the stage, we’re on in two. Hurry, screams a red head with some authority.
He finds the door, knocks and enters without pause. Mia is perched upright on the white leather, shaking. Fuck, where have you been? She gets up and hurries to him, shoving a green bill into his also trembling hands. S-s-sorry. He hands her a clear plastic bag filled with paper white powder.
Yeah, thanks, now get out of here. He’s hesitant. Go, she says, almost shouts. He walks to the door and as his hand touches the door knob, the door opens and the largest man Charlie Banks has ever seen appears before him with a scowl. Who the hell is this Mia? Charlie looks to Mia then back at the big man. No one Vince, he’s just leaving. Did you get my smokes? Vince gives Charlie Banks a look that says: scram! Charlie Banks scrams.
Here you go Mia. Need anything else just holler, I’m right outside.
Thanks. Shut the door.
Mia is left alone and immediately heads to her dresser where she hastily, rather clumsily empties the recent arrival. She grabs her purse with intense speed and rolls a bill.
Is she dressed? Mark asks Vince who he’s seen just leaving Mia’s dressing room. And who’s that guy? He points to Charlie Banks, who is walking at an accelerated pace, rather suspiciously looking around and wiping the sweat from his brow. Vince says he doesn’t know who the guy is and no, Mia is not dressed. Fuck, Mark shouts.
He bangs on her door, cursing under his breath all the while. Mark is an impatient, greed-driven misogynistic and surprisingly kind person, although, the only person who knows that is his only sibling, Beverly. Excuse me? He turns around and sees a beautiful girl in sheer black tights with red wine stained fingernails. Her hair is brown, natural and it’s tied into a messy up-do. A dancer. Yes, what do you want? He spits. Oh great, Catherine thinks. Yeah, sorry, I was just wondering if you could point me in the right direction. I’m looking for Mia’s dressing room. A red head whose name I forget needs her on stage now, I’m the messenger.
Fuck.
Charlie Banks unlatches the magenta coloured rope from its golden pole stand and exits the stadium grounds, shivering now.
Mia! Get out of there; you’re on in two minutes!
Mia sits on a leather sofa, white, in a room called the green room which is, in actuality, a red room. Her face has not yet been applied; her hair is still damp and unruly. Her manager’s voice bellows from outside the door and it makes her insides swim. She can’t do this.
Mark Masterson’s sweat is threatening to drown him. The lights from the stage and the perspiration from the crazed audience together feel like a fire is raging somewhere nearby, somewhere too close. And now, his most famous client is pulling a diva act, the show is set to start, now.
Mia! Get out of there; you’re on in two minutes! You ready? He shouts, trying to make himself heard above the rambunctious noise backstage.
Charlie Banks makes his way down the panicked backstage area, after a slightly tedious ordeal at the security gate. He searches for the room whilst bumping into rushed sound technicians and managers; they make him nervous. He stutters apologies all the while looking for room 207.
He sees scantily clad back up dancers stretching and people with clip boards constantly screaming down their phones and pointing their pencils, barking orders to whoever happens to be there. His palms are wet and his cheeks an extreme form of flushed; a cold burning sensation.
She’s tired. And her muscles ache, she doesn’t know why. This is probably the hundredth time she’s danced for Mia Waters so she is not frightened or nervous, just tired. As she stretches she spots a man, no, a boy, speed past, a look so petrified upon his young face. He’s black and tall and slinky.
She thinks about Jimmy and the question he asked unexpectedly the night before, and her answer. She couldn’t. This is her life, travelling with Mia, not settling down in suburbia.
Catherine! Get to the stage, we’re on in two. Hurry, screams a red head with some authority.
He finds the door, knocks and enters without pause. Mia is perched upright on the white leather, shaking. Fuck, where have you been? She gets up and hurries to him, shoving a green bill into his also trembling hands. S-s-sorry. He hands her a clear plastic bag filled with paper white powder.
Yeah, thanks, now get out of here. He’s hesitant. Go, she says, almost shouts. He walks to the door and as his hand touches the door knob, the door opens and the largest man Charlie Banks has ever seen appears before him with a scowl. Who the hell is this Mia? Charlie looks to Mia then back at the big man. No one Vince, he’s just leaving. Did you get my smokes? Vince gives Charlie Banks a look that says: scram! Charlie Banks scrams.
Here you go Mia. Need anything else just holler, I’m right outside.
Thanks. Shut the door.
Mia is left alone and immediately heads to her dresser where she hastily, rather clumsily empties the recent arrival. She grabs her purse with intense speed and rolls a bill.
Is she dressed? Mark asks Vince who he’s seen just leaving Mia’s dressing room. And who’s that guy? He points to Charlie Banks, who is walking at an accelerated pace, rather suspiciously looking around and wiping the sweat from his brow. Vince says he doesn’t know who the guy is and no, Mia is not dressed. Fuck, Mark shouts.
He bangs on her door, cursing under his breath all the while. Mark is an impatient, greed-driven misogynistic and surprisingly kind person, although, the only person who knows that is his only sibling, Beverly. Excuse me? He turns around and sees a beautiful girl in sheer black tights with red wine stained fingernails. Her hair is brown, natural and it’s tied into a messy up-do. A dancer. Yes, what do you want? He spits. Oh great, Catherine thinks. Yeah, sorry, I was just wondering if you could point me in the right direction. I’m looking for Mia’s dressing room. A red head whose name I forget needs her on stage now, I’m the messenger.
Fuck.
Charlie Banks unlatches the magenta coloured rope from its golden pole stand and exits the stadium grounds, shivering now.
January 13, 2009
Logic or; Crazy Lady Syndrome
There is one run in my pantyhose which I didn’t anticipate or foresee before I fell in love: the jealousy factor. Honestly; I never saw it coming.
I was always the girl who couldn’t understand why her friends would become such tyrants to their boyfriends, as the green monster arose, when the boyfriends quite obviously only had eyes for them.
“To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is; dissatisfaction with self”. Joan Didion said that. Smart woman.
And yet it still proves to be an immensely difficult and loathsome task, attempting to cure jealousy.
The insecurity feeds the fear in me and it’s quite something to keep it at bay when I’m feeling fragile. I remember the first time I felt the colour change and subsequent times that followed and I detest it.
Although you may have your reasons, I can probably assure you that they are truly ridiculous and unfounded in most cases where your partner has NOT been unfaithful, or thought of being unfaithful.
I have fond memories of a conversation I had with my wise little sister not so long ago about this topic and I was grateful that she got some, if not all, of my unbalanced theories and shared my quirks. We realised how amusingly absurd most of them were, we also realised that we have always known how illogical and unreasonable we are at times but in that moment, that moment of laughable foolishness, with our knowledge and all, we cannot help it. We blame our mother.
For example: the age old:
Man “What’s wrong?” he asks, concerned and clueless.
Woman “Nothing.” She answers, avoiding eye contact, arms still folded to ensure he knows she is upset.
Why? WHY can she not just tell him what is aggravating her, why can’t she tell him what he has “done”? He cannot read her mind, just like Edward Cullen can’t read Bella Swan’s, and he’s a vampire!
Eventually; inevitably, his patience wears thin which, in turn, makes her even more furious.
Problem unsolved.
This is just the tip of the ice berg of course. There is the boyfriend who is the only male in an office full of women.
The boyfriend who has many female friends whom you were ok with when you started dating but now have a problem with.
After revealing conversations of people from our past, it is hard to forget the names and details of relationships of yesteryears, fearing feelings lying dormant inside his heart. How can you know for sure? How can you forget that her name was Sarah and there was an attraction but she was too young, or Samantha who he loved for years until she left him? How do you know that you’re the one he wants to be with because you are and not because Sarah was too young or Samantha eventually left? What if one of them is his dream girl and you are a consolation prize?
And then what do you do when they keep reappearing in his life as friends?
I blame movies for my vivid imagination.
You hate these women, because they stand between you and the most amazing relationship in the world. They stand between you and knowing. Between you and peace.
The case of the ex’s. And the wondering in your mind whether there is still something there every time they are together or he talks about her.
There’s the: What if he sees in someone else what he saw in me, but better. What if What if!
I wish I had some kind of conclusion, a solution to this problem. With a sigh; I don’t.
We’re just crazy and constantly searching for affirmation; reassurances, and if we are lucky enough to find a man who will find this neurotic behaviour cute and complimentary; we’ve hit the man jackpot!
I was always the girl who couldn’t understand why her friends would become such tyrants to their boyfriends, as the green monster arose, when the boyfriends quite obviously only had eyes for them.
“To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is; dissatisfaction with self”. Joan Didion said that. Smart woman.
And yet it still proves to be an immensely difficult and loathsome task, attempting to cure jealousy.
The insecurity feeds the fear in me and it’s quite something to keep it at bay when I’m feeling fragile. I remember the first time I felt the colour change and subsequent times that followed and I detest it.
Although you may have your reasons, I can probably assure you that they are truly ridiculous and unfounded in most cases where your partner has NOT been unfaithful, or thought of being unfaithful.
I have fond memories of a conversation I had with my wise little sister not so long ago about this topic and I was grateful that she got some, if not all, of my unbalanced theories and shared my quirks. We realised how amusingly absurd most of them were, we also realised that we have always known how illogical and unreasonable we are at times but in that moment, that moment of laughable foolishness, with our knowledge and all, we cannot help it. We blame our mother.
For example: the age old:
Man “What’s wrong?” he asks, concerned and clueless.
Woman “Nothing.” She answers, avoiding eye contact, arms still folded to ensure he knows she is upset.
Why? WHY can she not just tell him what is aggravating her, why can’t she tell him what he has “done”? He cannot read her mind, just like Edward Cullen can’t read Bella Swan’s, and he’s a vampire!
Eventually; inevitably, his patience wears thin which, in turn, makes her even more furious.
Problem unsolved.
This is just the tip of the ice berg of course. There is the boyfriend who is the only male in an office full of women.
The boyfriend who has many female friends whom you were ok with when you started dating but now have a problem with.
After revealing conversations of people from our past, it is hard to forget the names and details of relationships of yesteryears, fearing feelings lying dormant inside his heart. How can you know for sure? How can you forget that her name was Sarah and there was an attraction but she was too young, or Samantha who he loved for years until she left him? How do you know that you’re the one he wants to be with because you are and not because Sarah was too young or Samantha eventually left? What if one of them is his dream girl and you are a consolation prize?
And then what do you do when they keep reappearing in his life as friends?
I blame movies for my vivid imagination.
You hate these women, because they stand between you and the most amazing relationship in the world. They stand between you and knowing. Between you and peace.
The case of the ex’s. And the wondering in your mind whether there is still something there every time they are together or he talks about her.
There’s the: What if he sees in someone else what he saw in me, but better. What if What if!
I wish I had some kind of conclusion, a solution to this problem. With a sigh; I don’t.
We’re just crazy and constantly searching for affirmation; reassurances, and if we are lucky enough to find a man who will find this neurotic behaviour cute and complimentary; we’ve hit the man jackpot!
January 12, 2009
Pop on Fire
It’s been a while since popular music has turned my spine to custard, well, except for Leona Lewis singing... Anything. Two songs I’ve heard a lot of fairly recently have become, after a few listens, amazing to me.
Human, by The Killers and Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire. Loud.
The loud part is very important.
The former mainly for its lyric “are we human or are we dancer?” and all the questions trailing behind it and, of course, how new wave 80’s it is!
Hunter S. Thompson said years ago that America was raising a generation of dancers, I can only guess what he meant by that, and The Killers have admitted to taking inspiration from his words. Hunter was a writer, famous for his brand of journalism; Gonzo, and his book turned motion picture, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and, of course, his LSD diet. He committed suicide in 2005.
You inevitably ask yourself: aren’t dancers humans? But, think about dancers, they’re focused on only one thing, what they’re doing in the moment, dancing, they’re almost mechanical, almost puppets. Controlled.
Humans are free, supposedly. And we do not have the luxury of focusing only on one thing at a time, doing it perfectly. So maybe what Brandon Flowers is asking is: are we free or are we just puppets on a string? A question with slightly differing meanings but with as much gravity, I think, as Rodney King’s back in 1992, during the Los Angeles riots: can’t we all just get along?
It’s an important question, maybe a rhetorical one; maybe the reason Brandon Flowers doesn’t come to a conclusion by the end of the song is because he can’t.
There are other ways of seeing it of course; it could be the other way around entirely; not all dancing is choreographed. The dancer could be the free one, dancing is joyful and expressionistic after all.
Probably, it’s all of these; nothing’s ever really black and white is it?
This song made me think: maybe dancer is a better way, now, to describe us. And it’s good to think of these things sometimes.
I love Sex on Fire for its voice, simplicity and sexiness. I think it’s just about sex, there’s no pretence of love or forever, no promises and no lies. What grasps me is his voice as he sings “you, your sex is on fire” with an excitement, a fever.
The lyrics are simple and you can read into them as deeply as you want but at the core I think the title says it all about this song: it’s about sex. Good sex. And even though there doesn’t seem to be much romance on the surface if you read the lyrics, there is an under tone of it, you can feel it and hear it in the melody, an under tone of glamour and adventure, there is passion and risk.
And that is why I adore it. These two songs; a curious match.
Human, by The Killers and Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire. Loud.
The loud part is very important.
The former mainly for its lyric “are we human or are we dancer?” and all the questions trailing behind it and, of course, how new wave 80’s it is!
Hunter S. Thompson said years ago that America was raising a generation of dancers, I can only guess what he meant by that, and The Killers have admitted to taking inspiration from his words. Hunter was a writer, famous for his brand of journalism; Gonzo, and his book turned motion picture, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and, of course, his LSD diet. He committed suicide in 2005.
You inevitably ask yourself: aren’t dancers humans? But, think about dancers, they’re focused on only one thing, what they’re doing in the moment, dancing, they’re almost mechanical, almost puppets. Controlled.
Humans are free, supposedly. And we do not have the luxury of focusing only on one thing at a time, doing it perfectly. So maybe what Brandon Flowers is asking is: are we free or are we just puppets on a string? A question with slightly differing meanings but with as much gravity, I think, as Rodney King’s back in 1992, during the Los Angeles riots: can’t we all just get along?
It’s an important question, maybe a rhetorical one; maybe the reason Brandon Flowers doesn’t come to a conclusion by the end of the song is because he can’t.
There are other ways of seeing it of course; it could be the other way around entirely; not all dancing is choreographed. The dancer could be the free one, dancing is joyful and expressionistic after all.
Probably, it’s all of these; nothing’s ever really black and white is it?
This song made me think: maybe dancer is a better way, now, to describe us. And it’s good to think of these things sometimes.
I love Sex on Fire for its voice, simplicity and sexiness. I think it’s just about sex, there’s no pretence of love or forever, no promises and no lies. What grasps me is his voice as he sings “you, your sex is on fire” with an excitement, a fever.
The lyrics are simple and you can read into them as deeply as you want but at the core I think the title says it all about this song: it’s about sex. Good sex. And even though there doesn’t seem to be much romance on the surface if you read the lyrics, there is an under tone of it, you can feel it and hear it in the melody, an under tone of glamour and adventure, there is passion and risk.
And that is why I adore it. These two songs; a curious match.
January 8, 2009
Escape; Alight
What is the difference between perception and reality?
I read a book a while ago in which the author meshed the supposed reality of a woman’s life with the fantasies in her mind and toward the middle I began to find it difficult to decipher between the two. She wrote in such a way that you began to doubt the reality of anything and believe everything as absolute, simultaneously.
Is an imagined future and present life as real as your bodily life?
I used to wonder about this when I was younger, because I was always a daydreamer. I’d spend hours, wherever I was, daydreaming scenarios, things happening that I wished for, being the person I wanted to be in my mind but hadn’t found the courage to be in the palpable world. But who’s to say that wasn’t real, at least, to me?
I still remember some of my greater fantasies, and they seem pretty real to me, possibly more so than some of the moments in life when I wasn’t quite there or didn’t want to be. Are these memories any less real because I was alone in them?
Quietly in my space, dreaming, albeit shrouded in mystery, but happy. Which led to another question: why would one want to be inside their own mind, alone, when they could be out there, amongst others? Sometimes, I think, being inside your own head is a defence mechanism, or it can be a place to go when things aren’t the way you wish them to be. I used to wander unintentionally... And sometimes I still do. Observing, protecting, hiding.
Force of habit.
I can see how one might think it an unhealthy way of living, the hiding part, you can choose to see it as self preservation or as fear. Fear of the outside world and the rejections that are inevitable. And maybe it is a little of both but I don’t think it debilitating or unsound.
Are you denied whatever joy an experience gave you just because it happened inside your head and not to your body?
I believe even dreams are a part of your reality. Everything is an experience.
Everything is your life.
I read a book a while ago in which the author meshed the supposed reality of a woman’s life with the fantasies in her mind and toward the middle I began to find it difficult to decipher between the two. She wrote in such a way that you began to doubt the reality of anything and believe everything as absolute, simultaneously.
Is an imagined future and present life as real as your bodily life?
I used to wonder about this when I was younger, because I was always a daydreamer. I’d spend hours, wherever I was, daydreaming scenarios, things happening that I wished for, being the person I wanted to be in my mind but hadn’t found the courage to be in the palpable world. But who’s to say that wasn’t real, at least, to me?
I still remember some of my greater fantasies, and they seem pretty real to me, possibly more so than some of the moments in life when I wasn’t quite there or didn’t want to be. Are these memories any less real because I was alone in them?
Quietly in my space, dreaming, albeit shrouded in mystery, but happy. Which led to another question: why would one want to be inside their own mind, alone, when they could be out there, amongst others? Sometimes, I think, being inside your own head is a defence mechanism, or it can be a place to go when things aren’t the way you wish them to be. I used to wander unintentionally... And sometimes I still do. Observing, protecting, hiding.
Force of habit.
I can see how one might think it an unhealthy way of living, the hiding part, you can choose to see it as self preservation or as fear. Fear of the outside world and the rejections that are inevitable. And maybe it is a little of both but I don’t think it debilitating or unsound.
Are you denied whatever joy an experience gave you just because it happened inside your head and not to your body?
I believe even dreams are a part of your reality. Everything is an experience.
Everything is your life.
January 7, 2009
Some like it hot! Or; Starry Surprise
The air, a spotlight on the pond, and the green, freshly cut grass, are the first things I notice. The air; warm and cool simultaneously. Perfection.
My chest is burning from a few hours before spent unprotected in the sun.
Tonight: a friend’s birthday celebration on a sultry Saturday evening. The theme: a 60’s inspired open air film theatre.
We turn the corner and a make-shift theatre in the middle of a farm with sofas and chairs, old and new, draped in rugs of various colours and patterns greets us. Popcorn in Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets wrapped in wilting paper from the moist air with printed pictures of the screen goddess, Marilyn Monroe. A glorious display of all things sweet and sour, and dairy.
The bar; an array of cocktail paraphernalia, any drink you can dream up is yours. I choose coke.
The light from the stars and from the candles and Sting singing Arabic tunes, softly, brings about a mood so subtle and after chit chatting for a while the movie starts. A classic: Some like It Hot.
And as the movie begins so do the childish antics; popcorn throwing, French kissing in the back row, giggling.
And then: the money shot; Marilyn Monroe aka Sugar, strutting in black and white toward the camera with smoke from the train in the background and a pout placed perfectly on her famous mouth.
It occurred to me right then, as I looked up at the sky.
I realised I hadn’t seen stars in what seemed like too long a time. Like I had simply forgotten them. Where had they been?
Until then, until that very moment, I hadn’t seen one in how long?
And so many? As hard as I tried I could not remember. I looked up at the arcane beauty of it, of them, there hanging in the black.
The idea of them returned to me once more and after that night I told myself I would begin to see them again, everywhere.
I realised if we forget something so important and incredible exists, we can’t see it anymore.
A lot like love.
And just before leaving; Emil said he had something to show me.
He led me down to the water and I saw that the stars were perfectly reflected in the liquid, so that it seemed like we were looking down at the night sky.
Happy birthday Yvette! And,
Pookie; you’re the berries!
My chest is burning from a few hours before spent unprotected in the sun.
Tonight: a friend’s birthday celebration on a sultry Saturday evening. The theme: a 60’s inspired open air film theatre.
We turn the corner and a make-shift theatre in the middle of a farm with sofas and chairs, old and new, draped in rugs of various colours and patterns greets us. Popcorn in Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets wrapped in wilting paper from the moist air with printed pictures of the screen goddess, Marilyn Monroe. A glorious display of all things sweet and sour, and dairy.
The bar; an array of cocktail paraphernalia, any drink you can dream up is yours. I choose coke.
The light from the stars and from the candles and Sting singing Arabic tunes, softly, brings about a mood so subtle and after chit chatting for a while the movie starts. A classic: Some like It Hot.
And as the movie begins so do the childish antics; popcorn throwing, French kissing in the back row, giggling.
And then: the money shot; Marilyn Monroe aka Sugar, strutting in black and white toward the camera with smoke from the train in the background and a pout placed perfectly on her famous mouth.
It occurred to me right then, as I looked up at the sky.
I realised I hadn’t seen stars in what seemed like too long a time. Like I had simply forgotten them. Where had they been?
Until then, until that very moment, I hadn’t seen one in how long?
And so many? As hard as I tried I could not remember. I looked up at the arcane beauty of it, of them, there hanging in the black.
The idea of them returned to me once more and after that night I told myself I would begin to see them again, everywhere.
I realised if we forget something so important and incredible exists, we can’t see it anymore.
A lot like love.
And just before leaving; Emil said he had something to show me.
He led me down to the water and I saw that the stars were perfectly reflected in the liquid, so that it seemed like we were looking down at the night sky.
Happy birthday Yvette! And,
Pookie; you’re the berries!
January 6, 2009
The Happy New Year!
Those bright, brave blue eyes looked down on me and asked me to marry him on the 1st of January 2009 sometime after we rang in the New Year. Sometime after the fireworks above the ocean, different fireworks, even more sublime, went off.
His melifulous voice, his electrical touch and the way he looked on that night, I will never forget.
The sounds of laughter and celebration behind us and the quiet of that porch where we stood alone in a slow dance pose.
A house we never thought would hold such a moment for us.
New Years has always held for me an unachieved expectation, an anticlimax of sorts. All the hype and all the preparations leading to a mediocre night, if not a terrible one, but this year, this year as we kissed and sang and laughed, I realised in that moment how wonderful a night it could be if you’re exactly where you want to be.
And it became... Special. Special is not quite the word, but it’s the only one that springs to mind. Special does not do it any kind of justice.
My mind is awash with thoughts of that night as I sit here at my desk and ponder my reality.
If you asked me a year ago where I thought I would be now, I would never have fantasized so wildly, as is my life right now.
I could wax poetically for a thousand lifetimes about Emil and all the love he enriches my life with on an hourly basis but I find I have to hold myself back a bit so as not to induce gag reflexes in whoever reads my words. I realise mushy isn’t popular but I write as I feel and all I feel right now is love.
His melifulous voice, his electrical touch and the way he looked on that night, I will never forget.
The sounds of laughter and celebration behind us and the quiet of that porch where we stood alone in a slow dance pose.
A house we never thought would hold such a moment for us.
New Years has always held for me an unachieved expectation, an anticlimax of sorts. All the hype and all the preparations leading to a mediocre night, if not a terrible one, but this year, this year as we kissed and sang and laughed, I realised in that moment how wonderful a night it could be if you’re exactly where you want to be.
And it became... Special. Special is not quite the word, but it’s the only one that springs to mind. Special does not do it any kind of justice.
My mind is awash with thoughts of that night as I sit here at my desk and ponder my reality.
If you asked me a year ago where I thought I would be now, I would never have fantasized so wildly, as is my life right now.
I could wax poetically for a thousand lifetimes about Emil and all the love he enriches my life with on an hourly basis but I find I have to hold myself back a bit so as not to induce gag reflexes in whoever reads my words. I realise mushy isn’t popular but I write as I feel and all I feel right now is love.
January 5, 2009
Disintegration or; Poor Pensioners Dystopia
A certain smell, like; musty towels and dairy on the wrong side of the best before date.
A soiled ambience enveloping the area, so that when you walk through the doors you feel poverty in your bones and move quickly for fear of catching whatever it is they’ve got.
Stringy hair, unnatural colour and feel. Acne scarred and wrinkled, these marks cover every inch of skin on their faces, worn like badges displaying their lewd lives.
The eyes; defunct and confused, almost like they don’t know what they’re doing there from one minute to the next.
The walk; spiritless and stiff, as if one caustic step in the wrong aisle will set in motion a catastrophic event they could never bounce back from.
Standing too close, they send something like a shudder down your spine, causing you to twitter involuntarily, quickly; regaining composure in seconds.
Almost nefarious and baneful, the aged bourgeois come here for their daily bread, their daily outing into the world that forgot them a long time ago.
This is Rosemary’s Centre, a mall for the antiquated and amongst said bourgeois is Marsha Pool.
Ms Pool has grey hair restored to its former glory: blonde. She has sallow skin and a lumpy stomach, a terrible taste in fashion, which was never quite in fashion. She hosts bland eyes and thin lips, no desirable or distinguishable features to speak of or look at, now or then. Then, when she was young, when she had the love and infatuated heart of an artist, when she mattered to a multitude of people; an aspiring artist herself, before she came to realise she was not good enough, not dedicated enough and never would be, before she decided to study instead, she longed for logic and mathematics. She missed just knowing instead of wondering, guessing.
Marsha studied architecture. She finished and got a job, but she never felt the joy again, of paint on the floor and permanently stained on her socks, the satisfaction of pencil marks on her fingers and a completed drawing in front of her.
She never made a fortune, she just scraped by and she lost the heart of the artist, the man and herself. He chased after her relentlessly for years and eventually gave into her disappearing light and moved on and when she decided she really did love him she found him in the arms of a beautiful siren with tattoos and long, writhing hair darker than her lover’s eyes. Marsha took him for granted all those years; just assuming once she calmed down she could run back into his arms and everything would be as it was, which was never really anything too great to begin with. Marsha led him on, she wanted him to be alone and pine for her whilst she was out with a different man every week, searching for a soul mate.
When they were alone he could have sworn she loved him. And maybe she did, but not the way she should have.
Marsha never forgot the way the vamp touched her former sweetheart and still, as she pushes her half empty trolley down the toiletry aisle, she missed the mawkish way they used to hold hands and talk.
Even though, on her part, it was never anything too special then, now; now it was a life missed. Something she once owned and wanted desperately to have back. It was an old, oily regret.
An extreme case of nostalgia seeped into her attention together with the bitter disappointment and regret that inevitably follows thrown away love.
The various states of discomposure and solicitude, the rerum, Ms Pool felt it all, daily.
And so the years went by. She worked hard, she had many friends who slowly started marrying one another, she had many men who eventually all left her bed and took their razors and hair gel with them.
Marsha thought she had loved these men, each in a different way. In fact, some, she found, even measured up to the artist and after hearing news of his engagement to, she learnt the sirens name but found she could never say it, Luna, (Marsha wondered if that was indeed her birth name, it seemed to her a little odd and she decided that her real name was something plain like Jane or Jessica.) Marsha decided she may even be ready to settle down and bear children, only to find the man of the week amble out the door, sprinting miles between them.
Until eventually here she was, Marsha Pool, in the middle of the fruit and vegetable aisle at a decrepit mall in her last years.
Versed, a veteran at wasted time. Almost nearly senile. Obsolete.
Autumn: leaves committing mass suicide all over the country. Ms Pool felt like joining them.
She longed to paint and feel alive again. She wished she could right all of her wrongs; do it all again. She didn’t feel, au contraire, she walked around mindlessly, like a robot with gravity stricken breasts, speaking in tones that did not look to disguise her hurt and wearing makeup as crazy as the clown prince of crime and Batman’s arch-enemy because, it seemed to her, anything was better than the way she looked, naturally.
Alone with an age-softened mind, with memories to look back on and cry over but nothing solid to touch, Marsha Pool paid for her apples and shampoo with coupons and a wry smile.
A soiled ambience enveloping the area, so that when you walk through the doors you feel poverty in your bones and move quickly for fear of catching whatever it is they’ve got.
Stringy hair, unnatural colour and feel. Acne scarred and wrinkled, these marks cover every inch of skin on their faces, worn like badges displaying their lewd lives.
The eyes; defunct and confused, almost like they don’t know what they’re doing there from one minute to the next.
The walk; spiritless and stiff, as if one caustic step in the wrong aisle will set in motion a catastrophic event they could never bounce back from.
Standing too close, they send something like a shudder down your spine, causing you to twitter involuntarily, quickly; regaining composure in seconds.
Almost nefarious and baneful, the aged bourgeois come here for their daily bread, their daily outing into the world that forgot them a long time ago.
This is Rosemary’s Centre, a mall for the antiquated and amongst said bourgeois is Marsha Pool.
Ms Pool has grey hair restored to its former glory: blonde. She has sallow skin and a lumpy stomach, a terrible taste in fashion, which was never quite in fashion. She hosts bland eyes and thin lips, no desirable or distinguishable features to speak of or look at, now or then. Then, when she was young, when she had the love and infatuated heart of an artist, when she mattered to a multitude of people; an aspiring artist herself, before she came to realise she was not good enough, not dedicated enough and never would be, before she decided to study instead, she longed for logic and mathematics. She missed just knowing instead of wondering, guessing.
Marsha studied architecture. She finished and got a job, but she never felt the joy again, of paint on the floor and permanently stained on her socks, the satisfaction of pencil marks on her fingers and a completed drawing in front of her.
She never made a fortune, she just scraped by and she lost the heart of the artist, the man and herself. He chased after her relentlessly for years and eventually gave into her disappearing light and moved on and when she decided she really did love him she found him in the arms of a beautiful siren with tattoos and long, writhing hair darker than her lover’s eyes. Marsha took him for granted all those years; just assuming once she calmed down she could run back into his arms and everything would be as it was, which was never really anything too great to begin with. Marsha led him on, she wanted him to be alone and pine for her whilst she was out with a different man every week, searching for a soul mate.
When they were alone he could have sworn she loved him. And maybe she did, but not the way she should have.
Marsha never forgot the way the vamp touched her former sweetheart and still, as she pushes her half empty trolley down the toiletry aisle, she missed the mawkish way they used to hold hands and talk.
Even though, on her part, it was never anything too special then, now; now it was a life missed. Something she once owned and wanted desperately to have back. It was an old, oily regret.
An extreme case of nostalgia seeped into her attention together with the bitter disappointment and regret that inevitably follows thrown away love.
The various states of discomposure and solicitude, the rerum, Ms Pool felt it all, daily.
And so the years went by. She worked hard, she had many friends who slowly started marrying one another, she had many men who eventually all left her bed and took their razors and hair gel with them.
Marsha thought she had loved these men, each in a different way. In fact, some, she found, even measured up to the artist and after hearing news of his engagement to, she learnt the sirens name but found she could never say it, Luna, (Marsha wondered if that was indeed her birth name, it seemed to her a little odd and she decided that her real name was something plain like Jane or Jessica.) Marsha decided she may even be ready to settle down and bear children, only to find the man of the week amble out the door, sprinting miles between them.
Until eventually here she was, Marsha Pool, in the middle of the fruit and vegetable aisle at a decrepit mall in her last years.
Versed, a veteran at wasted time. Almost nearly senile. Obsolete.
Autumn: leaves committing mass suicide all over the country. Ms Pool felt like joining them.
She longed to paint and feel alive again. She wished she could right all of her wrongs; do it all again. She didn’t feel, au contraire, she walked around mindlessly, like a robot with gravity stricken breasts, speaking in tones that did not look to disguise her hurt and wearing makeup as crazy as the clown prince of crime and Batman’s arch-enemy because, it seemed to her, anything was better than the way she looked, naturally.
Alone with an age-softened mind, with memories to look back on and cry over but nothing solid to touch, Marsha Pool paid for her apples and shampoo with coupons and a wry smile.
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