I bought,
I paid,
Seven dollars.
For reflections.

Stimuli.
Thought creator,
A bat and ball.
For the mind.

I’m in no rush.
I am in no hurry.

Fifteen minute wait on seafood paella?
I think I’ll give that a miss.

I am in no rush to be alone.

Bob died, years ago. Hung himself.
Eloise this weekend. Hung herself.
I read up on suicide last year.
It fascinates me and it makes me weep.
I’m studying economics at the moment.

Rhys asked if I was ok.
-I’m angry and i’m confused.
I feel like an idiot.
I’m missing something here.
Why do people do it?

I’m a strong believer in people having versions of themselves.
The Tasmanian version.
Travelling when you’re depressed.
Insightful, healthy, active, challenging, adventurous.
A metaphorical suicide.
Re-invent yourself. MOVE

But no. Life is too hard.
You’ve experienced the good times and SOMEHOW, despite the good;
people get caught up. Stuck in a rut. Bang their head against a bad idea-
long long long, day and night. Brain damaged, they get this wild idea to end their suffering. Don’t worry about other people around you. Its a choice.
Is it a choice? Do we actively choose to live every day?

So let me get this straight. Your mum and dad, they created you.
Your mother carried you around inside herself, feeding you with her own body.
You are born. A beautiful little cherrub. You are raised.
I wonder how suicide fits in with the nature vs nurture debate.
All the trouble society went to, the late nights your parents had to endure, sunken eyes, changing your diapers, kissing your soft newborn scalp. “shh-shhh-shhh, singing lullabies, reading you books, feeding you, giving you shelter, training you, watching you grow, learn to walk, talk, tumble”. And for what.
This opportunity squandered.

Blessed are you, in a society that creates (with machines!) a thread for you to hang yourself with. Spend your life trying to weave together a noose. You morons. You are given this glimmer. What do you know that the survivors don’t?
You know quiet. You go blank. You taste the chemicals your brain releases when you die. You see the light. You are high.

So wrong. Life’s struggle. A bastard of sadness and unjust tragedy, and you, you add to the survivor burden. You stand in the middle of the good vs bad see-saw. You walked from: good—v—-bad
and you jumped at the middle. Suspeneded and hanging for all to see.
We lost another good one today.
Chemical imbalance. Dad said coke is to blame. Out bodies are PH neutral, tending towards alkaline. Coke is acidic. People get this imbalance from the chemicals they put in their body. What a crazy theory.

Megan said; “when my best friend hung himself, I worried that other friends of mine would do the same”.
I’m happy I talked to her. She shared a lot that night. I walked and listened.
Unsure of so much of the relevance. She made forget my pledge of black clothing. We went to the beach, I swam, played catch, talked and kissed, I dove in the water, practiced headstands. I was entertained. I was not depressed, I was busy. And I wore blue. Not black. All blue. I applied for a new job. I hadn’t eaten enough, my brain felt like a dry sponge. In the wrong hands I could have turned to dust.
I went home from the library and ate. I didn’t give suicide much thought.
But here I am at the computer. Computing. Thinking. Writing.
There was a service for El today, I didn’t have the heart to go.
A heap of people, society, feeling sad.
Looking for closure? All that emotion. I want to hug each and every one.
I want to share stories, I want everyone to be ok.
But she left us, she chose. The ultimate individual, selfish, lone wolf,
confused, pointless, worthless, waste of beautiful, unique life.
Grief mongering, poisonous, reckless, poorly thought out, destructive, gut wrenching, turmoil that isn’t in the deck of cards when you start the game of life. Its not on the six sided dice. There is no chance. And so before you go: I wish I could have asked why. Are we still going to go out for that coffee?
No, no we never will. Why did you say that?

Closure? NONE. Uncomfortable, grief stricken vultures. We pick our way through life’s little morsels and deal with these horrible events how we can.
All that confused thought.
The difference between how men and women choose to kill themselves.
Pills, Hanging, Jumping, Drowning, Shooting, Carcrash, Warm baths & cold razors.
“You are poisoned, you are confused, you needed help, I wish this were not so”.
There are so many of you out there, that “MOOD”.
:I’ve thought about it. We all have. But you never would. Would you?
If you can think it, if you can dream it. Impossible is nothing, right?

Turn those sporting or motivational on their heads.
Lets talk about suicide. Even saying it cheapens it.
Why are we all afraid? Because its a taboo.
What makes you sad enough to think it?
Why would YOU do IT?
Can it be helped that we get sad?
Do we need the sad to feel good?

Like all things, our mode of communication; its very basic is having direct and opposing understandings of things. Black and white. Good and evil. Hot and cold.
Alive and dead. Some are more real than others. I’ll let you guys ask the dead their opinion. I think logic goes out the window. Words are distant.
The feeling. The trance of the ill-feeling. Needs to be broken by those close at hand. A stranger, a lover, a friend. Where are they when suicide is happening.
Can we talk about this? Why am I so confused. How does suicide, the action and its reasons raise such an abhorrent question mark. It makes me angry. That you’re gone makes me sad, but I wasn’t there when you needed me.
Is it a tragedy? Did you want this? Surely this is a sick joke.
Were you lonely? Is depression just boredom? Where were you on the spectrum.
Were you sad because you’re felt happy in the past?
When did you last smile?
What was your last word?
How many breaths in a day?

I in
– out
I in
– out

You don’t care.
You are gone. And no-one will remember you in 100 years. Not one single person (I don’t think). That’s a tragedy. That’s a sadness of time.
This is what you make me think of.
Suicide sickness.

Funerals? I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of those.
Its a memorial…

To pass through,
Life. Window pane
Touch, living you
Talk with Dane.

Fill that space
Rife the pain
Smile fleet face
Splashed with rain

Rubbed dry
Smeared my thumb
Feeling high
Cold streaked numb

Reach the end
Finished the glass
Down we wend
Tied to mast.

Captain and first
Bubble and burn
The drinker’s thirst
Spurned, sinking stern

Knife in side
Strife it rises
Rifts, grow wide
Gift no disguises

She knows what
All be told
Blood boils hot
Old flows cold.

I saw you alone in a lot of photos. What could I have possibly known that to mean. Jaz.

Tragedy.
You want to buy her flowers.
She says roses are cliché.
You think to buy her lilies,
But they make her think of funerals.
So you buy her hydrangeas, you love the smell.
You buy them for her every day.
Until one day.
One day the house smells of lilies.

John Armstrong – Philosopher, the book of life. Glasgow born. Studied at Oxford.
A successful man by many-an-account. Great! Talks like a chess player. Knows the history of many words. Willing to share ideas, and teach. If things were different?
If he’d spent his time playing the Decks? Following his passion for electro-music:
The Dj. J.AMSTRONG. Philosopher DJ. Open the book of life. Dance for what you believe in. Dance because it matters. Action.

Truancy – Constant Absenteeism.
“I have a truancy problem” I don’t understand how that was brought up and/or funny. Rowan?

And I wish you knew; to have ever lived is not a fault as much as it is true.

Because life; life is french bread.
Write it down. Pain.

Toe-nails? Ah! A great feet of evolution.

Current romance? Its like toast. We all like our bread buttered a bit differently.
Some sweet, some savoury, a mix! Minimal. Overwhelming. Dark, light, seedy.
Fruit.

Raps and rhymes, lick your lips; walk the line of homosexual positives, complement battles, you are on Extacy – “Give him a Mackerel” (I told you this would happen)

“My Brilliant Career” – what was this? March 3rd 2016. 12:02.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEIN: 3rd march 2016 10:04

The smoking generation spurs from the uncomfortable silence.
You must be rushed. Quick. Bing-bang-bong. Smoke, drag, talk, move, fidget.
No deep thought. Mindless. Edgy. Not contemplative.
“its a race, a race for us to die”.
The gift of life. Gendered said dad. “Men smoke because they’re idiots.”
Women “because they want to be dangerous, because they are concerned with their figure”
-bullshit Dad.
Headspin! Pollution, kills you, costs money, early death, reduces enjoyment of life, exercise capabilities reduced. Bad skin, rank breath, lips, hands, lungs, eyes. You’re body is the sleeping beehive. The honey that is your lifeforce, stolen.

Are there more beds than people in this world?
Are there more books?
Are there more words than people?

Toilet philosophy.
Go deep,
Too deep, small things.
Traffic lights.
Red Man philosophy. – you stop, you wait, you think, you observes: Yourself and others. How do you conduct yourself? How do you stand. How will you cross the road, who presses the button? How hard? How many times. What if there’s no traffic? Do you just cross. Do you J-walk? JAY-WALK(?) spelling.
The bogan – stops oncoming traffic.
The oriental – dodges between oncoming cars and trucks
The impatient – runs
The majority – wait, observe, wonder.

The steppers just before the green man.
The dodging between, weaving in and out of oncoming people from the other side of the lights. The head down, shrunken shoulders. The chest out, proud. Straight lines.
Where are they all going. Why did that man run? What is so important? Was that a risk? Will he arrive on time? What is the outcome? Action -> result?
If he took 2 minutes longer, what would be the effect and the affect.
He could have used that time to better explain his lateness. Jolly good.

Dear, dear dear dear me.
Its part of my spoken language.
Get me out there.
No no no no nono.
Silly, fool, oh no, damn, oops, uh-oh.
Rife with trouble.
Your thinking is wrong.
Laden, slanted. Off, incorrect, lacking.
Maybe. Dear, dear dear me.

Today i’ll apply for a casual job. Greed drives.

You asked me how to spell words for you; that made me raise an eyebrow.
Its true, you are dyslexic after all. You follow patterns. If you can remember, surely you can remember words. Memory scrambled. Curious.
“how do you spell special”. Well my dear. How do I spell it indeed.

I clenched my jaw,
I ground my teeth.
I had something on my mind.

Today I had a big breakfast,
Food is fuel, is the energy you have for that day,
Is a smile, is patience, is the will to accept and to to think clearly.
Logically I can make no different there.

Canada at the end of the month.
A black month.

Wash my face,
Brush my teeth,
Ride to class,
Read, write, discuss.

The whole day.
-Apply for jobs,
Study, write characters.

Book stores.
A quite time of year.
I would like a cup, a cup of tea. Constant tee.
“Constanteenople”

Constant tee no people.

A LA PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES.
Thankyou Count.

I don’t know how I feel. Shocked. Sad. Pensive. Muted. Troubled. Off.
Quiet. Resigned. Guilty. Confused. Annoyed.
Can I ask you: How and why?

Rest in peace,
Sorry you’re gone.

I found out today
You’d fled, gone away.

Met you Eloise
Winter last year,

Cold outside,
your company
warmed me
Deeply.

Mind games,
mixed emotions.

Truth and lies,
Lows and high

You managed.
We kissed

You smelt of cigarettes.
You were a mover-
and a shaker.

I imagine you in the noose,
shaking. Smiling (TO YOURSELF).
Feeling smart. maybe crying.
Tongue out, gagging.
The feeling light, going loose.
Limp now, sagging.

We used to kick it.
Movers and a shakers.
That was your last move.
Check mate.
Your last kick.
And I’m left to shake.

I measure knowing you;
in less than a years.

The story you shared,
of only eating gummy bears for a week.

The dorky jacket.
Those un-fly moves.
How rude you were to other girls I was friends with.

I remember telling you some of my darker thoughts.
I told you I was scared.
The importance of our senses.
I tried to be supportive.
I asked questions because I cared.
Wrote you a card for your birthday.
Unique, precious, like you.
Like everyone is, because we’re all… un-alike.

We gossiped and spied.
drank coffee and wine,
Danced, talked.
“How do you feel”
You shattered my face.

We hugged,
I even introduced you to my mother.
We ate at that asian diner,
We smoked together, even thought I don’t.
You gave me a rush,
Let me be creative.
Crazy.

I wore a kilt.
You bought me a ticket.
We watched the TSO.

I asked about you:
I forget so much of that conversation.
My brain was folds of cold silk.

You got me a ticket to The Preachers.
They were great and I helped you write the article over disgusting licorice tea.
We played chess.
You skyped your friend in Japan.
I flicked a rubber band at the roof.

You wrote me a card,
You came off as a crazy cat lady.
I saw you at the Cygnet folk festival.

That was the last I saw you,
Before your untimely demise.
A glaze took a liking,
Took the glinting from your eyes.

While I was out hiking,
You, you were kicking out the chair.
No retreating. Turning blue.

For someone I held upon a pedestal,
For such a short time, such a short life,
Such a short time, you were a part of mine.
Now apart. Bridged gap from life to death.
Striking the match to your dyed hair.

Marge with makeup shotgun.
Rogue, mad and dark.
Misfired fun, tragedy run
Hurting, left your mark.

Now we’ve survivors sickness.
I’ll call it life-
Shall I? You witness.
Progress despite the strife.

EL-

Ah yes the two headed snake eating itself.
my circular statements here will make me boggle,
can you try to keep me on the tacks. Don’t forget what we’re talking about.
If i’m just making noise, stop me.
I want to communicate an idea to you.
A thought!
You must understand.
The very basics of it all;
“its raining”
“yes it is raining”.
Riveting stuff, indeed.

So when you said to me all of those things before, I’m going to try explain to you “yes it is raining” but in my own words.
ITS raining. IT IS. RAIN-ING. do you catch my drift.

That piano tonight was beautiful.

I believe in fate.
If the green man goes on the lights as I go to cross, that effects my perspective in a positive way; as if I am chosen to walk this path. Being perfectly aligned with my choices and options. Following the best possible outcome.
It leads on, I walk, I follow, I choose, I believe. I am positive.
Having this sort of thinking is a self fulfilling prophecy. (FOR-FILLING)? Why is that in my grammar code red all of a sudden.

Anyway, the thought: I shaved my stomach.
While tanning one day, my cousin pointed out this fact.
I was a bit put on the spot and said “yeah, for tanning purposes”.
He then said “I shaved my chest a few days ago”.

My immediate thought wasn’t coincidence. It was “we are related, we are organic beings that spend lots of time together, share brainwaves, we did the same sort of thing on the same day I BET”.
The magic. The beauty, mystery and wonder I have for my vulnerable thoughts.
I share because I feel, that we all feel, what I feel.
Circular statements aboard! It is what it is, that’s that.
Disagree if you must. I won’t argue.

Tonight’s conversation was fuelled with Guinness.

The law, the legal system and how people are punished.
Deterrent or punishment or otherwise. We are all of us in disagreement. That is why we elect a few, educated few to make the rules for us; FOR others.
What are the chances I would have touched those children: says the priest.
Considering his peer group? I’d say the chances were in his favour. Its a sad point. Barely worth considering, but for one insight in the complete quandary I already face with the LAW.
You commit a crime, you pay the consequences. Jail time.
Then you are set free. Completely forgotten.
Having had time to consider your wrong doings, you are now free.
You have been away from temptation.
You have been isolated.
Alone with your thoughts.
Not in a particularly productive place. More reductive,
criminal, basic, unpleasant, lonely, agressive, regimented and ruled.

The time you spend in this place is on the basis, on the basic principle understanding; the ruling of a judge, that understands from a logical and rational position that: “This person is here, having done these crimes, that other people have done in the past, and ANY person COULD do”. The punishment in the past has been – etc etc.

How likely were you to have committed the same crime? What’s your moral code like. A case by case, ALWAYS.

The loaded question.
The front foot defence.
The fear.

A child raised by a man and another man will be raised differently to how they would be raised by a woman and a man. Because and only because a man is different to a woman. Beyond this fact observed and understood by society, opinion ensues.

I should donate blood.
Plasma maybe – what a great word.
Fire is a plasma.
Tell me more.

What was there before the big bang?
What caused it?
How could the atom be the smallest thing there is.
Can we create DNA?

How can we define our importance in the galaxy if we observe other such vast objects that dwarf our beings.

Basic constructs.
Education standards.
The smirk of being 40 and only then taking an interest in the goings on of the universe as we observe it. Keep me posted.

The belief that others have the riddles of the universe like a puzzle, just waiting to be explained, and that they can continue on their daily lives.
Would knowing how the universe came about effect me? Probably not.

WAIT, knowing that your life is a random cosmic event and that when you die, that’s all folks.

You wouldn’t change a thing? Poetic. Kill me now.

Are you in control of your life? – i’ll ask you until you say yes.
The importance of being able to DO not DIE. Climb that tree, life will throw challenges your way. How you cope will reflect how you’ve prepared.

Moments alone.
Free market thought.
Selfish oriented.
Group hangouts.
What’s the perfect group.
1,2,3 beyond.
There’s ideas about all of them.

Observe groups of 2. A date. Cute, private friends.
3’s. One has down time, checks their phone for the next big thing, next topic, barely keeping up with the chatter of the other two. Fearing always that someone will be left out. Two chatter away until the 3rd waves their phone “look at this”. Three is strong, a triangle. Equal, maybe, scalene, isosceles. What do you guys bring to the group. How is your dynamic?
Does the one on the phone prove to be a target? Is 3 an approachable number? The one on the phone is single? Maybe.

Our own inevitable doom lay outside the boundaries of our control. Mayhem.

Waiting at the lights. Do you press the button?
Could you forever wait at the red man.
Do you trust others to press the button for you?
Do you use your knee? The back of your hand?
Do you press hard or multiple times?
I feel like this reflects state of mind, and mood.

The Individual Mind. Alone, pensive, rational.
Reward system in place.

Group Mind. Together, chatter, dictatorship/democratic.
Posturing, agendas.

Fashion – posturing – angle.

High brow, low brow, middle brow (Uni Brow) – Are triangles the strongest structure?

“Tell me the first thing that comes into your mind”

“Tell me real, ok, focus no lies, truth, the heart, the core yourself purest form, focus. Now tell me something you don’t know”.

“Now he drives busses”. *the look in their eyes, gossip, sick*

Its sweet
Tis life
Behind each tree
Green, hidden.

Crack underfoot.
The bend of branch,
Train tracks-
-below.

The forced,
Destroyed.
Bent back to stumps.
Be cordial.

Russ, rode his bicycle up hill. The chain grinding with his progress. He’d spent the day at work. He’d gone on coffee break with an old girlfriend. She sat with chin on the back of her hands, delicate, eyes sharp on him. She listened, he spoke. All he spoke of was work. He built the platform for conversation; his voice was the loudest in the cafe, it made her feel self aware maybe.
After everything; she knew him so well he felt. Even with the amount of time they’d now been apart.

But she’d just sat there. Transfixed. Offering a smile, sometimes a nod or a question. What was she thinking. They were different now. He was brought back from his thoughts to the grinding sound that had started at the point the peddles of his bicycle joined the main part of the bike frame. It sounded rusted. Had it dried poorly from last weeks rain? Rust? Or in need of oil.
Why was the sound so offensive. He dismounted the bike, annoyed at the task that faced him now and in the not so distant future. What had she been thinking? Why had all he talked about work? He wanted to hear about her. But she’d gone. And now she was really gone.

Mistakes plagued him. Russ had a reasonable mind. Reason was his game. His life. He’d sit quietly at social events and legitimate conversations he’d overhear with his logical mind. But mostly just sigh or he’d scoff at the lunacy and wasteful idiocy surrounding him. Common people, common thoughts, commonplace. “MORON” & “COMMON”. Two of the most hurtful words around; he felt. And he saved them for only those deemed truly blessed with the banality, exit spark, fare-thee-well unique. Justified, undignified people without the belief of any self empowerment or glimmer. Just ants. Worker ants. Soulless. Following their basic desires. Informed unmindfully. The line walkers. Robots.

To what end. Why had he let himself slip. Why had he tried so much to open up to this old squeeze. The mundane platform of conversation he’d started. “work, work, work, work, work”. He was better than that. He’d arrived home. Angry.
He put the kettle on. The kettle must always be boiled. Going into the bathroom he locked the door and jiggled the handle. Human nature. He smiled at his glorious mind. He lived alone, but still he did this menial task, smiling every time. Like when he skipped and did criss-cross. A raw outbreak of glee would take him. Strange, he thought but doubly hilarious. Naughty.

Nose almost touching the glass of his bathroom mirror, exhaling so as not to fog up his reflection he met his own eyes. Staring past the deep blue, the intricate pattern. His eyeballs fingerprints. The world. The landscapes. Vast colour. Shattering reverberations of could. Deeper. His pupils dilate. Focus, un-focus. Grow then shrink. He’d exhale. They’d grow. His chin lowered. His dark brows bordering his vision. His eyelashes, always absent, invisible to his direct sight. He’d never wondered at that before. His pupils pulse. Big. Small. Like a heartbeat. He felt a narcissistic spike. His breath tightened. He noticed his pulse under the flesh of his neckline, just above his collarbone. He breathed though his teeth, a slight mist. He felt angry still. Animalistic. He felt dangerous. A rush. High almost. A power. Colours faded, just his dark, dark eyes, glinting, fierce. Like he could kill. Cold angry murder.

He exhaled again. Deeply this time, fogging the glass completely. His face’s reflection blurring into mist. As the edges of white receded, he was smiling. His disposition had changed. A smile dawned his face. The natural charming, friendly face of a passerby. Trusted acquaintance maybe, possibly someone worth talking too. Taking the time out of your day to say ‘hello’. Yes, he thought. He was whatever he wanted people to see.

“It starts in the eyes”

He soaped his hands and washed his face.
Dinner was buckwheat noodles in carrot and chicken stock broth. It tasted of salt. He was early to bed so he examined his body with his left hand. Pushing on every inch of his own skin. He clenched his right hand into a fist and continued his search. The creative side of his mind, demonstrating a patience of wonder and care. His right hand flexed with the rate of his heartbeat. It was an eclipse tomorrow. Remarkable- he thought. The stars tonight would be worth a moment’s notice as well. Maybe there’d be a shooting star or two.

He rubbed his eyes with both hands, he’d stopped his little game.
Maybe I should grow a herb garden? He discarded the thought, wondering at his mental filter. Why had this thought come to him? Was it the carrot in his soup taking control or influencing him. How quickly had he digested it? He was tired. He’d talked too much today. Wasted energy on things that didn’t matter. His bike needed to be oiled. A million menial tasks, all with different possible means to their completion. It was a wonder he felt like he was in control. Would he get every task done? His eyes looked over his bare room.

Control is my construct. I will-view my world.
Wanting, is my minds energy.
Doing is blessing. Choice is my power.
Air is my fuel. Silence is my playground.
Needing is my death.
Peace dashed, and-
my my, what follows.

I rinsed the bowel. A white ceramic. Hair, Nails, Ears and Nose. They’ve all grown. Bed will give me some time to consolidate. Force yourself to lay down, alone in the dark. Russ.

I’ve been away for the past 48 hours. At my shack.
Rejuv’ing. Purple potion. 100%
Eating, resting, exploring.
No phone, no electricity.
Just her and I.
Fire and blankets.
I taught her how to shuffle.
We played cards.
We talked.
Humans are the only animal to believe in god but the only creature to act like they don’t.
Do animals believe in god?
Do animals have souls.
Classic.

What is east?
What is west?
We live on the surface of a sphere.
Cultures vary dramatically.

“Who has rice for breakfast”
“Good and Evil aren’t real”
“What are you thinking”
-Carry me on your back- like always.

I’m on cloud nine. What a day, what a time. what fun. Such fun. Fun fun fun.

***

She sat in an alley alone. Head bowed picking at a flayed bit of skin.
It stung. The paper thin cut she’d giver herself at such a sever angle stung. She didn’t remember putting lemon juice in the wound. Why did it sting so much.

She hadn’t been home in a few days. She rarely washed her hands with soap. Soap was for saved for those special times. Like when she’d return home, thin faced; haggard from hiking with days worth of grime and grit under her nails and eye lids.

That gravelly, sleep preventing feeling plagued her more and more recently. Closing her eyes rubbed somehow. An uncomfortable warmth would settle, like wet sandbags dragging at the bottom lid, while the top felt inside out. She pulled out her pocket mirror and spat on it.

Rubbing the smokey reflecting glass on her rag-shirt. She felt it flit over her nipple. The intricate landscape of it, hard and cold. The abruptness of teat. She shivered, feeling ill with her own breasts. Bags of wasteful flesh. Water. Fat. Slappy Bags. Fucking anchors. Sick, she just felt sick.

Looking at herself. One eye closed, mouth cracked into a one sided smile. To the brim, resentment washed out of her with each exhale from those cracked lips. She pinched the skin behind her right ear, hard. And listened for her pain. A habit she’d developed recently.

She’d first started cutting when she was very young. Just 11. “Cutting” people called it. Like it was common. Truth be told it was. But people in their innumerable, immeasurable boredoms found infinite justifications. Reasoning. Raising pulses. Feeling alive. Pleasure of pain. Humanity. Control. Deep bullshit. Then it was. And not heaps had changed.
“attention seeking behaviour”. – she shuddered.

Individual cut down to its stump. Glory, a glowering, shiver of a woman. She pulled a pencil from her pocket. Then out came the basic sharpener. She’d removed the tiny blade from the large shaver, and left the small. What a buy. Her two favourite pass times. Bliss. She gritted her teeth. Grinding too her temples. She bit back the renewed string in her wrist. Spittle shot from her lips.

She was a medusa. Lank hair, arched back, legs curled under and back behind her. Sharpening her pencil to begin writing, wrists ablaze. One eye open. Head down. She thought about singing a song she’d heard recently and started to chuckle silently. Her shoulders rising. Like a crow with two broken wings trying to take off. A tear rolled down her face, and she wiped at it with her slashed wrist. No blood. Just a thin, paper thin piece of skin. The width of her smallest finger nail. Cut in, and under and slide, control, unique, close attention. Fire and pain. All the way around like a bracelet. She could wear it anytime. And only cost as much as a pencil sharpener.

Sniffing. She looked to her satchel. Poetry today maybe. She’d hit a good vein recently. She didn’t know the difference between good poetry and bad. She thumbed her wrist. Then pinched behind her ear. She wanted to go an waste time elsewhere now. Thoughts came to her in droves sometimes. And she’d no idea who was driving them. They didn’t stick to the rules. The roads in her mind were clogged with wreckage. Smouldering. Bodies and bad fumes spilling from head-on collisions.

Why a baseball bat. Why do I have to have one of those. And why would I hit roses. Flowers should remain un-picked. I said that to myself just yeterday.
“What fun would that be”
Now. Now matters. Hit them in joy. Swing and beat them into the sky. Let the breeze share their beauty with the world. Growing only to die. Never to be free. Scatter them before they are ashes. Colours my petal.

She heard pain. It was her own. She held her breath. Her back cracked. Heart beat once. Belly, chest swelled. Beat growing. Heat, the sound of static. No pain. Not too far. She breathed out slowly. Then back in. Sweet. Roses and apricots. She’d eaten one earlier. What a strange thought process. The front part of her brain hurt in her head.

Wood pecker trying to drill into her frontal lobe. She needed to get laid. Her legs were pulp. Pins and needles were five minute ago. Up an down. Up and down. Roll off coat. GET TOAST FOR HER. Jam, jam, jam. Sweet. But don’t listen, pinch yourself behind the ear, hard. Listen to my pain. Feel that it is what it is.

She licked her lips. She had to get. Resolute, lips pursed, then a straight line. Arms out for balance. Bag strap wrapped around her wrist. Swinging erratic. Stinging ebbing. “done! How can I still be feeling”

Her senses were muting slowly. The white haze was setting in. She’d rubbed grey-lead from her pencils, from days worth of writing, shavings into her hair. Bits and clouds of grey would fall like dandruff and puffs of clouds. She was the forgotten vacuum cleaner bag. Dust came in clouds. Tiny bits that could choke and kill. Glass, dirt, grit. Serrated nails. Straight teeth. White too. Dry lips. Dry everything. Parched, she wobbled her way down the alley. Towards this light.

Senses tingling.
I’ve done it out of love for myself. Nobody else lets themselves experience what I do. I do it. I do it to me. I feel my bones. I am raw. Her heart was a waterfall. Legs were beams. Thighs, bamboo. Spine knuckled. Hands wretched. Face grim but for the smile. Wretched, hellbent. Resolute as the dust was to drift and fall.

She stepped into the light and hailed a black cab. Standing at the door until the driver got out and tucked her into her seat. Putting a belt about her.
He listened intently to her, pinching his ear to her whisper.
-Took money before the cab set off.
Away’t’went’tide of others. Nothing left to feel.
Black

So the tale goes,
“he writes characters before he writes plots”
That’s what he does. Creates great characters.
Fully fleshed out. Bound up in tomes.
Tombs more like, some will never get a look in – such is the worth of the character, the plot they’d further require just wouldn’t warrant their release.

I asked my own for a disclosure of himself. He is a young man that i’ve tried to capture:

It is me. Jon. Lord of the cantankerous cheese loving gypsy folk. I travel the lands offering sage advice and guidance. I enjoy wit, intelligent turn of phrase and phrasing. I believe in honesty and reaping what you sow. I like hats. I think the most wonderful thing is being around people who make you smile. I have decided to take up yoga and perhaps ballroom dancing. I think it is important to continue acquiring new skills and knowledge. I would like to learn to paint as well but I may wait until I move to Italy for that.

That’s his effort. His work, that may or may not have otherwise gone un-seen, unwritten, undiscovered. My brother. A beautiful soul. Big brother. Someone for me to fight, wail against, rail, revile, revel with. Someone to grow old with. Spend time with. Wonder at. Think about. Hug. Hit. Hail or high five. Punch it. Dance with. Back to back. Games, sport, time well spent. Night or day. Side by side, room next to room. Hated and loved. Big brother.

My goal to write every day.

I could do instalments for a book. A novel.
In-stall-ments. stall, stall, stall. Local, cheap, organic, fresh.
Come on down to salamanca. Hobart town. Small and sweet.

Jack of all trades, master of none.
A famous critique of shakespeare that has outlasted the critic.
“every man has to cut some thing” – Bob Dylan
Paul Kelly recycles this line; when talking in song about Donald Bradman.
He turns a word there like nobody’s business. All masters.

Novels. Books. Literature. Writing. Prose. Poetry. Verse. Scripts, scrolls, scribbles and drafts. Jots and plots and who’s and what’s. How. And Ho. Lo and behold. Paperback. Hardback. Dog-ears and folds. Ebooks and glasses. Sat, studied in classes. Written on plasters. To shakespearean masters. Greedy speedy read-y. Steady, heady, ready. Write left to right, right you are. Easter or western or further afar.

After you’re done, lend me the first. I’ll never return nor read it, forget that series. I’m the first book collector. To answer your queries. My shelves are laden, all them unread. I’m better than the wheel, and greater than sliced bread. I’m the pizza cutter. Far more advanced. I steal your beginning. The stuff “may well, never have existed”. Just look at the space. One empty spot, le premiere of waste.

An now you know, the one wish never come true. “To have ever existed is not a fault as much as its true”.

-Fore life, life can be pain.

Fiction (first invention?)
Non-Fiction (how is there not a better word for this).
Which was invented/written first I wonder.

Novel With No Title:

“There’s cum on the walls”
“That, there, its cum”
“That is cum on the wall”
Her colour was rising. He’d asked her earlier if she was wearing makeup and she’d said no.
“You look red”
And then hastily, “In this light I think, perhaps”
One small breath of frustration escaping out his eyeballs.
He wondered at that as he stared at the walls with a blank faced apprehension.

“I didn’t…
I mean who’s is it, not mine”
“How’d it get here? Who the hell!”

“Ghastly darling” he said weakly with an upturned grimace cum smile.

“Might I ask how you know?” His smile turned more genuine.

She walked out, fists clenched by her side.
Shaking his head gently to her turned back he caught sight of her ponytail shuddering with rage.
“No fury, a woman scorned” He exhaled softly.

Pots and pans. Anything sharp. That dish rack was surely first to be upturned and thrown across the grim kitchen floor.
“That’ll make it better”

Batten down the hatches, a gale was about to take full flight within the quiet confines of 32 Boteuille Street. Nobody was home. Nobody in their right mind.

He slicked his finger through the patch on the wall.
“Mmh, tastes cummy” he mused.
“weird” he said to himself, eyes lit up with glee. Glassy almost.
“Weeeeeeeeeeee-yd”

The crashing hadn’t started. She must be shaking still.
Then the pom-pom-pom beating fists on the cement walls began.

“ah-hah”
“cum on the walls Watson, what do you make of it ol’ chum”
He looked to his left and jumped when he saw no-one. Quickly he turned to his right. Then a complete circle. Alone in the room.

He stuck out his tongue.
“haaaaaaayah taaaaaaa han-ha-haaaa”

He licked his cracked lips.
Sniffed back the drops of snot threatening to roll continuously down his nose. They’d have won over him and rejoice indeed if they hit the floor at his feet and he wouldn’t have it. Not today.
While rubbing his thumb, middle and index together he looked for clues.
“Furtively now, look, look, look”
Tongue now back in his mouth “and functioning perfectly” –
Well I wouldn’t say perfectly
“Well I would say it, and did”

He looked up at the roof in the room.
“No i’m not”

Well he did, for a second, he WAS looking around furtively after all. He was diligent, and thorough to say the least.
“To say the least!”

“What?”
The drumming stopped from the other room.

“damn you man”
That’s what you get if you try to be the narrator. When she returns I want you to have solved this case detective.

“Keep banging on the walls darling, its helping me think, but leave the plates alone would you. Lunch later you know”
The plates could be heard moments later hurling across the room. The drumming on the walls started again.
He felt the beat. He got to thinking…

“Poor girl will be black and blue by the end of this, can’t you give her something else?”
Another role?
“yes a roll”
No.
The drumming stopped.
“thanky..”Only to start again with greater force and renewed frenzy.

“Maybe if you let me think back?”
“yes, yes think back, let me think about the day before please. Ah Mr. Sir. Yes if we go back she’ll be ok, and i’ll solve this for us”

That moment freezes.

Like glass cracking. A chill on the nose hairs. Arm hairs rigid. Toe curling cold. Nothing moved.
“gulp”
Almost nothing moved.
She stood, one hand poised ready to rain down another fury filled, bruised fist on the unmoving wall.
He sat on the foot of her bed, eyes still furtively looking, as if to prove a point. The snot of his nose the only thing un-frozen.
A drip fell between his knees onto and between the floorboards.
“gulp”
It was disgusting.

The moment began to change, hazy at first. Then the wobble like water on a polaroid photo. Blotting out with white and grey. Was it clouds. The cold from the room?
Character’s smudging. Greying with the growing fog, steam or… something.

My wants are trumped
Your needs are the scissors to my paper.
My time alone, is your fidgeting.
Your alone time, is my suffering.

Do as you want.
Make a list of things I love.
And give them priority how you see fit.
Look at yourself;
You are beautiful,
Beautiful on the outside.

You.
YOU.
Please address your alone time.
Your thoughts.
Needs and wants.
I should be flattered. I feel its always me-
but it should not be.
I can’t go on like this. Something,
Some thing. Has to give.
And I can’t keep giving.

My runny nose,
A tell tale sign.
Sigh, sigh sigh.
I try, tried with you tonight.
Don’t I go to enough effort?
Could I do more. give give give give give?

“I’m communicating”
-Great. Now I can see you needy you are.
Now I can see what your wants are,
Your effects on me, if you had your way would have me useless,
timestarved. We’d sit there, doing nothing, talking about nothing.
Tired from our night of rubbing up against one another.

Afraid that if we part, or sleep or leave eachother’s company the world would end.

I can’t accept that.
I don’t want that.
I’ve been there.
I need space.
I need rest. I’m sick, i’m sick i’m sick.

I hear what you are saying.
I don’t know why you can’t sleep alone.
You are needy.
Clingy.
Needy needy needy.
HIGH MAINTENANCE.
You’re the fridge with the bad rating.
The energy usage is all wrong.
And you don’t even keep cool.

When I close the door,
the light comes on-
On my phone.
“I miss you”
Well you didn’t seem to be enjoying my company.
And you said all the wrong things.

You need practice in my company.
I’m afraid of hurting you-
you, don’t think I don’t care.
Its not that.
Not that at all.

But,
there is always a but.
And a butt. Three butts tonight.
The butt of the story.
The joke, is on me.
Because I can’t sleep.
Grinding my teeth.

We share,
insomnia?
Hardly. Just a tight jaw and a head full of words and
more.
More things to think though,
as I think of you.
more.
more and more,

Abc
Abs
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
And my abs stronger.
Spelling.
A.B.S
Another bad sleep.
Spaces. to fill. Time, gaps. Pages, chapters.
Of my life.
Life, finding out what makes others tick.

That’s what I say.
My goal. But i’m learning, sitting quietly.
Important thoughts will bubble to the surface.
The things you ask and share,
determined by how many walnuts and how much chocolate soy milk you have drunk that day. The quality of your fuel denoting the quality and the extremity to which you indulge and pursue – peruse conversation.

The difference, between conversation and talk.
I don’t know. What’s more important. Which spurs which.
Who decides? Can we get a dictionary out? Our phones… i mean.

When is Speigel Tent opening?
Who wants icecream?
What’s going on this month?
-Any short term goals?
In the afternoon?
“no the evening”

Aren’t they interchangeable for the most part…

I ASKED YOU WHEN YOU USUALLY FINISH WORK AND YOU DIDN’T GIVE ME AN ANSWER BUT THEN PULLED ME UP ON 6PM BEING EVENING AND NOT AFTERNOON. GOODNIGHT.

Your life,
The choices you make.
They follow a taught rope.

Sometimes I feel fear.
Anxiety. Shuddering.
Paralysis. Realisation. How I am choosing-
to live.
Pages, chapters, years.
Wants, needs. Worth(while)
REAL. I make them all up.
I give point, I give reason,
By spending my time.
My life force, my energy.

Life- your linear life.
A tightrope.
A tightly strung rope.
From A to B it is held.

When the anxiety strikes,
I feel like I see my end;
I understand that my choices NOW-
Are leading me onward towards “THERE”-
The FUTURE, THEN.
This will happen,
THEN, that,
THEN, that,
Then that…
If I make this decision,
different, a different decision.
A change here. One that… changes that.
THEN,
*and it feels like something is sawing*
Sawing at my rope.
A serrated knife,
cutting into line.
My life-line.
My rope.
The obvious choices.
The straight line of my future.
Cutting.
My world shakes.
The backlash if there is a break.
Snapping. Recoiling.
The dissolution
The drop, crack, flop.

A flop, like a joke that doesn’t hit home.
That just isn’t funny.
To kid.
To pretend.
To say you want something and not really.
To explore and evil side of yourself with sarcasm in mind.
To pretend. TO PRETEND to JOKE TO NOT MEAN IT.
FLOP.

My world shudders.
I am anxious.
My future,
I recoil.
Decisions. Tight.
Tense.
Sawing.
Shaking,
Shuddering,
splitting,
snapping.

And it all changes.
The clouds break.
The sun shower,
Everyone is soaked,
Sweat, from the run for cover combines with the thunderstorms heavy dump.

A dump.
A steaming,
Streaming
dreaming

pool of dump.
Piss and shit.

My scratchy eyes,
The fence, my urine has dissolved you.
My piss is acid.
However dilute.

And sharing this
I break the red pact.
The button – ‘mute’
dispute? Compute?
Doubtful.

But its written.
The discussion with myself
My mind. WRITE or FORGET.
Writing is my answer to a floored,
Flawed memory.

Falling from the tightrope.
Coils, resting peacefully like feathers.

Young peacock.
May your colours never fade.
Happy Valentines day.

Hight Maintenance.

“one more of those and she’s done” – Jon Foley-Donoghue.