August 2011
2 posts
She only reads dedications at the start of books. It comforts her to know that, despite what horrors, joys, loss, and sadness lie between the covers, the author loved, and was loved. And, somehow, no mystery could ever equal that of a name, or just an initial, barely explained, but knowingly, hopefully, included.
July 2011
3 posts
“You say that you love rain, but you open your umbrella when it rains. You say...”
– William Shakespeare
The doctor told us her heart was made of wax. It’s terrifying to look in the face of your beautiful child and realise you will forever have to crush their passions at the risk of melting her heart.
We knew she would grow to hate us, but even that we would have to quell. For her to live, she would have to live without any spark, a half-life. And so would we.
March 2011
2 posts
“‘Tis true my form is something odd,
But blaming me is blaming God;
Could...”
– poem used by Joseph Merrick (“The Elephant Man”) to end his letters
We drifted far out to sea, and you told me if we just held on, we’d never die.
February 2011
3 posts
“Sometimes it gets you, how quickly the present fades into the past.”
– Clockwatchers
I was waiting for the day when I’d stop having premonitions and start having memories.
January 2011
8 posts
“Since we broke up I’m using lipstick again.
I suck my tongue in...”
– Björk, Possibly Maybe
We were in a pool looking over the ocean. The water was blue and just cool enough to shock me; the rocks brown, speckled with white and grey.
“Did I ever tell you how I died?”
I just laughed, and he never brought it up again.
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If the night were any more young it would be illegal, but it presented a kind of gratification that the dark beasts could never really offer or understand. He slipped beneath every radar and rode in on his chariot, declaring the season open: may the hunt begin! The faces shone in the half-light, confused as to who he was, but vaguely recognising that their forebears once bowed to someone very much...
“2010 was like a one-night stand. It was fun, we had good times, but I’m...”
December 2010
2 posts
His voice smelled of the sea; not a calm, romantic splash of salty air, but the harsh reality of rotten fish and seaweed, and twenty-hour days caught in rope and leaky boats.
Somehow, it wasn’t totally repulsive, more of a shock: when someone opens their mouth to speak, you do not expect to be transported back to the seaside hideaways of your childhood.
November 2010
5 posts
“A good library will never be too neat or too dusty because somebody will always...”
– Lemony Snicket
“Beatrice? Beatrice! Where are you woman…” “Yes, George?” “Thank God, Beatrice. I’ve been searching high and low for you.” “With my being of exactly average height, I’m not sure what you intended to achieve by that.” “Beatrice…” “Oh dear, George, you know I can’t resist. But I apologise. What is it that...
“Beauty isn’t worth thinking about; what’s important is your mind....”
– Garrison Keillor
I ate your tiredness and I combed your hair. You said you’d be back the next day, but you never really cared for my kind of sport.
October 2010
12 posts
“Kind of sad, really: all this broken string…”
And then I got sick of looking through photos of all of these people, all your friends with you, and wishing I were there too. All these people who could have been my lovers, but chose not to, or I chose not to.
I kissed you in a dream.
Some things were never really meant to work out.
“On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I...”
– Sufjan Stevens, Casmir Pulaski Day
The photos, he decided, were impossibly beautiful. People, places, times like this didn’t exist, couldn’t exist, and aspiring to it was as admirable as it was foolish.
Where was the dirt, the death? But perhaps the beauty contained its own kind of morbidity: the lovers never to kiss, the perfect to remain unchanged while their home might rot, might burn.
The photos, he decided, must...
“With the loneliness of you mighty men, with your jaws, and fists, and guitars,...”
– Joanna Newsom, Go Long
He had never been less sure in his life, but when the driver asked for his ticket, he handed it over without hesitation.
As it pulled out of the station, the rumbling of the engine seemed to drill all the way through his mind, and he remembered.
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His house was built over the water: his ballroom floor was glass. At every party, a beautiful woman would walk to the centre of the room and fall through the glass. For a moment, she would float on the surface, shapes floating up from the darkness beneath her, until they shapes were realised and the creatures began to feed on her.
The entire time, her face was a picture of bliss, a serene smile...
September 2010
11 posts
“Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.”
– Haruki Murakami
His name wasn’t memorable, which is probably why I didn’t remember it. It was his face I remembered, and his body, and his smile. It was his voice, the way he said “like”, the feeling of his hand in mine. He moved away probably ten years ago, and I never really said goodbye.
Even though we hadn’t been attached, it had felt like an affair. I’m not sure why.
“Everyone looks the same in photographs.”
Part of her wants her daughter to escape this hell. But the rest wants her to stay, so she can’t say she came from humble beginnings, that she escaped from poverty, that somehow her mother inspired her to be better than anything she herself could have been, and ever was.
And she realises which part will win.
3 tags
“What else is there?”
rachael.
The threads of her past were torn and her face was bruised. She held her hand to the light, wanting to hold it close, and she fell back into the darkness, fear mingled with the peace of return. Down she fell, a rabbithole without any Wonderland. And, as she reached what she thought was the end, she felt arms around her, and legs beneath her, running her away.
And Rachael was loved.
“Though there are ripples on the surface, what underneath has actually changed?”
August 2010
25 posts
He pushed the wind from his eyes and cleared the sea from his breath.
