May & June, 2025

the crescent moon at my window is beginning to unnerve me

june 30th, 2025

if i could choose to be anyone i would not know who to pick. i have all of these questions first: do i get to keep my memories? am i still myself but inhabiting their body? and i think probably i’d choose a man if god said that it would be all right. today i was thinking about how it used to be so much fun to wake up. as a kid in the evenings before you were allowed things, like staying up late or using a phone in the middle of the night, you would try so hard to fall asleep so that you could get up in your flannel pyjamas and eat cereal at the breakfast table, rocking your chair back and forth as you held your one sweetest meal of the day, and then plunk yourself down in front of the television to watch cartoons until it was so suddenly time to shower, to dress yourself, to get a move on—go, to be dropped off at school, to smile and laugh and play pretend with your friends who were going to be there forever and be upset a few times but be rewarded with total okay-ness, sometimes even better-ness, afterwards

for someone who is so incomprehensibly future-focused i spend a lot of time saying things like i used to be… and then proceed to list off a bunch of random adjectives like kind, good, clever, interesting, polite. but really i think i just used to not care whatever it was that i was, because i used to be not all those great things. it’s nice to remember that i am more than i am; i am what i could be, will be, try to be, fail to be, am seen to be, and above all, i am quite done with being. i will figure out the rest. i would probably pick myself, by the way. i just didn’t want to say it because i didn’t want you to think that is what i think. it’s a lot more unreasonable than that. anyway, i’d pick myself and i’d learn to live with it

flamingo

june 29th, 2025

i am not hideous. i am not heinous. i am not without reason. i have things to tell you and i have a body to breathe with, not lay limp on the ground against. you understand that. thank you for understanding that. i want to give you letters and take you to all the festival centers and read to you out loud, murmuring on a monday morning that i want to be a mother. i think it would be unfair to be alone. i mean that nothing’s ever that romantic anymore. only if you make it, and then you’ve ruined what is raw meat and meant to be left alone. don’t taint it with your touch. don’t get sick. it’s been such a long time since i’ve heard that word. heinous. makes me think of the twisted faces we used to make in the mirror to scare each other in the school bathroom, lights flickering on and off, because it was fun to be afraid, but nothing wears your clothes like you and so i knew it was you underneath. cloaked in a uniform too big for us. not like you ever cared. i still just roll over and go to bed. i don’t ever think of you. i am learning new things. why can’t you understand that? when i am bent, i am broke-back mountain on the driveway, a growing moving hill encroaching upon your belly, begging you to come home with me, i am just learning what devotion means

i sent you photos today and you opened them just now, mouth-watering. i like to imagine you waiting by the phone because it’s shit like that i used to do. you’re kind and i have no idea what yesterday was. yesterday which was the day before, which feels like today, really. i was sad for you and i needed someone who didn’t come. we’ve all had days like that. doing embarrassing things to make up for a car accident. my hands were shaky all day on the steering wheel. i am funded for fun. but that’s what no one seems to get. it’s no fun for me. it’s serious. i’m a very serious girl. i am a flamingo

morning explained

june 28th, 2025

pausing. looking at the colour. flowers like powder. dressing. driving home. splashing alive. water in the morning. ice seeps. sun scatters, cat’s claws down your back. ladies, ladies, ladies. another instagram notification. turn phone over. the bath-tub calls. shower instead. down your back instead. little bugs. buttery lips kiss. kissing the mirror. grimy. cleaner’s will get it. with chemicals. spit it out. fat chance to cut off the rolls. put on your shirt instead. holds chest. milk one day. right here, from right there. children? brush the tongue. gag. pearly whites. rights. skirt slut. slut for skirts. makeup. flowers like powder dead on the window ceil. sun folds into the tiles, shiny. draw it. not enough time for that. colouring book out on the bed. away with it. dancing around the bedroom, dusty carpet. slap the daylights out of her melons. mint pattie and you want to ask what the fuck that could be. eat it instead. shed of old puzzles and prizes. nothing to win so climb back into bed. warm. toasty. drink the chai tea. nothing happened to me, proof; i’m here

something to explain my aloneness

june 27th, 2025

i am very iron deficient. it’s not my fault then that i’m all black and blue all the time, purple hands and yellow dots and everything. i cannot wait to tell everyone so that they know i’m not actually a bad person; i’ve just been missing a vital mineral in my body and the oxygen hasn’t been moving through me properly. that’s why i’ve been getting such horrible light headaches, feeling angry and fatigued. feeling dull nothing dull repeat nothing. this morning’s poetry workshop was nice; i felt clever. and tired too. that’s always nice, especially these days. to feel clever. but it ended quickly and the final poem was so brilliant that i had a lack of words. i had wanted to say more but i sat there, stunned. one final art assignment left, and then i’m done. there is a small boy outside eating alone from a thermos. i do not know him but he could be no older than twelve, i think. his food looks warm, fresh from home, and he shivers, cups a shiny metal water-bottle in the other hand and sips, sips. watches handball. his hair is parted in the middle, slightly to one side. his mouth moves as he chews. i can see him reflected in the black screen of my laptop through the window at the back of the art classroom. an art teacher i’ve never had walks around in-and-out in bright patterned stockings, a curled blonde up-do, and heels that click on the ground as she puts things away from the assignments she has finished helping her students with, slamming cupboards but gently. they are lucky for her. i want the boy to have a friend, but he just watches and no one comes to him. i pray he is a bad person but i know he is not. he does nothing. he just sits. it is sort of like what i am doing

but i am writing so it’s not nothing. i am not eating because i am not hungry. i am alone in the art studio now, watching him in the black of my laptop screen. i wonder does he see my back to him. does he hope that i am a bad person too? something to explain my aloneness. i know he does not. he stands up, slaps his spoon against the side of the thermos, and walks off to join a game of handball nearby. i know that nobody is hoping i am a bad person. it’s only me

chemtrails—good luck to you

june 26th, 2025

i do not believe in conspiracies. now but here is the thing, i have a headache all the time. when i step outside into the light of day and i stomp down on one foot, jazz playing like traffic in my two ears, the real traffic scatting around me making such a ruckus, feel that foot reach into the ground that has buried a hundred bodies like tendrils snaking out of me for no good reason, and then clumsily slump over onto the other foot, feel how it carries me, and i know then of a deep, incessant nagging at the front of my skull. it rebounds like the light as it hits my eyes. i do not believe in conspiracies. but it is telling me something

but here is the thing. i do not know what. i have tried. god knows how good i’ve tried to listen. but is it here in this moment with me? no. not in this classroom, with the bad lighting, the emptiness, the birds still going at it outside; the idea that the hill i stare at hides so many others behind it, just like it, and that it would arguably be more beautiful than it’s one slither of shape which conceals my city from the natural world. i am lucky for the beaches. i am like tendrils, i am like you, i am ripping you out from the undercurrent before i can remember what it was like to pass out, a little high, a little higher, a little sleepy, finally tired, into sleep. real sleep. and then have to wake up to my god awful awakeness

i am not a nihilist. probably because i don’t know things. if i was a nihilist i would say to you, “i know all there is to know and that is nothing because nothing is all there is to know, so really i know nothing, and that is so depressing, blah blah blah,” but i say that my nothing is dependent on the fact of anything’s existence. otherwise there would be reality, and that could not be this. this reality is not mine or yours. it belongs to another thing that tells me i can have it all. this is the dream-world in muck. in mucky fucked-up bliss. desire. light hitting the walls at the right angle, angular evil, encroaching lust and it’s asking for love, drying up here on the shore and you haven’t found a single nice shell, running the pad of your fingertip against another’s scarred arm, seeing behind eyelids always, distrust which breathes in the body, expands in your lungs; crackles like heat, biotic pain. one day i will be reduced to a mechanism and even then i’ll still have this headache

shrinkage

june 25th, 2025

what to do or say to make it right in my head? scribble. all day it’s only ever your voice my words are said in. a rebound on infinite loop, a scale no other can compete with; triangular, sharp religious bites into soft tummy flesh. funny that. so much to say and it sounds like nothing nothing nothing to everyone else, worthless it is. frustrating. a paradox, a prayer. eating you up for lunch and dinner. breakfast is fine most of the time, unless it’s today. today when i eat toast on the floor, the crack the cockroach once crawled out of right by my ear. it’ll be okay. i want to sleep forever. eyes to focus. stay focused and in bed like you. get over myself, get up at night with no one else awake, phone on silent, silent like our frequency; radio silence. it goes bad-um, bad-um, bad-um most week-days, and all the other days it flatlines. we have nothing to live for if not each other. but you’re not here for me today. trying to think of something to tell you. i’d just freak you out. i haven’t been there in a long time but here i am now. this has happened once already, it still startles me to think of it, but it happens every week honestly. we are so good at suffering. i’m not suffering. i remember it all. better than you, anyway. not resentful. not spiteful. satisfied with the goose-chase. the hunt we play the game we rub off to; erase it. the noises we make. ugly crying though some of the time, but we have forever anyways to hate each other, to stay mad. so stay mad. i’d rather die than give up. give in. give up for you my self and the other one, the you in my name. it’s all fine baby. it’ll be fine. i’ll get to the end and look back and you’ll have forged your own path and none of this will have mattered; it’ll be so so good. we won’t remember it. my elbows are creased, my back is arched and itchy, i slept so easily last night and yet not at all, they yelled at me about everyone’s ugly, they were right, my neck stings stings stings, want to wipe my nose on your sleeve, corner sits and slits, how would you look at me then, when i am deprived of you, zip up my pencil case all the way, touch my chin to the tip, curl my lips in, never see you again, never see you again

rubbish rubbish rubbish

june 24th, 2025

this morning i woke up and decided to spend thirty minutes reading in bed. it is a book of roald dahl’s short stories: kiss kiss. so in the spirit of my morning and with a complete undeniable inability to do anything productive in my break today, i have picked out around six short stories i want to read before school ends this term. still would like to watch je tu il elle and autumn sonata but that will have to wait. i only have three subjects to worry about before school ends: ess, visual art, and history. my mock ia is due for ess in a few weeks and i haven’t gotten started on it yet, and my visual art installation video and my history test are both due/set for friday. but after that, i have three weeks of hopefully uninterrupted decompressing time, to fill with writing and regulating

i can’t find things to do to make my mind feel steady, easy. i meditated this morning in class when i felt rubbish but i felt rubbish even then. i’ve been feeling pretty rubbish every moment when i am not alone, really. i want to be alone so badly it stings. the thought of it is what keeps me going; maybe having tonight alone, in bed, head on pillow, breathing, alive, there. wistful imprinted nothing laying a kiss on my forehead and down beside me; we both pat each other. i don’t want to be mean but i have to get away from you all somehow. i don’t want people to be angry with me but i don’t understand why i have to sit through the uselessness; i don’t feel on, i feel on and on and on and on

leave it alone

june 23rd, 2025

wow i should never say anything ever at the dinner table ever again. i should never sit in that fiery fucking nothing ever again. lights on, eat, eat, eat, down the drink, fucking think of something to say but nothing, face in palm sweat, breath out, breath out, forget to breathe in and all out of air, don’t google me. does everybody feel like this? hawks around me. only safe when i am one-on-one. i can’t deal with them in a flock like that. it makes me feel crazy. i should never have to cringe and force the food down and rub my cheeks in pain and want to go to massage my temples and i should never stand up and never be afraid and turn on my heels, look back, no keep walking, away away away, get my things, look back, no, quickly walk to the bedroom and get away. i hate feeling this way. i cannot keep doing this. i have to get out. i have to get it out. i feel afraid. i don’t feel at home. when have i ever felt at home? only in my body but not right now, not even right now. sitting on the floor, stroking my calves with my fingernails, fire dying, trying not to cry, let it out inside the body, don’t numb the feeling but think about it, being alone and loving it. that was it. everybody loves each other but i cannot find the strength. everybody can do the thing but i find it insufferable. smile and nod and wave and don’t cry, don’t cry, just walk away. protect yourself, use the forearms like a shield, all eyes on you, whimpering cat in the corner, it’s inappropriate to say a thing like that in front of a child in a classroom, it was meant to be something else. do you care that i am here? i, i, i as a whole thing, not the soul, not the body, but a something that is forcing itself upon you. thrusting, and you always give nothing. i’m going away now

i ought to stay this awful

june 22nd, 2025

you’ve never seen this girl in bed on a sunday

i am not doing the thing you want me to be doing. that i want to imagine myself doing. i am not doing homework at my desk, measuring the intake of my breaths. i am not feeling well in any capacity. i feel stiff. i am lying beneath my sheets with a blanket over my chin, resting on my lower-lip, imagining. there is darkness and light outside the room. i can not think of anything worse than being part of that noise. there’s nothing wrong with you. i’d fucking say that over and over again. i’m not angry and i don’t want more power. i don’t want you to see me. i am happy this way. i am not worried. earth spins, rotates, shifts me and i don’t know, it’s impossible to experience the end. i am an ugly thing. i want nothing. i want to get up. i want to feel my lips are hydrated and my cheeks are red. i want no trace of a headache, no pounding between my legs. i want to scratch and scratch and never give in. i have a fuck ton of freedom and nothing to win from your little speeches. your little ratting me out. give-or-take a month i am the same. i always end up here. i want this. i used to, anyway, think this was all it could be

post-party politics

june 21st, 2025

baby girl you’re the type of girl who people look at. not that i am noticing their looking at you. not that i am abnormally aware of your existence. not anything. but babe you’re the type of girl who people would love if you didn’t love them back. do i deserve you? why did you choose me? i am lucky. i am lucky. i am lucky. i am the forth leaf on your clover and i wont leave like the rest of them. i can pass your tests; i can prove my point tonight. away from you to witness. you’re so quiet sometimes. i’m absurd to guess at knowing how you feel. i am uncomfortably sensitive around you; it’s a nice closeness that i’ve felt before but this is half a step into letting go. of what? i don’t know. i justify it anyway. i know that you love me i guess i don’t care about the rest, we do it all even when it’s pointless

walking home now, feeling helpless. five new clothing items to add to the closet. a nice expensive short leather coat, flimsy and flouncy, a striped t-shirt that comes in at the waist, new striped pyjama pants, a green singlet that’s low at the back, tiny strips, long tangles at the bottom, and a scarf. feel sick from drinking milk. feel dull. feel missing. post-party politics, the usual

today’s plan

june 20th, 2025

writing class was nice this morning. i slept okay last night. time flew by with the couple glasses of wine in the evening, weed before bed, and two melatonin tablets. i was a wreck last night. picked rory up on my lap and cried into her fur at the dinner table, fingered my food in front of my family. when i woke up, i felt new and okay. a package ready to be opened at five in the morning. it didn’t even take sunlight to do it. though it would be nice to have light again at six in the morning. i’m lucky to be out of the limelight with this group. everyone is creative and they are good at it. different. it is inspiring and orderly and exciting. i am already a fifth of the way through. eight sessions to go and i’m in mourning. it’s nice to go to bed early and wake up early too. although by ten, to think i’ve already been awake for five hours, that sort of sucks. makes sense to me though, explains the tiredness

tonight is [redacted]’s party. i still have to find my outfit. i have had no time. i still have to write my risk assessment for ess tonight. i received a seven on the last test and sent my teacher an email this morning to ask if he made some sort of mistake. from what i remember, the work i did constitutes barely a six. oh well, i am shocked. the week is nearly survived. four classes to go: art, history, english, maths. [redacted] comes to mine, we get ready together, pre-drinks and tarot cards and i will not think about school. i won’t cry about it, either. like i have been doing all week. i’ll man-up and be a good friend, kiss my mum’s cheek before i get out of the car. i’ll drink and i’ll be a pleasant person; not jealous, not resentful, not unkind. simple and good at it

moment of introspection

june 19th, 2025

maybe it is fair to say that i have strange sorts of relationships with women older than me. but what of it? nothing. through some dramatic changes exemplary fault, i did not let it affect me when i felt it first. i worked through it. let my blood boil. and i’ve simmered now. i am golden and good and have spared my life from ceaseless infection. but i acknowledge the presence of some dehumanisation. i look for you in every glimpse of a moment. your hands. your curtains. your imaginary hatred for me. your whole kindness belonging to me. my love is impure in ways i blame myself for; in others i can only imagine the kind of mother they could be to me. do i need to ask you to ask me if i am okay? do i need to ask you if you notice something different about my hair? are you my mirror and my face and my fractured half? these are traits i look for in a lover now. i have no questions. no unfair preconceptions about your existence previous to me. i just want to know how it feels to love me. isolated, intrinsic, sensual, admirable, anticipated, radical. that’s all. because it’s been shown to me, i know it exists. can’t it exist in you too?

nature plays mother

june 18th, 2025

two years. a month. can never come to some kind of understanding with nature. she mothers me and i pretend to be a good daughter. i can switch it off at any second but she keeps going. i feel bad stepping outside sometimes. i know she is waiting for me, to see what kind of state i am in. not that it matters, anyway. she will be there regardless, accepting me neutrally. but that’s difficult. anybody who says that it’s not is a liar, they are pretending. they are pretending like me. it’s hard to be in a relationship like that with someone who has you unconditionally, and you want to live in them sure not be without them sure but at the end of the day has the clearing in the forest been made for you or was it just there? it can be tiring waiting around for something that won’t come. a good old whisper of admiration in the ear drum, pounding pounding, and you’d like the door to bust down. there’s no madness in this relationship. you’ve gotta be angry with yourself. and they will not be. they will say anyway, “it’s okay. it’s okay,” and they forgive you because they were never mad at you in the first place. you just worked yourself into that hole. and now you feel like an idiot

it’s a funny thing love because it just takes you right out of yourself and offers no explanation. the problem changes all the time. moment to moment. room to room. you are constantly spilling with this selfish explanation for why it must be that way but if you’re being honest, there’s none. it’s just always going to be funny. you’re always going to drive yourself up walls with the guessing game. i think i am just resentful for all this time alone; there you go

always the sorely fucker

june 17th, 2025

your house is the nice place i put my head down to rest on your shoulder, you set the pace you cry my own eyes out i’ve never seen so much carpet in my life and god knows who you are here in this house, this used to be the place. i wonder when is the last time i’ll see you i’d rather die here in bed with you, not looking at each other. i feel you next to me and i know that i can help. i’ll move so that you can read. let’s be together. i only want to be good to you, kind and what you need. i can help you and i will this time. it will not fall short; the love that i feel which is so infinitely vast, so wide it’s a cavity, a pit i choose to stumble into and look up at you in, or a nice flower-bed i pass but take my shoes off in for a brief moment. classic corny rubbish that we make unseen. i’d rather be buried in my pit but don’t do that. don’t do that yet. are you here yet to save me? but not this time; this time it’s the other way around. i swear i’ll learn to drive, so that one night when you need me the most i can pick you up and take you home. i’ll look after you and it’ll be sacred. you’ll swear it was never even a thing you took for granted but i’ll probably have known by then. probably in our apartment with the twin-sized bed, separate rooms, purple glittery walls on my end because i’ll have accepted what i am, you’ll be all you, all the you-ness of language, lying to yourself, being good without trying, stumbling and moving on, finding resilience on a restless sunday, knuckling down and doing it anyway, falling in love, finding you’ve woken up a mother. i am glad for the things that will happen to you that won’t ever happen to me, particularly the last couple things

how school’s treating me

june 16th, 2025

disappointing new mall opens and everything’s the same. come home to cram and do homework. fucking grind and grind. five hours down the drain at the dining table and i’m awake early tomorrow to be kind to myself the morning after. getting ready to get nothing in return and for what? i will never be able to kiss my own lips and that is the only bit of solace a person gets. i can please myself in other ways. we know that, obviously

so what if my ribs clam and my ears ring and my shoulders are tight even though i say no, down, bad, boy and it’s good at midnight when i’m still not asleep, i’m fucking lackluster—awake early i’ll be grinding away again. surely. trying to get this done. not sorry for myself. not at all. record my english oral, get through it in one night, rampantly churn out a page in my art folio to show the half-assed progress i chewed up and spat in your face. it’s there for me, isn’t it? the structure, the pace, the game to chase and never really finish. no food. never hungry. i’ll never be hungry again but i’m not losing weight i’m not chasing dreams of being starved i’m not even loving being awake. i’m just here and i have to do it. not every moment can be bliss. you get it out with a bit of loving trying disaster and hope for the best. break’s over now so i return to the books, cry and cry and cry, crying over the books. disaster

serotonin girlfriend

june 15th, 2025

yesterday was a nice whirlwind. i cut my hair. first, the bangs. they are quite short now and rest show below my eyelids. they’re annoyingly straight. i also put my hair into a ponytail at the front of my head, evened up the length, and then took the front section again and evened the length there. i think the bangs are over-kill. i am waiting for the pieces by my ears to grow back, and then i will try again. but next wash day, i will cut more off the ends to add layers. it’s good that i did this. i woke up this morning feeling happy. aroused, sort of, by my work. that childish giddiness. it’s good to be proud. in the car ride home after the recorded live play production of fleabag, mum says pride is linked to serotonin. i felt that when my girlfriend performed the other night. that was such a nice night. i was at the front of the room, videoing her. she sang to me. how does she know who i am? why does she give a damn about me? and i left for a moment later in the night to catch my breath. in the bathroom after her performance we made out. i had to. i had never felt so panicked before. so in love. special. i was not another audience member. you choose me, i wanted to say to her. but it’s nothing we don’t know. it’s good to not say some things. she pushed me up against the cubicle door and it is like it always is with her. good. probing. waiting. delivering. again. again

[redacted] is a deep, slow kisser. she laughs when we kiss, swallows the air between us, doesn’t ever gulp it, our chapped lips smoothing against the other. our kisses end when we share a breath and we want to laugh again. she reaches under my shirt and her hand is nice and cold on my back; it wrestles with the space there. i grip beneath the end of her short, purple dress. when a person walked into the bathroom stall next to us [redacted] feigned a phone-call, trying to make the person leave faster. i didn’t care and wanted to kiss her. i didn’t care about the person next door and i wanted to keep kissing. that seemed like the most important thing. when we are with each other, i spend so much time looking at her. i look at her face. her beauty. how it runs through her and out of her and how other people see it. it radiates in perfect motion, echoes in silence. there’s nothing i’d change

are you a victim or the perpetrator?

june 14th, 2025

it used to very simple to say that i had had a bad day, crawl into bed, and get over myself later on at a time i didn’t feel so horrendous. but i think i’m better than that now. i’ve learnt something different in that period of time. how to look after myself? take care of myself on bad days? but it feels worse in other ways. i cannot understand if by looking after myself, i really am doing just that. if i am saving myself from wasting away in bed, watching videos or feeling sorry for myself or crying and making it about something that it’s not, by taking myself to the bathroom, stripping, getting in the shower, scrubbing furiously at my body until it’s all clean, wiping off my makeup and prettying up barely, making tea and returning to an area of the house where i won’t break down in tears; and if that is actually what is saving me. or if the latter is actually in some detrimental fucked-up way good for me. i don’t want to think i’m the sort of person who has to survive my own life by hiding from it. in bed. but i suppose that’s the most listening i do. i cannot listen when i’m showering. rubbing furiously. getting all of myself off. creating something new. i have no other choice when i am mean and candid and alone. maybe that is the truest version of looking after myself

inlets and outlets

june 13th, 2025

life comes and always it is anxiety-driven and an exciting scream at your bright little face in my palms. sunshine alight in the pages of a book i’ve not opened in years. but i remember well. more to watch out for and yet not a damn thing to spare, not even to change for. i am going through metamorphosis already. it is slow and pain-staking but it is happening. it is happening

i am full of feeling and for once i rely on my outlets to tell me what i am. clever, unable-to-be-helped, beautiful, reliant, anxious, sprightly, intense, tender. but my inlets? they are fulfilling in a sacred and deliberate way. i am nothing to them, because i am not full-grown yet. they are both shocking and enticing and soft and cruel to me and that’s all i am in front of them, what they give, so though they are not the loudest voice, i can hear the rejection like a hundred knives. i am a traitor in the eyes of all my best lovers. it stings and stings

i wouldn’t know what to say to you one day

june 12th, 2025

i suppose it does not matter. when the cradle rocks, i will turn and face the other way. some things we should not face head on, or even face at all. it is not because it poses a threat to us or because we are afraid, it is because it is just simply better that way. i am not worried and it will pass but maybe i should worry. would that not be perfectly acceptable for me to do? i am losing things and sometimes i feel as if my life is only a constant effort to hold onto these things which remind me of what’s been lost, even though i will inevitably have to let go of them in the end, or worse, they will let go of me

so i am in my swamp of small emptiness and halfhearted regret because i can’t go the full mile, i’ve never really reached that point because if i had, i wonder if it is shooting my own ear off or putting my head inside an oven. i will do anything if it means i do not have to listen to such cruel and unnecessary noise

are you gonna kiss me now?

june 11th, 2025

my girlfriend who is very charming today asks, “are you gonna kiss me now? i’ve been waiting.” i lean in and kiss her against the back of the locker and it’s soft and gentle and over quickly but it’s good. it’s hard to leave her but easy to go. i think about her when i am beside her and when i am away from her, and i want the weight of her leaning against my shoulder at all times. i want her humming the worst song in my ears at all times. i want her to lick her lips and look at me at all times. i want her beside in me in bed saying nothing at all times. i want her to know that i want her whenever. nothing can stop me. it is a rush like nothing else to have her say such sweet things to me, to open up to me like a lotus, to be gentle and sly and witty and angry and loving all the time. that is the easiest thing. when we are together. but what about distance? what about making plans when it is impossible? what if we do not always have this? i am not someone who cares about that. my mother sang que sera, sera too often to me as a baby for me to care about that. but i am undeniably stiff still, i wonder i wonder i wound and wonder still if i will know like you all of the right things to say

sorrow, no

june 10th, 2025

overcoming the undercurrent of stillness. not trying anything new but i’m letting myself out of the cage. can’t be older than that. i wonder if will ever have a realization that comes at the right time. like that i don’t have to hang out with people i don’t want t hang out with. or that life is too short to pretend to be interested in interesting things

what if i am interested in pine-wood? in cutting down the skating rink where i put my forearm down on the glassy ice and squealed when someone came near it. i was an idiot then and i am still one now. have you seen me with a pen? let me lay myself steadily down on this rink of death-defying truth, brink of language cusp of silence, and let me blink until i have you look at it, and then to me— not to me—and then to me. let me squeal when you come too close

showered and wanted

june 9th, 2025

i am fresh. someone wants me out for my goodness, and they can have me. let them feed on me like seagulls. i’ve forgotten how to do things but at least someone has faith in me. i can be a good writer, and that’s all they’ll look at anyway. how good i am at behaving for the voters. they’ll watch me all right, in, in, in. a famous basket-baller who never once shared the backseat with a brother. shooting up at the sky hoping a bird will fall just as much as you hope it doesn’t, so that the hunt goes on. on until it’s late, the talk-show host with the bad breath, you can tell, spinning out of jokes and that timid horrified look in their eyes. it’s all wrong. but i’ve never gotten it right either for myself, not until now

not until someone says they’ll take me for a partner. i feel just like a golden goose. sometimes i have donut smeared over the front of my teeth and i have crumbs in the corners of my mouth and there is no song anybody could sing which would make me feel even, milked, your majesty. i’d have taken you up on that gladly, though. if you’d just have asked as [redacted] did. i am not a villain; they proved it so. i will prove it so you know

am i getting sick?

june 8th, 2025

it is beautiful and i cannot understand it. just like anyone i am constantly grasping at straws, trying to find a way of rationalizing reality. but can i tell you what it is? it is not here. my reality has only felt rational and true to me when i am far away from life, closer to myself than to anyone. i cannot enjoy movies this way when i feel incomplete by my own motion picture. love brings me to life but it makes me so old so fast. i want to consume shit and not leave the house. i lose interest in everything else; breathing, learning how to exist, returning to nature, moving my body. i freight about things. love is circular. it rides you and dismounts. you try to get back onto the horse but you find it is a mechanical bull. i don’t want that any more than i need to believe this is how it is for everyone else

i have to need to believe it but when was the turning point? i used to be friendly towards myself, or i tried. i still try but the effort is more palpable; it discredits any reward. i used to not be such a slippery sucker when it came to finding my place. crooks and crevices and hiding places everywhere. i’d look around and see where i was and assume it as true. sometimes i freaked out but i accepted my fate. but now i have nothing to go off. i do not believe the sight of it, not because of relief but because there are too many things to keep track of. it happens around me, with or without. it is not to say i am not important, but i wonder what the good is. i cannot find time to do the work. time inside the time i spend imagining doing the work, which is in some sick way a process more important than actually doing the work. and maybe it is just winter and i need a break. but the break hasn’t made me any more relaxed. it’s might me uptight and twitchy. it is 1pm and i have done nothing but think. i am going to become a crazy person. i am nauseous with instant and constant dread from morning to night. there have been times that i have been better at distracting myself. with the remaining hours in the day, i will sit outside in the cold and breathe and i will write something i don’t hate. i will put my phone away and apologize to myself. enough is enough

the blind lead the blind

june 7th, 2025

spineless execution. ruthless dauntless and would rather going blind that not being able to hear your voice. all of the above. all the more to imagine you with. obsessive. just the above. this is the test i take to save my body from my soul. i remember i am on the green couch with twisted limbs, killed the same moth twice last night, slept for longer than i have in weeks, still feel tired, brain soaked in oil and it is slippery, slipping out of my front pocket onto the roof of my slipper; i’d get wet and still blame the womb, that place i came from. home-town. wearing my new favourite pair of underwear, lacy pink, high in the back it pokes out from my jeans. no one here who i want to see it. maybe at the op-shop later but i just want someone to nod and respect me. i’d like [redacted] to reply to my message but then again she always wants me to reply to hers and i never do. i’m bad at that. there will never be a day i’m good at responding to people, though. always i’m tired and self-sabotaging and listening at night to my own sob stories and i wonder why on earth do i have bad dreams. last night i had vodka, three glasses of red wine, and port. i did not stop drinking for three nervous hours. when i went to bed, i wasn’t sad. i liked to shut my eyes and feel the world move back and forth in front of or behind of my eyelids. my infinitely still present is an always moving moment. i imagine and pray one day i will look up to find it is actually completely still, and this is a fictitious nightmare we all have. that there is something greater than reacting to nothing

path of satisfaction

june 6th, 2025

dad tells me it’s over and things are going well. i do not have much to say. it’s done quickly and it feels like a sting through the stomach, ribs, and a pulsing in my uterus. my upper-arms are lightweight and my hair is oily at the scalp, life is trying to trick me with all of it’s jumping up-and-down and not seeing straight through the eye of the tiger, the mind’s eye which is also the elbow’s eye and yours and mine entangled bodies. there’s nothing intellectual about that

at the dinner table in the loud it occurs to me i’m not as close as i remembered being to closeness with my higher self. it’s okay. i have many other mentors i think. i have many other starting times and the clock can go anticlockwise too. it has no rules. time’s bent here. surface of nothing, racing wind all through the house; we have stuff to do. but not here and apparently not eventually either. apparently we give up and do not try again. when it feels good, we stop. i am worried to stop. i am worried i will wake and find i’ve stopped. i am worried one day i will be staring at my child and they will ask me when i am going to continue and i’ll say, “never again. i’ve stopped. i got what i needed and i’m done now”. i am worried i won’t be one of those people who keeps going because they always have more to do. it is the worst fate to have nothing to do with yourself. that’s what i’m trying to do here. go and go and make the worst of it and the best of it mesh together to create some kind of structural pathway which will lead me to satisfaction, not happiness or love or conceptual truth, just something physical and constant to which i will say, “i’ve been waiting for you”, and then the pathway will light up and i’ll keep going

the good luck lucky honeybee

june 5th, 2025

i am not fatalistic because i have had something to drink. i am reasonable, reversible, changing. my wings are growing in and i am not flightless. it’s going to rain this week. i have spent the day scribbling down my answers about turbidity and salinity and agricultural runoff. i have never wanted to talk less. i am exhausted. my jaw is broken. i don’t want my tooth to rot. but here i am regardless. i have written a great deal of things and i do not know if they are good. i am drinking red wine and i am sitting by the fire. i am not reading, i am unwinding i am relaxing i am taking the time to think and not be angry with you. i wish i could be angry with you. for not showing up, for pushing back, for causing harm, for the distress, for making me feel ill, for having no sense of urgency, for letting my pick my fingernails, for writing this to you. but i have felt worse. i have felt worse. that does not mean much but it could if i let it. i could let it fester in the shower, never come out, make you pay, yell at you and then i’d go bankrupt, go right back to zero; a matter of money and the is the pay-out, the fucked-up way i say don’t leave me this time and then if you’d only go to jail, i’d only get you out. i’d only bail you out. it’s nothing. this is a feeling which will pass. i will pass out one day. one day i will not make you call me when i feel bad. one day i will not call you when i feel bad and make you pick up the phone. one day you will pick up the phone. one day i will not feel bad. i am mortifyingly good at this game; i have nothing to say to you. i have never had less to say but i know that when you are here i will get angry with you. finally i will get it off my chest. that is if the worst doesn’t happen. if the worst happens i will feel empty and worthless; i will stare at you with a hard gaze and i will put you out of your misery i will not make it long, slow painful, i will not let the bee die on the bridge. the good-luck-bee. the lucky honey-bee which is not me. could not be me. i am already in love and i cannot be mad at you

reasonable, right?

june 4th, 2025

valid crash-out, right? i woke up early to go to yoga. i did my test. it was horrible. english was fine. it was fine. i couldn’t handle it, though. i couldn’t handle the way everyone was talking to me. i couldn’t say anything right enough. so i gave out. valid. totally normal. walked down the stairs away from heaven into the dungeon where they put all the others and i cried and cried and cried like i have been doing a lot lately. but it’s been a good day, even with that considered. i liked seeing the kids’ faces in the pod, watching the film. i had done something good. i was grateful [redacted] had given me my dirty chai. i was grateful for you and i wanted to prove myself. i didn’t do a good job, but i tried. but i have proved myself in other ways. i will have proved even more tonight when the night is over, we’ve spoken again, i’m journaling post-french, love isn’t so tumultuous, you’ve forgiven me and forgotten the situation and i’ve done neither. you’d think i like this shit. i am telling you now that i do not know how to stop doing this to myself. somehow i wake up and everything’s just as awful; i have more to show off, i have more to want, i have less to be satisfied with, i am unhappy and gross, and i am rotting ear-to-ear, grinning with initiative, inside-out. fuck it all

i’m sorry despite it. i am always waiting for you to tell me you haven’t forgotten about me. when [redacted] asked me today, “what does it look like?” i lied. i said it looked like not having to put in effort into myself anymore. but that’s not true. all i have ever wanted is to be recognized for the work. when people tell me things about myself now, more and more, i cannot withstand it. i feel invisible to praise. it goes straight through me. reasonable crash-out, right?

i am becoming a shark

june 3rd, 2025

mind is a complete blank. have i ever felt present? what did it feel like in my body? listening. watching. engaging. absolute intensity. a shark, locked-in centered on it’s prey, the grid up and the blood drawn, jarring. fucking beautiful. my days are not like that anymore. it’s one foot in front of the other with my eyes half-closed checking for blind spots with my hands; relying on that feeling, reeling it in with touch. i am fucked. but not so much as i thought i was last night. i am a good student; i don’t care about looking valid. i am here. i show up. i do more than the rest. i achieve more. i do not care about being looked at. i don’t care, don’t care, do not care. so what if they say nothing as i churn through my day, so slow, so slowly, drawing breath, tasting salt, jagged teeth, becoming it, and i fall asleep that night. there are no words. none. mind is a complete blank. i am set up for great things. i can do this. i can wake up again and do it again. not every day will be like this. some days i will be full of energy and vigor. i will not feel like there is hopelessness is every small thing that i do, that people are losing interest in me, that my mind is more trouble than it’s worth. there will be a day soon where i am not blurred in my own vision

we’d all go blind otherwise

june 2nd, 2025

a better start to last weeks. but still, drowning. more work. more to cry about. more to shake my leg underneath the table about. if another person gets angry at me for anything, i’m going to explode. i’m sorry i’m sorry! i’m over it, though. i just want to do the right thing. i can’t chase it fast enough, it just looks like my tail in the end. everyone listening to me type. in my journal i do not want to write anything as much as i want to write a very long extended scream. no wonder i am grinding my teeth

cried in the dentist today! that is a first. i cried at home when i realized i couldn’t eat for another twenty minutes because of the fluoride treatment. how do i treat my bellyache? it’s not my fault that i don’t want to do anything, right? it’s not my fault that i do it anyway. that’s something. that’s something. that’s something. i won’t do it tonight but i will do it tomorrow. i always get it done. i have nothing to worry about. everyone is full of love. i have to be too. i have not lost my spark, i am just growing. i am just growing. i am just growing up

glossolalia

june 1st, 2025

will we ever know how doomed we are to never know? here i let language be plural, like the man says. i see art as touch and number and clarity, the bubelle-ing way up of water behind the backdrop of breath, grin-and-out, nothing but sick awe-struck reality between pearly parts, white glossy gunk, and the spinning ceiling, a picture of the city sirens smiling at me from way up there; way up there and down at me. one day, one day, one day

yesterday i bought so many pretty pairs of underwear. it was after writer’s club in the city. i was tired of my dark dark draw, my little hell-hole i pull out my bearings from in the morning whilst shuffling into aliveness. i brought them home and put them into my draw, delicately, folded with the bows out front, without any damned spite, rearranged and clustered things together. it looks much nicer now. i want everything to be so perfect. i want to twirl and twirl around. this morning i woke to such a wonderful message in bed. i have been given an opportunity by peter laberge, founder of the adroit journal, to apply for an online writing studio, where i will work with an author and nine other students in a creative writing class over the winter. it has come to me as a surprise, as i was turned down from the mentorship program. instead, he has told me he finds my work promising and wants me to do this workshop instead. i am not sure if i will be allowed to do it. i would like to but i don’t know if life will keep being this nice to me. it costs some money and i don’t know about the how. seeing as i am here and not there, with two weeks and not twelve and no sun, where everybody else is and where i am glad i am not but still. still it’s cold here and it’s not like i know anything about how to fake my way into this. i am supposed to have a consultation with him, although that hasn’t been so clear, about the when. i am meant to speak to him about the money. he says he will be happy to talk to me about a partial merit scholarship. i tell you, things never happen to me. i think i am crazy. i am an idiot. i am clever. i will get it all and have none left, i’ll spoil it. i want to twirl and twirl

here is my sweet pride, take it from me

may 31st, 2025

i have just submitted to the dymocks competition. i have not submitted to anything in months—it feels like—but i heard others talking about it in writers club today and that it was free. all of the things i have an interest in doing never seem to be free. i do not have 15 us dollars to spend every time i want a golden rush of pride. i am proud of what i have written but i do not think they will take it. i never see anything anywhere unless self-published which resembles the kinds of things i have in my drafts. it’s okay that they turn it down but i am waiting for somebody to tell me if i have made the right choice by pursuing this. because it’s this that i want to do. the more that my obsession wears off, the more i am sure. it’s just like the honeymoon period. but now that it’s over, i am sure i want to be married to this life. i would be very happy to never do anything else. it has never mattered to me about making money; i assume income will come from somewhere else. but i care about making. so i make and make and make and hope something will come of it. there is red wine to drink tonight and a debate to write for core. i was going to finish my english portfolio but that will have to be tomorrow’s work, along with my ess formative test and my art assignment. nothing ever happens at the pace i’d like it to happen. but this is the balance i speak of. unfortunately my “making room” for this balance appears like running a forearm over a desk and watching it all scatter on the floor

tender and sad

may 30th, 2025

a drop of piss runs down my inner thigh and this is freedom. bathroom door open, going to throw up, a phone call away is your voice, and nobody else is home to bear witness to my excellent work. tomorrow is another day and the day after that is also another day. today i smoke three cigarettes with you, and read your dad’s poetry in my backyard. i want to cry but i can’t, im having too much fun. i say things like i don’t care about being pretentious. i want to be smart. and in the same way i am grateful you are here, i am already grateful to be alone in a couple of hours. lie down in the dark in my undies and remember the things i used to do before and had a history essay to write. today was good. i am granting myself permission to rest. in whatever way that is. today it seems to be here, in the bathroom, piss rolling down my leg, shaking rampantly. i am grateful for all of this wasted time in some weird, fucked up way. this is the stuff i remember

please burn my house down

may 29th, 2025

boredom. nobody is interesting. they all bore me! are they bored by me too? cannot very well afford that. should be in bed, sleeping, not here pretending that this is all new and exciting. did you really think we all care? give it a go; fucking try. just like i am doing. getting on with it. paying the price, sure, but paying with my own money. not everyone can fall sick moping around looking sick and saying they’re sick and smashing their head against their forearms, being so very poor and sick. offensive, i know. i am trying to do something here. get the anger out before it infects. jesus, look at me. upright, polite, respectful, not looking for you to ask what i am. i just want the quiet. can’t a girl exist without noise? one second to breathe, for life to feel easy like it did this morning, gliding in on through me. to cry in your arms like i used to. to have you look at me like a human being, but i get it. i do. i have to prove it to you. that i deserve you looking after me. i’ll get it soon. one day. when i’m not worried about it. when we’re not all sad about something else. if i got even a second of that same attention, i’d melt away into the ground. just one pout in my direction. oh, you poor thing. i’d have to try not to be giddy, i’d have to try to stay sad. and if i didn’t care about it then, i’d do my homework. if you patted me on my head, i’d do my homework. not that i don’t do it anyway. but if you did this for me, i’d really do it. i’d get good at it, i’d maybe even enjoy it. i just need that sweet little sense that it’s you and me in the world. bright and fresh and new and happy and like we used to be and like we always will be. someday you at my door, no yearning, infinite love. that’s what i want. that’s what i need. here does not lie a lack of gratitude. an already owned desire? maybe. yes. of course. i have you already. i don’t need you to prove it. but this is the cleanest thing i know that i want. it glides through me just the damn same. i don’t care about the other thing, the dirtier intracavity. the deeper thing rotting. the satisfaction buried beneath my skin. but I USED TO DIG IT OUT. i am much better than that these days. much better than upsetting myself and you to get your love. it was easier for me then. now i play the long-game. the be-so-strong-that-i-maybe-collapse game. never-collapse game. i am too good at looking after myself to need you, but still i pretend. why? it’s the thing i am best at. if ever i got your love and worrisome hands at my jawline cupping me, i’d not know what to do with your weight. after so much time of holding myself up, seeing you is the thing that finally lets me down. i want to believe that. down into the water, a drowned thing. re-fucking-suscitate me. it’s all up to you now. all in your shaky fire hands, i am the wind and i burn; i am the gas and you are the lighter

this day, like every other day, will end. when it does, i will drink my pink milk in bed and code my website, do my homework and enjoy it, and get my things in order to deal with the rest of the world one last day. and then forever and ever. and i will let them see me. i will let you see me if we ever strike a deal like a match, if this ever gets me anywhere i will stop praying to god and the other beautiful things i have never been able to touch but have moved me. moved through me, on and on, the heart’s gentle beating, the only one i will take, and i will only pray to myself; mumbling, murmuring transformative being

i am losing the fight

may 28th, 2025

what’s wrong with me today? do i cry at everything? do i cry when things are misaligned? i am brave and strong and i will not do this to myself another time. pretend to be good at everything when i am not doing anything to prove it. i am not good at praying. i am not good at needing things. i am swollen from wishing away my life. i am not truthful, i am not good at it. i am always confused. i never know what anybody wants me to say. i never know what to say on my own. my own language is not one i’m fluent in. i will cry at every twist and turn. i am bad at grammar. i am bad at thinking of new things to write. i am bad at listening to myself. i am worse when i am alone and these days that’s all i seem to be. i am angry about one hundred things all at once. i am worried about the people i love and i am debilitated by it. i am never hungry for the food that people make me. i don’t have one hilarious story to tell. i am always hopeful someone is coming to pick me up from this place. i seldom know how to understand what it is im feeling. sometimes i think i might waste my life just because i don’t have any clue how to do it justice. sometimes i wait by the phone because i am so hopeful that i wont be the one this time who calls. it is always me anyway. trying to be angry is the quickest way i become sad. trying to be sad is the quickest way i become angry. i am happiest when it’s just you and me in a lonely room. i would submit to death before it arrived if we could die at the same time. i worry about disappointing my father with my life. i wonder about how he does it. i wonder about my mother’s days but i never ask her the right questions. i only ever say, how was your day? and it’s not enough. i wish that i knew things, but i only ever seem to feel worse the more that i know. i wish i would not bathe myself in pity but it is the only way i know how to relax. i wish i would not listen to the same music but i can only focus when i know all of the lyrics in a song. if i see you today, i am going to pounce on you with my claws out. i am so angry at you and so sad for you and i wish all of the worst bits of your life would redirect towards me instead. all of the people who are yelled at in the street make me cry. it is not your fault. do not preach at me, you pathetic creep. call me, please? i am losing the fight

literally always stopping to smell the roses

may 27th, 2025

it’s stormy outside. it’s my best friend’s birthday. my girlfriend thinks i am angry with her because she is not sure if she can come to a party i invited her to. i am sort of upset. i would like her to come. i would like even more for her to fight to come. but that’s too much to ask, too much to say out loud. some things are better left unsaid. but this morning in the rain i stopped to smell a wet rose. it is not unusual for me to slow down just so i can smell the flowers growing in the front lawn. watching the world get slower and wearing less and less makeup is like feeling a tiny bit closer to the magic of being born again, newborn and growing. growing up slow and fast at the same time. the way hair grows. is it even changing? but these days mine is looking better. [redacted] says i have low porosity hair, and so i should not put oil in it or else it will look greasy. it’s been curlier and healthier than ever the last two days. my day isn’t over yet; after-school class and then taking care of myself. like i didn’t do last night. i was such a fool last night. thought i could run away from responsibility. be a better girl for acting on my gut instinct. when has that worked out? my gut instinct is pretty much always saying ignore everyone and stay in bed. but today is not about that

my french teacher is leaving, my bladder is exploding, my work plus the work i have taken on additionally is done. my girlfriend is on her way to work. my best friends on their way to the city. i am here. i am always here it feels like

walking home

may 26th, 2025

i run my hand along the metal until numb. i am not young but i am not one hundred years old. when i go to sleep forever it will be my middle name in your mouth, my mouth on your cheek 137 times, and all those times not once was it enough. every time i felt the salt of a life not well lived. i felt i should have done more sport and been more energetic in the mornings, more relaxed at night. i will think about this moment and the next and the times you lied to my face about the words i spoke in my dreams. and on my walks to school, counting down the seconds to the end of your song. i’ve never wanted anything more and that’s not a bad thing: i’ll skip the endings, the jolty madness of a man in stilts saying come here, pretty pretty without doubt. have some doubt, how about it? i don’t dare to do this, i just have to. that’s braver than waking up feeling you’ve not been asleep any of that time. taking ten minutes to dress myself. playing with the clouds, making fun of them, making fun of you, being pleased and then having a meltdown. i won’t think about it now so i definitely won’t think about it when im one hundred

the illusion of self-awareness

may 25th, 2025

my luck is impossibly good. i know this. the hilarious thing about me is that i know what all of my problems are, and i know the problem in which they stem from; my self. knowing too much about her. knowing her too incredibly well. my self-awareness kills my soul. but where do i go? a person whose problem is that they are not very smart will try to improve by self-work; thinking, reading, creating, intentionality. and it is not to say that i am self-aware and on top of every facet of my life and myself; i am constantly full of revelations. however, i do not think i have had a conversation with another person in a very long time about something they have thought about themselves that i have not spent weeks reflecting on by myself. and it is so clear to me that i am very close to mentally deteriorating. i do not want more knowledge. i want to know what my problem is! that’s why i search. i know it must be made into something less than that. i know that i should be looking because i want to find more of myself that i love. but i cannot do that if i don’t fix the problem. but where do i go? i cannot very well decline in self-awareness unless i choose to be miserable, and i cannot turn off my brain—i know that now. i cannot fix my self-awareness with self-improvement strategies, as that only makes the problem worse! i have been through this a hundred times. every time i hope that when i write, i will make a discovery. but it is just like an egg hatching. i am like the beak on the tiny bird, trying to crack open it’s shell, except outside my shell there is another shell to break, and then another, and then another, and before i know it, the problem is worse

rationalizing my state

may 24th, 2025

today i am thinking about what is passing me. i am thinking about how i thought at some point that i would like to end my life. that i would like to keep myself and life separate. and that is not me anymore. but the struggle now is in how i keep up with it. how do i not fall behind into the behind of life, which is not death but something a little bit worse. the further you are in life, the closer you are to it’s end. to be gone early is to defy nature. nature is me. i defy myself when i defy life, as simple as it sounds. when i tell myself that i cannot be good, i defy the opportunity of experience the inability to be good. and i have been telling myself often that i am not good. that i have lost a spark. and that may be true. but is it necessary?

when [redacted] comes over tonight i would like to remember what we do together. if we build something, if we tear something down. i have been feeling my memory fail as the stress loads. it’s scary not to feel things. it’s scary to feel my aloneness. i face it anyway. i am brave. everything i do is brave. choosing to spend my day this way is brave. one day i will know what happens because of my braveness. right now the discomfort mortifies me. but tomorrow it might relax. the day after i may have found new growth

life is only the restriction of death

may 23rd, 2025

making milo cookies in the kitchen with you like when we were such big kids, eating batter and screaming. they don’t taste good. i could laugh and laugh about it. so instead i cry, naturally. the cracks in the pavement are waiting for me to step on them. i will never fall for that trick. the whole weekend is ahead of me and instead i will spend it slipping in and out of consciousness, devouring sandwiches and moving around gracelessly in my undies, picking pores and revising the water cycle—it’s always the things you thought you’d never get by that are the things you never get by. funny that. if questions are no good. my beautiful friends make me deeply miserable when i think about them at night, and how much i love them. i used to think this was a joyful part of friendships, caring so deeply it eats you, but i must not have learnt that there is a real independent joy from succeeding habit; falling into the trap, falling for that same trick. all of what they told you mattered could not matter if you did not believe it away from them. so what do i believe when i am not with thing? dreadful things that i decorate my life with, that i pick up my phone for, that i do not find the time for, that i have too little money to spend on. well, i suppose i think about what not to think about. the rules i have obeyed and how it has depressed me, and how there is no other way to live but in restriction of death. and that is volatile in itself, this act of separation at birth, from un-aliveness to being. i must miss in some way as everyone does the relief of nothing, eternal waiting, and i must in some way, as must everyone else, feel incredible dissatisfaction at this life i am living; how we walk the line between life and death is not the same as embracing the truth of it, that they must co-exist in inexistence, in shared unbelief, in longing to be part of the larger thing

i’m thinking of you nifwuana

may 22nd, 2025

making it back in the middle of the night (6:46pm) and falling asleep on the bus. i’m up at the front by the driver at the high seat. it’s the safest seat. i ate a stir fry before with [redacted] that has given me a stomach ache, or maybe it was the bubble tea, and today i thought about my dead fish for the first time in a long time and favorited the two pictures i have of her from the day i got her. i felt so sorry for her when she died because i knew it was my fault. i should have taken better care of her tank. i should not have blamed my sadness for not being able to look after her. plenty of sad people do plenty of good things for others all the time. it was not the fish’s fault. it has me feeling emotional. i should think about her more. she is buried in my backyard. i guess i do sometimes think about that. today has been tiring, and now it is over. i’ve felt so awful. i’ve felt more awful. tomorrow morning i have to come in early for a meeting instead of sleeping in. i have to not complain. plenty of sad people do plenty of good things for others. but i wish the week would end. it’s been one long tendril of despair and im over it now. i’m over it before i fall asleep on the bus. then i will really be over it

faces in everything

may 21st, 2025

it has been a tough week for me and it is only wednesday. not tough. i’ve been taking care of it, is how i’ll state that. the weekend has felt to me like the beginning of the week. no break, is all. everything’s felt a little bit draining and unrealistic from school. i’ve got french at the end of the day and have done a good job in class today, even catching up on the maths i missed out on from monday’s lesson. two lessons to go. i am working through lunch as i don’t have the time to work on my ess internal assessment (ia) after french tonight and get through some history reading, finish my in-class english reflection, etc. i’m wearing a hoodie underneath my jacket today and waiting to be slandered for it, but nothing’s come my way yet. i’m a lucky girl, i think. it’s easier to feel that way these days. there’s something good to appreciate in every moment, even the worst moments. need to squeeze in some time to shut my eyes today. french will be fun. it always is once i’m actually there and doing the work and my mouth’s moving. i’ve been taking my glasses privileges very seriously, wearing them everywhere, feeling a whole 5% smarter

i’m very grateful for having gone to [redacted]’s house last night. that was helpful. we ate dinner at her grandparents. it was a hearty meal. boiled carrots, zucchini, potato, and a nice chicken dish. she took time to put her little brother to bed and so i sat on her carpet with a cup of tea and ate a granola cookie on her floor there. it’s good to do things like that. on thursday i have planned to go to the city for bubble tea with [redacted] when my ess and his mtc meeting finish. i need to get out more. that’s how i’ve been feeling. more human connection. that doesn’t feel like a want, so i don’t feel as guilty about it. everything’s nice. even this. even me. even things i don’t normally think of as being nice have teeth they can smile with. we look for faces in everything

the ibis is no trash bird

may 20th, 2025

beautiful wondrous morning. i have decided to change my routine for the winter. i am in need of more sleep and love during the winter, and more time to do yoga. this morning i put down my yoga mat like i did yesterday and i lit a candle and did a yoga flow. something about that is so special to me. nothing can replicate the presence of movement in my body, remembering that you can feel the blood in your veins when it’s still and you move you finger, feel the vibration of it. so i have decided that i will shower at night instead of the morning to reserve that time for getting more sleep, drinking tea and being mindful

i am writing in my spot at the table outside, having just suffered a small crash out in my core class. i am near the water sculpture and the plague mask birds. trash birds. i can never remember their names. ah, yes! the ibis. i saw my dissociation ahead of time. it’s a shame about the nice things that bring it on. being surrounded by people, finally having noise in the house, remembering my human qualities. without these things i am less of a person, but with them i seem to become overwhelmed with how much person there is to me. [redacted] saw me as i was putting things into my locker and she invited me over to have dinner at her grandparent’s place. i don’t understand lots of things, but i do understand her. i like to think so. more and more, it’s clear to me that she is the one true and undeniably special piece of me that exists in the world for other’s to enjoy. maybe one day my writing will replace this. maybe one day a daughter will replace this. but the feeling must be felt, and must be full. for now, seeing her gives me amazing joy like nothing else. though i feel a bit of a disappointment to my classmates, family, teachers, i do not feel like a disappointment to her

the last unicorn

may 19th, 2025

a confusing twenty-four hours. no school as i’ve declared it to be a mental health day. that means sitting on my yoga mat for an hour, meditating, doing gratitude, anxiety journaling in a book i got years ago, and stretching topless to a youtube video, doing transcendental meditation on the bed and feeling it nowhere else but in my toes. maybe if i had given it a little longer, i’d be somewhere else. i hate to be angry but sometimes i wonder if that’s who i am. when my mum comes into the room i am the same person. i try to change but some things never do. that makes me feel like a liar. maybe that’s why it’s so hard to grow with people. we are constantly outgrowing our own experiences and learnings, and we cannot bring them all with us. of course, i don’t buy into that. but sometimes the grief is so unbelievable. sometimes i think it really will last forever. i know other people must understand that. i want to be calm. i want to be the kind of person who believes in good things, like unicorns, and to some extent i do, but i don’t believe in their being harmless. magic isn’t harmless. i think they are beasts, probably, and i would be too if people didn’t believe in me. it’s not that i don’t believe in the matter, but i will always put the mind above the material. that doesn’t make me worth being pitied, but it doesn’t make me worth myself yet. my higher mind is just a second away from being an hour away. i’m pretty much a conversation away from breathing again, but where to look? where do i find that source of connection when i cannot find it in trusting myself?

other times it’s inside out

may 18th, 2025

when [redacted] came over today she wanted to read a page from the journal she made for me. of course i’m not an idiot. i know that sort of thing ruins relationships. but i thought saying no to her would be worse than saying yes and reading a nice page. they were all nice things except for one line: i love her but i’m not in love with her. would that hurt my feelings? i explained it to her afterward. she told me she didn’t mind, we made out, and things seemed all bright and new again. i kissed her at the door goodbye and that’s just the way things are with us. school’s back tomorrow as it always is, every damn sunday, and the scaries are here for sure. i haven’t done all the things i wanted to do. i am looking forward to sleeping in this week, but i will not lie to you i am feeling done. i’m done with my self-actualization. but it won’t be done with me. while i was making out with [redacted] today i wasn’t thinking of anything. when me and [redacted] used to make out i used to think about her, and me, and i used to imagine people seeing us. i hoped they did. but today i realized that’s the nice thing about kissing someone you’re just in love with, and i think i could be. in love with her. you don’t have to think about anything. it’s a nice distraction on the mind. i hope today she goes home and thinks about us and that she writes things about me in her journal, and i hope there’s an equivalent to what i said about her. sometimes i don’t think i know anything about her

returning

may 17th, 2025

candles burning in my room; it’s like a ritual. wearing two dressing gowns, and my new glasses so i can see things again. it rained on me today when walking home and my girlfriend has deleted her social medias so she can read more. all’s more right with the world. finished my history essay after much struggle, but the point is there is none. my family is going to the movies tonight to see thunderbolts with florence pugh and i am sure i’ll not know how i feel afterward. i always feel that way now when i watch marvel movies. the better they are, the worse i feel. things have changed since we used to watch them. all twenty-six of them at the time. so many at the time. i retired properly after black widow. sometimes films have plaguing affects on you. you think of them a lot don’t have much of an understanding as to why. i’ll get it one day. i’m proud of finishing my essay. i did it, and now it’s done. so what if it’s that simple?

the little girl in the house next door

may 16th, 2025

i am the little girl in the house next door, walks her dog weekdays and smiles at you as she passes. i am the all or nothing student, the look-you-in-your-eyes until you remember me type. it’s a front and i’m scared. i am the daughter who asks about god and it’s dealer from heaven, never expecting any kind of response. obviously. i am the sister who wants the world to bend to your will, i know you’ve got it more than me. i know you’ll do better than me at being the things i want to be without knowing it. i’ll visit your house for kicks. i am the kiss you on your temple and get out of my sight before i lose the love best friend. i don’t ever want to remember a time where this warmth doesn’t exist in my chest. i am the compliment-your-hair, hallway cockroach out of spite mentor, but i believe in you more than i believed in myself aged thirteen. when you’re this age it’s the closest you will ever feel to god, but i definitely don’t have the courage for that. i am the spit-in-your-mouth girlfriend, kiss the prettiest girl in the room and drown me in the ocean before i can swallow even a mouthful of it. and one day i will be the kind of wife who mourns all the time, a widow of none. one day i will be the kind of mother who wears gowns and has brush-able hair, who reads fairytales to herself at night and soaks in milk in the bath-tub. one day i’ll be the kind of person i dream about today; today im just the little girl in the house next door and i’ve never complained

bye my love i love you. goodnight

may 15th, 2025

i never get tired of kissing you or being with you. it’s simple really. i’m proud of getting us here, on my end, right? and you on yours. and when i’m embarrassed i just put my hand over your mouth and kiss your temple. that’s love in it’s purest form. protecting you. giving you my hand and counting your fingers. counting the other hand, too. good. still ten fingers. all still there. nails too long, but not to fear. you’ll cut them soon. because i like telling people that you’re mine. like an overly proud parent, or like the lottery winner, i will make sure to show you off to every person who comes our way. look to my left, to my right. excellent. can i show you a photo of her? lock eyes with them. raise our hands together. swerve in to kiss you. maybe my problem is becoming too obsessive when we are away, and not telling you when we are together. i think i tell you, though. i can do the honesty, the theatrics in secret. you can do the theatrics, the honesty in secret. the safety of our own homes we cosplay the other. i’m good at you and you’re good at me. thanks for walking me to the car. thanks for being silly and always knowing what to say. i never do, and i’m too serious. you pretend not to know it, but you level me out. thanks for knowing where to put your hands. i never know. you’ve got everything. please still be in love with me in the morning. don’t let it all be a very good, long dream

paradigm

may 14th, 2025

i feel like a lot has happened in the last couple of days and a lot is still happening now. i had the interview with suzie miller today, and our class got to ask her some questions for an hour. i was right up the front, and asked her two. after watching the jodie comer version of prima facie i was feeling pretty destroyed, definitely after sobbing for an hour straight, but i was also relaxed. tomorrow night, even though school is cancelled tomorrow for parent-teacher interviews, i am going to go see the year twelve drama play. [redacted] invited me, so i am going with my girlfriend, and have asked [redacted] to reserve us some seats beside her and her boyfriend. i feel sort of like a hermit. last night i dreamt about adjudicating and i also felt like i dreamt the play despite not knowing i’d be going to it. it’s funny how things work out. i have a lot of work to do, but i’m doing it. slowly, slowly, i’m ticking things off my to-do list, and maybe that’s how it should be. i’m in no rush to be anything, even though i can sense my own impatience when i see other people just starting to catch up, maybe even a few of them some of my friends

my body, my mind, my breath

may 13th, 2025

i do not fight time. i think that’s not a lie. we wreak havoc in the moments most unassuming and it serves me just as well as anything does. my purpose is not to be mine or anyone else’s. my purpose is the world. i give into it and as i move away from it, i am only moving closer to the universe it was born into. nothing could be more powerful than that, except for love. which is not only for fools. love is for scholars, too. for the very wise. but the very wise cannot obey all the laws of love. understanding is the first. we can understand not many things but we can understand people. even better if you realize you can’t know something fully. seeking understanding is better than actually finding it. curiosity is the superior emotion. foolish people have it, and that’s why they are so good at it. i try to embrace foolishness but i feel silly and embarrassed a lot of the time. i always love the birds, though

today is everything i’m nervous about and i will overcome it too, and i will do so without substances or insurmountable pining. i will do so with presence. just as last night i lay on my mat at yoga, allowing a moment to arrive; my body, my mind, and my breath, i am at school now, in the yard, allowing my body, my mind, and my breath to arrive at their own speed, and later tonight when i am adjudicating i shall also allow a moment for my body, my mind, and my breath to arrive. just as i was present in yoga last night, am present now in the school-yard, i am present in the same way in the future tense. that calms me

my finger is the space between words

may 12th, 2025

monday blues; heater is on and the earth turns over in it’s grave. a big exhausted sigh, scribbling down the homework that should’ve been done long ago. wasting time, honestly, but not giving up. never giving up. to think of that as an option is to think of preordained love. none of that exists. it’s fictive. it’s indecent spending life losing faith in things you used to feel lifted you out of death’s clutches; breath-work, picking your food, kissing your loved ones on the cheek, drinking coffee, eye-contact, tactile searches for lumps, playing doctor, playing, getting on your knees at the bed-side and praying, running your finger along the book’s text; using your finger as the space between your words as you write. god, i loved that. it was so routine. so careful. if only it didn’t take so long, he told me and i died. i’d died before but this second time i realized i was the silly one, and that was so much more embarrassing. everybody else was planning their ascent to heaven and i was worm-food. i’d fucked it up. the first time i died i was crying. i don’t remember anything else about it. i was angry, maybe. but i could’ve been happy. i cry just as much when i am happy as i do when i am angry, even more than when i am sad. i am sad too often to cry in all of those moments. anger and joy are very distinct, sharp, easy; thankful i am for them, brief relief from the terror, just passion

happy mother’s day we love you

may 11th, 2025

mother mother mother, happy mother’s day to you!

we sit at brunch and i scratch my thigh and think about university, going off and leaving you, and i am sad. i am affected. i am infected. i watch my brother who is big and strong and excited about life and the fruits it will offer him and i am not angry. i am not angry that it’s him and not me. i couldn’t take it. i wouldn’t be able to do what he does; balance it all. not fall down and shatter and burst and break. i’d fucking break. i am glad that’s not me and i admire him; i love him for what i cannot do. i am not angry. i will not be angry. one day i won’t be angry. i don’t know exactly. i know that i am clever and that i am many things and that i can be good like him, but do i have the thing that it takes? why spend so much time dwelling on it, inflating my own ego if it is worth nothing? i want to be thirty one day. i want to be pregnant with love i want to be an academic i want to teach things i want to live creatively i want to be beautiful and i want to not wonder about what it would’ve been like to have not suffered from wanting it. wouldn’t it have been nice as a surprise? couldn’t it have ended up that way? i want to be thirty one day and i want to have a mother’s day present for you that you can smile at. i want to be good to you i want to provide for you i want to make you happy and proud are you proud but i am not desperate. i thought about it in the car, asking, but i thought better of asking questions like that. i am growing up to be more than one of those sorts of people kinds of kinds of kinds of things that ask questions like that. i won’t be like that anymore. i won’t need approval to approve of my sins and songs. but thank you. happy mother’s day, we love you

nobody lives here anymore

may 10th, 2025

everyone forgives you. they do not count your mistakes behind their back and laugh because they do not have enough fingers. they do not hide from you when you play seeker; they wait patiently until you are near enough and pounce on you because they know you are so clever, baby you are so clever that you will find them; they must spare their dignity. that’s all

everyone forgives you. they do not stare in the dark at the edge of their desk when they should be sleeping, wondering about what your bare feet sound like when they suction flat against the floorboards, wondering about if your hair is getting longer. it’s not. it’s not. it’s not. they do not worry about you because they love you and know you will stay there, longing back. that’s how this works

everyone forgives you. they do not ask for an apology not because the wound was never made but because they understand you, that it wasn’t brutal or deep because of hate but because it was begging to be pierced. they do not quietly wait for you to timidly approach and hug them and cry and say, “it was an accident”, they know that. everyone forgives you

when did i learn to chew with my mouth closed? i miss old me

may 9th, 2025

just came out of my meeting in the pod and i feel electric. so many interesting people who want to do so many interesting things. i only got four or so hours of sleep last night. i was feeling rebellious and stayed up late watching modern family until my eyes were finally sore. it’s always the nights you need the most rest that you refuse to sleep. we have the careers expo for the rest of the day, once this lesson ends. i know that i won’t find a stall that interests me. it will all be engineering and space agencies. it’s all based in adelaide; i don’t want to stay here. even if i stay in australia, i will go to sydney. my eyes want to shut whenever i smile today and somebody told me i remind them of natalie from yellowjackets. i must be doing something right today. i forgot to bring water to school and my throat is beginning to itch; i’m eating apple and using the tight skin to scratch it. i don’t know if it’s making it better or worse. [redacted] and i have planned to spend the day together at the expo, which will make it all a little bit more bearable. she has something to give me, so she says. i’m excited to listen to music with her on the bus. it’s been two months since our first date, and i feel reluctant to say that i am happier, but i believe i really might be. i am more settled, anyway. i am more grounded. i stay home and don’t worry as much about big silly things that i know will pass. i have nothing to show as proof, but surely you can sense it? my patience improving with space. my wisdom deepening with time. i don’t have to read books anymore to feel wise, although it does help. i miss having something to worry over other than her. i worry about that making me a bad sort of person. worrying about people isn’t fun like worrying about your place in the world is, it’s threating to your morality. i used to worry about myself all the time, and i guess i still do, but not in the way i did when i had nobody. i worried about not having anybody to text. i do now, but i have nothing to say

it’s no worries really. i’m better off for it now. i’m better off for not needing to come home early to cry on the floor and masturbate to silence, write for hours, stomach-ache my way into my best friend staying the night, i’m better off for just wanting to, right? that need was debilitating. oh, but that was fun. to need something so much you have to give it to yourself; you have no choice but to. what was i supposed to do? i’d reason with myself in the morning, make myself tea, undress again and get under my sheets, moaning into pillows like a mourner, worry about the books i had to read and the paintings i had to hang on my wall and if i loved her as much as i said i did. i wonder now if i had not gone to france, would i be the same way? that’s no way to think, i know. but i mourn her now. i mourn myself before i learnt to live with myself; i had such a way of giving to myself and others in spite of a greater impending sadness, and now i am left only with the threat of it all going away quickly. and it’s not to say that she was a different person; i carry her with me in everything and i see her in small movements. she’s not a dead girl yet. i see her in the way i sit with my legs pulled in, and me now in my posture. i see her in the way i write, and me now in the way i pause. i see her in the way i observe beautiful things, and me now in the way i move on from them but still remember. i see her then in my eyes. i see her then in the music i listen to. to perth, before the border closes. i see her in my hair, and her giggle when [redacted] and i are together. i see her in my judgment. is see her in my nausea. i see her in my graceful indecision

returning to my roots

may 8th, 2025

my girlfriend is so hot when she holds a guitar. yes, put that strap on over your shoulder! yes, finger those strings! i wish she were here right now and we were snuggling in bed watching the rest of star wars. she thinks she’s seen it, but she definitely hasn’t. when i got home from school today i turned on the heater, lay down in front of it, and took off my clothes. i remembered the smell of the carpet from last year, slightly warmed from the heater and smelling of dust, when i used to sit down every day after school for hours and write in multiple journals at a time, pages and pages, and then i used to come here and complain and say, “i haven’t written enough.” i still feel that way. but in any case, it was nice to sit there again and smell the heat in the rug. i could enjoy it for what it was. i am not angry with myself for being impatient

nothing to do but scratch the itch

may 7th, 2025

the soulless soul pumps the body, whips you like wind. here is the bicycle, here is the face; perfect to watch the wheels spin and hiss behind elliott’s bars. life is a series of efforts to make life easier, and i imagine if we stopped trying so hard to make things easier, it’d be easier to live because we’d be living in pursuit of death, not life’s meaning. this death would not be hidden from us. it would be more fun to grapple with. trying to imagine the threads between each of our souls is pitiful, because i cannot even know what your hands look like. it is my brain’s best guess, but i do think i’d remember your face more than my own. there’s no end to me, i’m a stream of jawline and incessant wining to step into, unchanged

i’d go home early but i have to wait to be taken to french. my stockings are making my knees itch. am i showing this? & & & is mine, and : : : is yours. i’m not interested in listening. i’m interested in speaking and occasionally touching. the things i can’t do. nobody in this room knows who i am: i miss you & i always listened

a loving feeling

may 6th, 2025

australia has a buzzing feeling, and i do too. the woman and her little daughter walk out of the school and we lock eyes, smile; there is sameness on our planet. agreement at fortune. maybe it is also because of the election results that we are all shimmer and shine—i would like to think that. i have just finished prima facie, and the buzz seems to be more than an ache in the throat than a buzz in the head. when the election results were announced and albanese made his speech, we were sitting on the couch watching from the second living room, tea going cold in front of us

my mornings are still as sacred as ever. i have no trouble waking up when im well-slept. [redacted] slept over last night and we watched cruella with emma stone. he told me he is lonely and feels single. i don’t know why but being in a relationship has not made that any more of a distant feeling to me. it is hard and it always will be. there is no place we can go where the sky is always blue and men and women are looking at us beady-eyed, wanting equally, but if there was, me and [redacted] would go there. i had no class this morning so he got ready and left before me. i am waiting for the bus now, where he was two hours ago. we drank tea, which i spilled all over my new screw this! i’m moving to ireland t-shirt, and watched the news. whilst walking the dogs i imagined what they would look like if they were people, and i helped a small butterfly by pushing it with my fingernail onto it’s feet so it could fly away. the world is full of beautiful things

may 5th, 2025

may the forth be with you

may 4th, 2025

amazement at being home as always; coming home from the weekend and everything is the same. my bedroom is sentimental. two nights ago i spilled red wine all over my carpet and i spent an hour cleaning it up with shortness of breath. i poured three different kinds of carpet cleaners on, apple cider vinegar, hot soap and water, baking soda, and varnish. today i took the rug off of it and it looks almost new and normal. amazing, the things you get away with. yesterday i was so calm, i wanted to say yes to everything. today i am waiting for something bad to happen to me, so much i am inventing things to worry over. i called [redacted] before, when i first got home. she showed me her puppy and what the house is looking like. i am waiting to call [redacted] now to play roblox after he does his homework. i’m writing and playing the sims 4 instead of doing my homework. who is going to care more than me? maybe future employers. it’s too early to think of that

i’m feeling defiant about school tomorrow, and my other responsibilities. i’m not embarrassed of myself, but sometimes i wish things were different and that i could go to sleep easier. i only fall asleep when i remember i can think about things other than my life. my imagination eases me. it’s a shame i never seem to get around to sharing it with people, not in the way which would benefit me. maybe i will find somebody to give my brain to for the day and i will watch them do the right thing with it, but at the same time i am sure nobody could do a better job of managing it than me. i like eating hot chips today, even though i looked miserable. i liked finishing the documentary with you. i liked doing yoga with you and waking up next to you. it should be like that more. easier

bliss

may 3rd, 2025

[redacted] rests breathing beside me and the whole day has passed in soft colours and loving relief; more than ever i feel peaceful. she heaves more long sweet breaths and i listen to it like song. i can’t help myself. there’s beauty all around us in this room, house, nightly repentance. we cannot help but find our souls are present and full when together. in infinite worlds i have been blessed to have found this one, with her where we are like this; all warmth and buzzing bliss in between us

today in the car she was tired, and talked about her boyfriend. i nodded and smiled. i cannot help but be happy for her. we read on the way. i am finishing written on the body this weekend. and i am getting better at underlining sentences which are meaningful to me, not just the ones which should be meaningful. i am more sparing with my ink. this morning i submitted a piece of lyrical and figurative erotica to a journal and i had her read over it in the car. she liked it, and took interest in it. when we arrived, we took two ciders to the beach and sat down by the scrub in the very same place we did almost a year and a half ago now; same positions, same giddy feelings. but this time we were better people. we spoke about art and love and she drew on a piece of paper. i loved her and felt proud of her as we collected shells on the sand, and nothing could come between us with our backs together giggling. we were sentient creatures. we stayed for the sunset but there was no sun, just a colour that drained from the sky eventually. we walked back and sat outside. the bonfire was lit and we played a card game. we drank glasses of wine and ate the barbecue. her face was shiny in the dark. i was watching her, feeling calm. i felt shiny too. we began to watch fire of love, a wonderful documentary i watched about a year ago which follows two volcanologists through life to death. [redacted] and i bought ice cream to share from the café in front of home, cookies and cream on the bottom and bubblegum on the top. we walked up and down the esplanade in the dark and discussed our birthdays. i am happy for us, even though we are different now. we say twice today, “i wish there were a movie of us,” and i reassure her that there is nothing to worry about. that everything is documented and none forgotten. one day i will make a movie of our life, following no plot or cohesive story, all scenes and details and spectacles from our lives together. we came home and took a bath together outside, with the candle lit and the fire still roaring. steam rose from our skin as we lifted from the water, mesmerising stuff. we talked about our families and drank port in dessert wine glasses. i felt dizzy and calm. today has been serene and long and loving. it matters to me. we stood by the fire, naked and rubbing with towels. i messaged [redacted] to say that i miss her because i do. i will never film my art assignment. oh, god, that. it has to be ready by friday—i have five days until its day zero

now we are in bed, watching the documentary. everything is special and tomorrow we will go again, rearing like engines. i will keep my eyes open and i will be calm and ready to love things all over again

home alone tonight

may 2nd, 2025

one drink is all it takes for me to feel a little bit better than an hour ago. my glass of wine is waiting for me on the bench beside my gnocchi but i’ve been wolfing down cereal and watching videos instead. i’m in my dressing gown thinking about other people, and how it’s all going to seem to me in twenty years. so good. sometimes i will read these and think about how life was, and i might even imagine that it was like that all the time, that i used to be cool and retrospective and i used to not be a fraud. or maybe we will have run out of reasons to survive, the gods will have taken over, and robots will live inside our bodies. today was nice, just like yesterday was nice. i looked after myself between gaps in the day, and took my time. i wish i could have my period without my skin breaking out; i’d do such a good job of managing it. i’m getting my meds changed and trying the new dosage tomorrow. i came home from school early because there was nothing for me to do there, and so i tried to make the most of it. i cleaned and packed for the weekend and i even did some homework, but then i lay back down and waited to see my chiropractor. she cheered me right up. tomorrow i will start doing the things she told me to do. eating well. at the end of every session she comes to me with big wide arms, her clipboard barely clutched in her right hand, and as she embraces me she wears a big smile, and she says, “you’re beautiful”. it will take seeing her for me to realize that i have an open soul

how much does it interest me?

may 1st, 2025

i am in bed watching never let me go. the air is still and i haven’t brushed my teeth. i am going to aldinga on the weekend and [redacted] is going to come. today i felt connected to the world. i felt bodied and whole, like the circus was really all my design. it didn’t matter that things were happening for no good reason. it was all okay. the tears didn’t matter. we could use the water anyway. i’ve got a headache now. too much sugar too often. my skin’s breaking out. i’m wondering how stressed i really am. not burnout, though; lucky me. i was mean today to a younger boy who always takes an interest in me and [redacted] when i hang around her. today i decided to see her in the break and he watched our conversation, not saying much. i wanted to punch him. i know it is not just me but how could i be so mean? i know, i know. i talked about things that are changing. [redacted] made me a piece of seedy bread with crunchy peanut butter, and then i walked her to class. this morning, my chai latte exploded in the microwave of the language wing office. i used a tea-towel to wipe it up. i skipped my lesson after lunch and sat on the oval with [redacted]. she’s a good person. bad things happen to her. it’s not fair. i’d scream and cry all the time if i were her. that makes her an even better person, because she doesn’t. maybe. is it better to put up with it? i’m not sure. i can rationalize them but not myself