the last party

person in
pink poncho
plays piano

flaw

It is called 'relaxing' or 'taking time out for yourself' but I think it feels more like 'being alone'.

I like to be busy. If I'm not busy I get bored and unhappy. I don't often enjoy 'relaxing' because I have an inability to live in the present and constantly think about what is coming next. When I 'relax' my brain floats ahead of time and I end up feeling isolated from the people around me. Being busy and focusing on a task means I can find connections with the task and the other people involved.

ask and you shall receive

It has always been my dream to own an amazing herbal tea range. But I am poor and pretty teas are outrageously expensive ($4.00 plus for twenty tea bags, that's 20c a teabag).

I get excited when I go to other people's houses and they have pro/many tea flavours. I shamelessly abuse these opportunities. Once I was at Sarah's house and downed about eight consecutive cups of tea, all different flavours.


Whenever people ask me what I want for my birthday/Christmas etc. I always either need lame practical things which are no fun to give as presents, or else desire expensive things which you can't just go asking for because most other people are skint too. So I just say I don't want anything.

But this year I hit the money. I asked for tea and got eight different flavours plus a set of teacups in my favourite colour (red). YES.

Cranberry, Raspberry and Elderflower.

Wildberry (Blackberry, Raspberry and Blueberry).

Green Tea with Citrus.

Cranberry and Apple.

Honey and Lemon.

Chamomile.

Cranberry, Raspberry and Strawberry.

Lemon and Ginger.

I feel like life is looking upwards.

jack's house

My room hasn’t always felt this way. I used to sit in here most days and make friends with the holes in the walls and floor. Often I’d put my feet in the watery gaps. I liked the sound it made: hollow sound somewhere between a shatter and a pop. My eyelashes found the sun reaching through the weatherboards. I was too happy to anticipate raindrops leaking through the roof. 

Today the room bears a strange colour. It is full of light which you can’t even be sure is light because it might just be your eyes trying to improve what they see. You can’t trust yourself a lot of the time.

The sky is looming. A big smoking void giving me head rush. It jolts – shunt shunt shunt – the sky collects me up and takes my mind on field trips into space. My brain shreds itself and denies that it is a part of my body. I am encouraged to find a place in which to occupy myself until consciousness returns. I do my head in if I think too much. I try not to think too much but you know what it is like; if you try not to think about something that is all you can think about.

My mind is a small child. It likes to run away. Sometimes it meanders too far from its maternal body and is lost for a short time until a kind adult returns my child back to me. Some kids go missing permanently and their faces end up stacked vertically in newspaper pages.  Candy is helpful for luring lost children. Little colourful candies. Some are round, some are long and thin. They all taste horrible but look very nice.

The left side of the room does not look very nice. The entire wall is burnt out. You can still see all the exposed wires and beams: the house’s bones sticking out of its scorched skin. It’s strange seeing flesh which is not the colour it is supposed to be. It doesn’t feel nice to be seeing the insides of something when they are supposed to be contained.

You can take a look around if you like. I don’t mind. This is my bed, over here. And there’s where I sit sometimes.

Yesterday I had a visitor while I was sitting there. I was inspecting what used to be a window. They’ve put black lines on it now. I used to do stained glass art. You frame each colour in a black outline. That’s what they’ve put on the window except there’s no coloured glass. Although sometimes if I tilt my head the right way I’m pretty sure I can see colours. Maybe it’s just a trick of this strange, faded light.
 

I can go up the window. I can touch it and trace the black outline with my sight. I can breathe ice onto the window and write shapes in it. I can spell out some words and write SOS messages to the dogs yapping on the dried yellow lawn.

There’s an apple tree out there too. I think I’m supposed eat the fruit so that I stay healthy. But they won’t let us outside. If you don’t eat the fruit they get angry at you fi you go outside they get angry at you because you will catch a cold. Anyway, apples aren’t very good for you. Did you hear what happened to Snow White? Except she woke up again. I probably wouldn’t wake up again if I ate the apple. And Eve. She had a bad apple experience too. They’re deceiving, apples are., they’re like the candy. They look good but they are not. But people will try and tell you they are good so they can trick you into going outside to retrieve one. They just want you to catch a cold.

You’re being silly, she said. Eat – it.

After you have eaten you are supposed to get ready for bed. I think I used to like sleeping but because of all these holes in the wall now it's not very pleasant. When I'm trying to sleep I can hear the rain  scratching incessantly on the surfaces outside. The sound is awful. It rots away my head until my sheets are bleeding. Tonight it is very bad. It's coming from both sides of the room and gets worse and worse and there is wind too and then tapping tap tap tap tap which starts quiet and gets louder and closer. The wind howls over the scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch –

Oh... It’s stopped now. That's better.

But it is still difficult to sleep. Almost more so in silence. I’m not really sure what to do in here sometimes. I’m just waiting I think. Waiting for the weather to get better. And for the tree to bear good fruit. It takes a few years. You don’t get good fruit straight away when you first plant a tree.

all you need is love

The other day in class my sweat made a heart shape.

 

Weird/gross/interesting.

I don't often tell lies

Lie:

 

Truth:

I am convincing myself it will be fun but
I am worried it will be disappointing.
I find it difficult to go back there.
I do not live in the same space that I did two years ago.
I don't like time traveling.

I don't have the capacity to re-adapt.

I hope this ends up not being a lie.

note to self

starting line

two steps forward
and one step backwards
is still moving forward -
right?

52 grams of sugar

Everyone is wearing beautiful mirrors over their face. My reflection is everywhere! Grand. I'm so ravenous for conversation. I am pretty self-concerned. I can talk to myself. Why, yes, I do have a birthday wish-list actually. How good of you to ask. I would like an encyclopaedia of myself. Alphabetically ordered and excruciatingly detailed. Indexes, references, the whole shebang. Hold the wrapping paper. I do not want a pouffy ribbon. I already have a pouffy dress.

I have to carry my body in a sack behind my brain. If it is a silk sack (hand sewn) then I will require a different colour for each day of the week, please, thank you. Sense! I have enough to contend with: people, performance. Oh God, I can't do it I MUST DO IT I can't do this anymore I DON'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING ELSE! I need to make and I need to talk and I need to make and talk and if I can't do these things right now something bad is happening in me. Health professionals advise against this lifestyle but mostly I am a little masochistic about it. My pampered body can’t accommodate and life starts biting at the ankles. I have had a bad taste in my mouth for about five weeks and echinacea tea wont cure it. Unfortunate.

Expand my head. My gut ingests too few criticisms. My brain is an over-filled balloon in danger of bursting. Good. A dismal person needs a healthy stab. Pins at the ready, people! I'm fairly sure they used to try to cure diseases by 'bleeding' people out. I don't get squeamish over blood but I do feel nauseous at the thought of dirty/rusty knives. Sometimes I feel nauseous for no reason. No I am not a hypochondriac. I have funny wrists. They get sore if I sit on them. School is so secure and sickening.

Do nothing while I lift off my fingernails. I am doing this very, very quietly so maybe you are confused and think it's an illusion. It's not too painful. Today I was far too loud. Generally I am too quiet. My loudest gestures are towards mouths but not with my own mouth. Actually I don't even have a mouth, sorry for lying. I just forgot temporarily, see. My brain is shunted to second place for its rationalizing.

I would ideally like to spend several hours throwing ideas into my own head from yours. Don’t often find people with whom I am fluid. I imagine lack of conversation results in my brain cells eating each other. Nutritious? Maybe. I have eaten a lot of carrots lately in the hope of seeing better. Inability to write straight. I must dance better than I talk. I must definitely dance more than I dream.

Two days. I need them to last and I need them to pass NOW.

All over the place. I am all over the place and twelve weeks old. Of course in the stars I am well balanced which is secretly code for juxtaposed extremes and all of that. You must always follow a recipe exactly so scales are a wise investment. I just want to be always awake. Always. I will make friends with a hedgehog and wear plastic gloves in case of prickles.

the advice panel