present state

Today feels strange, not bad - just odd..

cycle

avoiding sleeping
body dragging behind head
on a fraying rope

mid-winter smile

Taupo Bay, Northland: 10.07.10

 

This day had traces of the same feeling as summer. Tingling my skin: old friends and nostalgia and sunshine and beaches and music and everything good. The sand and the water were offering me choices. I felt a little less bound and really happy on this day. With my hands I whispered into the sand:

I look forward to real summer - it is always filled with days like this.

[Photos by Natasha van der Laan.]

like hybrid

My disposable world: Grabbing what I want, throwing away the rest. Grabbing what I want, throwing away the rest. The rest the rest the rest. I am - so  - restless !

adventure for one

Standing out of shower. Reaching for towel. Standing. Towel in hand. Mist clouding bathroom. Open window. Mist rushes out of bathroom. Traffic rushing on road. Blood rushing through veins. Eyes rushing in head.

Putting towel over front of body. Chin touching towel. Back of body is hot. Hot water trickling by spine. Large drops trickling out of shower head. Towel - one side - slightly damp. Wet footprints in bath mat. Floor becoming a puddle underneath.

Looking in mirror for face. Can't find face. Rubbing back of fist in circular motion to see face. Face. Face looks redder than usual. Small drops of water sitting in eyebrows.

Open window rushing closer. Pressing. Window behind back. Looking straight ahead. Pushing window back into its place. Walking backwards to sit on window sill. Dangling legs towards floor. Dripping water in direction of gravity. Back of body. Still wet. Bare. Colder now. Facing traffic. Traffic still rushing. Traffic is LOUD.

Face disappearing in mirror again. Mirror is further away than before. Bathroom is less misty than before. Outside is not misty. Outside is smoggy. Eyes are foggy. Head is not misty or foggy - a little wet. Top of head is hot. Face. Red. Body is cold.

Legs dangling towards floor. Can't find floor. Reaching. Looking. Floor is very very far away. Sitting on window sill and feeling traffic is close. Mirror is across room. Floating. Face. Face is floating across room on mirror. Floor has disappeared. Sitting on a window sill. Very high up.

Taps turning themselves on. Water filling up large space. Quickly. Large ocean right to horizon. Over traffic. Splashing dangling legs. Bottom of towel is wet.

Throwing towel onto water. Diving off window sill onto towel. Cushioned. Floating. Feeling face is wet. Feeling water in belly button. Back is dry. Air on back through window. Traffic driving over skin. Feels good.

Wondering where I will float to. Hungry. Goosebumps on arms. Paddling with hands over edge of towel. Bored. Looking for people. Can only see water.

Blue. Blue blue blue blue blue. Blue. Blue. More blue. Bored. Hungry. Cold. No people. Blue. Traffic rushing underwater. Want to get to it. Diving down off towel into water. Whole body is wet. A little warmer. Hair is stringy. Need to brush hair.

Diving downwards. Looking at cars. Red car. Red car. Green car. Truck. White car. White car. White - toilet seat. Toilet seat floats past. Swimming to where toilet seat came from.

Swimming. Water is disappearing. Traffic getting louder. Swimming faster. Water almost all gone. Standing up. Walking. Cold. Goosebumps. Arriving back in bathroom. Floor. Window sill. Window sill in its place. Stern look at window sill.

Looking over shoulder. Bathroom door locked. Turning around to face door. Turning back to toilet. Stern look at toilet. Turning to mirror. Side on to toilet. Looking.

Face. Not red. Stern look at self. Picking up soggy towel. Holding at arm's length. Looking at towel. Looking at mirror. Hearing traffic. Looking straight ahead. Seeing peripheral vison. Air freshener toppling sideways off toilet cistern. First night sleeping alone in twenty four nights.

want II

I am an excavator. I dig into the trenches of people’s minds. I pick through bones. I study brain cells. I reach into every erythrocyte. I scrutinize. I want to know what makes the atoms whirr in each person. And more than anything I want them to create electricity in me. I want to be provoked. I want to be questioned. I want to be challenged. I want to be fed. I want to be listened to. I want to be rebuked. I want to be agreed with. I want to be contradicted. I want to be energised. I want to be picked apart and recreated; I want to be reshaped and stretched. I want to be all these things at once. I want. I want.

prison

hiding place

Feeling a little bit Francesca Woodman.

breakfast

Most mornings on my way to school I will eat an apple. Crunchy and christmas coloured. Approximately 26 grams of carbohydrate. On a particular Tuesday morning I bite into an exceptionally delicious-looking fruit. It is juicier than I expect. I am devouring this apple because it is so good. I am eating it veryveryveryveryFAST. I am grinding it between my molars. It is rather tasty.

About two thirds of the way into the apple the chewed pieces scatter themselves around my mouth. They have grown little black legs. The stalk is wriggling underneath my tongue. The part of the apple I was still holding - the last third - disintegrates completely and I realise the apple is hundreds of tiny ants. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. They are trying very furiously to wedge themselves into the gaps between my teeth. Angry ants. They are burrowing into my gums. The stalk-worm is sliding inquiringly down my throat. They are looking for something in my stomach. Something important. They have heard from the whispers of my cilia that the last fruit I ate was particularly good and they are after it.

Without thinking. Out of pure impulse. I reach my hand into my mouth, deep into my belly and force myself to vomit. I throw up the bran and trim milk and banana I had for breakfast all over the footpath. I try to aim for the gutter. I step in some of it by mistake.

When the ants see this they leap out of my mouth and start feeding on my insides. My insides which are now spread all over the ground. They eat for a short while until they feel satisfied...

...and the stalk-worm sinks deeper and deeper into my belly.

blake/tash

On the ferry from Paihia to Russel.

blake and tash

They are super cute together
and like to take photos
and shimmy to good music
and made me feel happy all week.

driving

Blake and Tash in the front seats..

Me in the back sneakily taking photos =]

(Northland - 12.07.10)

She's sitting on a pile of white bones. Bright, bright white like Hollywood teeth. They are long and thin bones like arms and legs: A spider of bones beneath her. She looks very lovely sitting up there on her throne of stripped bodies. It makes you want to lay your hands over her eyes and maybe a third over her collarbone if you had three hands.

It doesn't look like she's doing anything but you can hear crunching. Or cracking. You can hear the breaking of bones. It's almost as if the bones are breaking themselves - yet you know it's her by the way she sits on top so unaffected. She's very calm. Not cold. But looking at something in the distance like her own head. Maybe she's picking out next winter's skeleton. She has been sitting there for a very long time.

But then -

On the seventh day, on the seventh holy day a beautiful sight happens. She steps down off the summit of the bones and sinks into the pile. The bones eat her up and the crunching becomes louder. You can't tell the crunching of her bones apart from the others, but you know this is why it's suddenly louder.

And when her body emerges at the bottom, her empty, broken skull is smiling.