Still So Young But Somehow So Much Older

When I was young my father left often, another capital I'd never heard of, another base dark and dingy, another Sunday afternoon spent watching him pack. He didn't mind that I watched, didn't get annoyed, say I was in the way, he was always nice then, and I guess it's because he was leaving.

He'd get these big bags of food and other useful things like soap and insect spray. Ration packs is what he called them. I used to sit on the worn carpet, legs crossed, my eyes scanning the pile, seeing what I could claim for myself. I don't remember how old I was when he first started, but he began to give me his chocolate rations. Small blocks for my still small hands. Wrapped in white plastic, 'milk chocolate' spelled out in black letters, my hands pressing the block, trying to find the indents. "Don't you get hungry Dad?" I used to ask, looking at the contents of his ration pack. "Nah darl," he would say, "I'm used to it by now," he'd smile.

My father sent me letters when he went away, and I'm not sure, but I think I sent him letters back. He told me once that he found them, I said we were driving to the place I was born, me, mum and my older brother, but we got a flat tire and it never snowed. December 1995, that's what he said. His letters were different. He talked about the boredom and the loneliness, how they had to sleep in a shroud of nets cause the mozzies were real bad over there, said he missed us, that he would be home soon.

He was usually gone for weeks at a time, sometimes months but he always left me his chocolate rations and he always brought home cheap cigarettes for my mother. I don't know what my brother got, he wanted a new pair of Reeboks, but I don't think they had those where my father was. 'Duty free', the cigarettes were, I never knew what that meant, but I knew it must have been something good because my mother always asked for it.

My mother must have been lonely all those weeks and months, but my father always came back home. I don't know if I was ever afraid, that one day he might stop coming back, that one day there would be no more chocolate, no more cigarettes, no more Dad. But I got used to him leaving, I knew my mother hated it, but she'd get used to it too, and in the end, she had to.

Between The Houses And The Stop Signs

I came across this when randomly browsing my documents, I made it in 2008 I can't believe it was just over two years ago. I was so idealistic back then, but it's nice to look back on anyway, thought I would put it here to remind myself that I haven't always been angry, I did have hope at some point in my life.

An artwork I made for a Tafe exhibition, below the pictures is the text written on the work.



Between the Houses and the Stop Signs

When I paint, I am alone, I am free. Free from what lies outside my doorstep. Stuck in a world where only I exist I make the rules. Life is how I planned it, life is not real anymore. Reaching for things becomes easier; being anonymous with a dream becomes important. It's about the way I hold the dream, how tightly I cling to it, if I cling to it at all. Or do I let it sail away into the breeze, free to find its way back to me when I’m ready for it.

The people have no face but they know who I am, they know what I want and they show me how to get it. They hide with me when it's dark; they become part of my shadow. They are the parts of me I choose to ignore when I am not here. They are the inner voices too afraid to speak up around the others. They feel insignificant in the real world, they feel little. In this world they are bigger than they could ever dream of, big enough to cast shadows onto the land, big enough to chase big things and catch them. When I am here I hold them tightly, they need love, they need someone to tell them that what they are thinking is important. They are here to show me what I don't want to see, what I can't see.

In every moment I spend in this world the light bulb shines brightly, the clouds throw down ropes instructing me to climb up them and the people hold out elongated arms and welcome you into a reality that is far more real than anything I’d find outside of my room. The shadows here aren't cold and burgeoning, they walk with me, they don't loom like a heavy weight over my head, they hold me up so I can see properly, carefully guiding me through the darkness so I don't stumble.

When I stop painting I am awakened to a world where I have restricted what I want, where I have disregarded something more and settled with what it's going to be. I watch the dream float away from my grasp as I accept that it will never be mine to hold, to live. When I close my eyes I see the Dream Chasers, they smile and wave, waiting for me to join them on their quest. The sky blue walls are littered with dream clouds waiting for my realisation that has yet to come.

The text seems poorly written now, and a bit lame, but the idea was there and it's a nice reminder of who I used to be.

I Need For You To Come And Go Without The Truth Falling Out

I don't really have anything to say, except that I miss you and time has made me forget what that used to mean. But that's a good thing right? I don't want to let myself fall back into it again, so I should stop it here, at these words that could mean anything to anyone, even you. Do they still? I don't know.

As The Days Go By

It seemed to me that my father had softened over the years, or perhaps it was just that I never knew him very well. But I did know that when he used to hit my mother he was not soft. His anger has dissolved now and I wonder if that will happen to me too, but I don't think I want to wait that long.

Now he is a two time divorcee with four boys and one girl; me, living in a complex of units in a town so small and far that I've forgotten the name. My father lines up at Crackerjack Chicken and Big Dad's pies for his meals and the thought makes me sad. If he were closer I'd invite him over, remind him what real food tasted like. He could only ever cook grilled cheese sandwiches, but they were the best, that I remember.

I don't know much about his life, only that it is small, and the same things must happen to him a lot, I get scared sometimes, that maybe that will be me in twenty years. Lining up at Crackerjack Chicken behind the young sheila who lived next door, two wives I'd had, five children I'd called my own. But I could never marry, or have children, so I know atleast, our lives will not be exactly the same in twenty years time.

I wish I were still young enough to ask my father silly questions, like what it was like being in the army, and what did he imagine his future to be like? Not like this I am sure. He has his kids atleast, but we don't talk much, him and I, what would we talk about? I think now, my father is beginning to look at me and realise what he has missed out on, he says he should visit more, slack he is, I'm too nice to pull him up on it, but it was true. I guess he decided that I was someone he wanted to know, and that scares me a little. What if I'm not who he thought I was? Or what if I turn out to be someone he doesn't like? Will he leave again, but not looking back this time?

I've never really been angry with my father, mostly I feel sorry for him. I think he has always loved my mother, but she has not always loved him, worst mistake of her life he was, that probably meant me too. But I am glad, that she did not love him back anymore, because for certain if she did, I would not be here now. I don't know where I would be, I don't know if I would be at all. All I know is that she was in trouble and she had to get out. I just hope that I am never in so much trouble that I have to get out.

I am not like mother nor father, but like someone who has grown up by themselves, and I look at them and remind myself that they are human, and we make mistakes more often than we get it right, and I just have to keep remembering that.

But I do hope my father finds someone who will look after him, so he can stop lining up at Crackerjack Chicken behind the young sheila who lives next door, because she's no good for him and neither is the food. My father is an honest man, he may not be the most exciting man in the world, but he is funny and honest and I'm proud of him for that. And maybe I am like him somehow too, funny and honest, atleast, I am trying really hard to be and that's something isn't it.

Storms

You told me to come here, to the edge of the world, and I never really figured out why. I came here to the edge of the world where the sky and the ocean blurred, one began but the other never ended, and I asked the questions burning on my mind.

I stand here knowing that no one who has come before me has ever questioned, they had always just accepted. I'm ready to find out if I'll fall or fly, you've taken me this far, and now it is time for me to let go, for you to let go, and let me find my fate.

I like to believe we end where we begin, and I began in the air, or was it the water? So here I am, facing my ending with so many questions, with so many footsteps towards the sun, cut through the air and above the water. My questions, my truths, on top of these cliffs, looking into the calm sea that people believe is me, but I feel the subtle wind shift through my hair and I know that is really me. The silent storm raging through a darkened sky, the one that no one ever saw coming.

So I try to say
Goodbye my friend
I'd like to leave you with something warm
But never have I been a blue calm sea
I have always been a storm.

Lovers And Friends

She was very presumptuous and I didn't really agree with that, but we were best friends, or more, so I forgave her. She said that I only saw things in black and white, but she only ever saw grey, and grey was the colour of my infidelity. Because grey was an unremarkable colour, was it even a colour at all? And by my grey infidelity I mean something that never happened.

There were nights with her that felt like highschool sleepovers. We'd stay up late talking, giggling, using a deck of cards to tell our fortune. Is Bec in love with x? Has Bec ever been in love with x? The cards never lied and those nights we laid our past and our future out in front of us and put a belief in it that was unwavering.

But she was more than my best friend, she was someone who knew me. Someone who would pull me up on my shortcomings, of which there were many. And she knew me in sensual ways that I can't really talk about here. She asked why I never wrote, why it was always about some other girl, and not her, and I guess I thought I didn't need to write about her, because she knew, she knew me. And maybe that's the thing, she stopped knowing me when I stopped letting her, and we became best friends that were strangers, strangers that shared the same bed, but strangers that had stopped sharing the same thoughts.

So I'm giving you back my thoughts because they've been gone for too long, and you might think that we are only best friends, but if you know me, and if you know my thoughts, then you will know the way I think about you, and it's not something I could ever say here.

I've Lost Myself Or Most Of Me

I'm chasing the back of you in a crowd, you are too far to call and too far to run after. So I try to find out if it's you by the way you walk. You have a very distinctive walk that always catches my eye, one that is determined, a woman on a mission. I guess one of the problems of being so observant is that I always see you coming but you never see me, and I take that personally. I look away from you, or who I believe to be you for a moment and you've disappeared. I can't seem to find where you have gone and I'm so busy looking that I almost miss the flirtatious smile from a passing highschool girl. This should make me smile but it makes me want to cry because I'm suffocating. I can't breathe here and you don't seem to understand that. You think that it's about you, but it's about me and it's about this place and the way it haunts me everytime I come here. But I can't take myself out of this place and neither can you, so I find a place within this place that haunts me and I stay there to catch my breath, I stay there until I can breathe again, until I can no longer think of seeing you.

Delicate

She looked like a fifties greaser in the tradition of k.d Lang, back when k.d Lang looked like the kind of girl you wouldn't take home to your mother, before she had you singing hallelujah. And what did that mean anyway? Why had she chosen those words to say to me at that time? Because I knew that everything she said, it had meaning, and that's what I liked about her, perhaps that's what I liked a little too much.

She was the kind of sexy that made you sigh because girl you were in so much trouble. And like k.d Lang, she had a way of singing about loss and longing that seemed to connect only with me, and when she stopped singing, when it was quiet, that was when I finally learnt what it was to lose.

There's always been this incredible distance between my heart and  my mind, there had to be, because I could not stop my heart from wanting what my mind knew I couldn't have. I'm still waiting for my hallelujah moment, and I know it should have come sooner, it should have come by now. I know what it is to feel too much and I know what it is to feel nothing at all, and she understood this in a way that made me think she did too.

Hallelujah is what she said to me, but I couldn't let those words be our last because I didn't know why she was saying them, I didn't know why she was leaving and I didn't know why my last image of her was my hands running through her hair, her baby face revealed, blue eyes that had lost so much.

So why do you fill my sorrow
With the words you've borrowed
From the only place you've known
And why do you sing Hallelujah
If it means nothing to you
Why do you sing with me at all?

I Believe In Breathing Just For Today

Don't let it haunt you because it will, and one day you will wake up and realise you have nothing. One day you will wake up and realise that all you have are memories, memories that haunt you. So whatever you do, don't let this haunt you, do something, do anything you can to let it go, just breathe and let it go.

There's Something In You I Believe In

There's that same old fear again, creeping back in, taking back a part of you that you had reclaimed. And you can't tell if the fear is because of exposure to the source, or if it's just back, because these things do come back and these things they are a part of you that is unchangeable. This fear that went away and cruelly came back, you remember it so clearly, and it's not something that you can describe to someone who hasn't felt it, but it is choking, it is struggling to breathe, it is trying really hard to describe it only to realise someone already has. The way that they describe it is beautiful, moving, and it's such an ugly thing but somehow it's beautiful, and you've always seen the beauty in the small things. And here is this great big beautiful thing being described that you have been longing to find words for, and here they are, these words that feel so close to you, this fear being described in a way that you can't forget. This fear being described in a way that makes you want to remember every single word for the rest of your life, because finally, someone has described this feeling, this choking, struggling feeling, and it is beautiful.

I Left My Heart In Places, Forgot Every One Of Their Faces

You are gone, but somehow, still here, and to me that doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem fair that I can't find you, or that I don't even know where to look. You're gone, and I should be okay with that, it's been so long, but I'm not okay. I don't have a number or an address, and even if I did, what would I do with it?

You always said that I should write, that it was good, that it made you feel something, well do you feel something now? The chances that you are reading this are practically zero, and even if you were, what would you do with it? How would you know I was talking about you, and even if you knew, why would you care? I told you I stopped caring, but I didn't, and I thought about you for a long time, and then for no time at all. But here you are again, in my mind, and maybe it's just nostalgia but I miss you and if I could, I would have stayed, I'd never have left because I was your rock and you were mine, and somehow that became too much, so I let go.

I was scared to let you back in, you seemed to be everywhere I was and I couldn't take that. So now I'm the one on the other side, searching for you, wanting to get back in, but I won't find you and you won't read this and I'm not really okay with that.

Don't Make Me The One That You Left Behind

She was one of those rare special people who stuck to their word, even after I’d come unstuck with mine so many times. She even gave me a song that was all mine. She gave me a lot of songs actually, but this one really stuck. She was a wallflower, and that makes sense doesn’t it? Because I found her on a wall on a beautiful day where the clouds made ripples in the sky like the ocean. Some say that’s not possible, to compare the sky to the ocean, but I think it is, and this girl that I found on a wall, she thought so too.

When you look out to sea and all you see is ocean and sky you get this feeling that you are losing everything that’s been holding you back, you get this feeling that you can leave it behind because that line between the sky and the ocean, it becomes blurred. So much so that you begin to believe that there really could be ripples in the sky just like the ocean and maybe that’s all you need to believe.

I don’t believe it’s impossible, for two to merge into one, and for all that vastness what you get in return is clarity, and then finally, finally, you can let go. But like that blurred line, you realise that the girl you found on a wall, she’s fading away, and you can’t figure out if you should blame the ocean or the sky or maybe you should just blame yourself. Because all those rare special people only exist in the moments before a moment, everything after that is up to you. And if I were more grateful I’d say thank you, for letting me find this girl, for letting me have this one moment, but I can’t help but wonder where that girl has gone.

You are probably someone else’s girl now, and I know that you were never mine, but you took a chance on me and I let you down. You decided I wasn’t worth the risk and you know what, I’m not, but you should have never made me feel this way, because for as long as you’ve been gone, all I can do is look for you, or look for someone like you. And I don’t know what feeling is worse, knowing there is no one else like you, or not ever really knowing you at all.

We have this tendency to exaggerate until suddenly we believe the impossible, and I guess it was all the dreams about you, but you’ve become so exaggerated that I’ve begun to wonder if you were ever real. And that wall that I found you on has become the outline of my world, a wall that exists for as long as I let it, a wall that exists without you, and that seems more impossible to me than anything. That you, the girl, the rare special girl, the wallflower that I picked, that you are no longer on that wall and that wall continues to haunt me and I’ve chased that wall to the place where only the sky and the ocean lay, but you aren’t there. And all I can tell you now is that I no longer believe.

I had this thought, this crazy thought that you’d be back one day and you’d find the wall where I found you and you’d write to me. But I guess to you this feels like the right thing to do. But can I tell you that all I feel is sadness and disappointment. That you became one of those people who disappeared, and if it was just that, then I would have expected it, forgave it. But you told me you weren’t one of those people and it sounds so stupid now but there seemed to be so much honesty between us that I actually believed you.

Looking now at the empty wall the truth seems hard to find. What you did, what you are doing, it’s not helping, and I know you think it is. You think that I need time and space, but I’ve told you about all the things I don’t believe in and they made the list. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe I’ve been wrong all this time. Maybe you aren’t that rare special girl and what I never told you is that I never really wanted it to happen, and I know you said it never could, but I knew that and all I wanted was something to believe in again. And no, you know what, I’ve tried to live my life, to let it go and leave it, and that’s great advice coming from someone who’s already left. I’ve been living with this delusion that you’ll read my writings on the wall, that you’ll come back one day, that you might even write back to me, you might even consider that we could start again.

So here it is, I’m giving you my truths and right now to me they feel like the ripples in the sky, but you don’t look at the sky anymore do you?

Before You Take A Swing, I Wonder, What Are We Fighting For?

The streets feel so big when you are walking through the middle of them, not a car in sight, just people, people who all believe they are fighting for the same thing. I woke up this morning and asked myself what I was fighting for. Because today was Pride day in Brisbane and that was meant to mean something to me. So I put on my temporary rainbow tattoo and I held my girlfriend's hand and I decided to feel proud. But I still wasn't sure why I was meant to feel proud or what I was fighting for.

Last year was my first pride march and I remember feeling quite emotional, I was surely achieving some kind of milestone, a rite of passage, I don't know. This year wasn't the same, there were less people in the march and it was quieter, I admit I've never been one to cheer myself, too self conscious, but there wasn't the same buzz, the same spirit. I couldn't help but feel that the city could do a little more to support the event. Because it was an event, to a minority perhaps, and my guess is that if you asked the general majority of people if they knew what today was, they wouldn't know, and why would they? What does this day mean to other people?

So I asked myself again what I was fighting for, if we are fighting for equality, which is what I assume it is, then why is this day so exclusive? Why, when it's over do I feel a strange emptiness, a sadness to walk amongst the crowds again, because I'm no longer in a space where I feel accepted. As we marched, a bunch of onlooking teenagers were taking photos and shouting out 'faggots', laughing and running off, probably running home to post the pics on Facebook and have a laugh with their mates, because apparently being gay was funny. Why are we breeding ignorance and not acceptance?

I can only speak for myself and I can only say what this day means to me. Pride day to me is about fighting for the right to walk down the street holding my girlfriend's hand and to not feel like I'm on show in a museum. I'm fighting for the right to not be verbally abused in public by passersby whose only knowledge of lesbians is as porno turn-ons. I only came out less than three years ago and I can't even count the amount of times I've experienced homophobia. A mother pointing my girlfriend and I out to her children 'look kids, those are lesbians'. Last time I checked, 'lesbians' weren't a rare species, an exhibit in a museum, an attraction at the circus, but that's what I've been made to feel like, and I know I'm not alone in this.

This day means a lot to me and I show it by wearing my pride on my sleeve, something I wish I could do more often. At times I have succumbed to the pressure of hiding my sexuality for the sake of other's comfort, but no longer. If someone is going to stare at me for not looking how I'm 'supposed' to look, then I'm going to stare back at them and make them feel uncomfortable, make them feel wrong. Our gender shouldn't be defined by the clothes we wear and the haircuts we have, we love our stereotypes sure, but we need to leave these tired definitions behind if we are ever going to see change. I'm not going to try and define myself within a world that has already decided to define me, I'll find another way you can count on that.

The Night Is Yours Alone

Don't you remember back when we were young and our loves were young. When we had sleepovers and sang about everybody hurting. And now we are older and we've been hurt, some still hurting. We believe those words now, more than we believe in a love that lasts forever. And what I never told you was that when I sang those words I was that person hurting, and what you don't know now is that I'm still hurting, and the nights are mine alone.

What I'm telling you now is that I've had enough and I'm waiting for you to tell me it will be alright. But you won't tell me. You won't tell me anything. So I guess I'll just sing those words to myself now that we're older and now that we've realised love won't last forever.

I thought you believed in them too. I thought you were the one who would be there to tell me. But you are hurting in your own way now. I feel that if I knew you sooner, or if I knew you different, then this would all be okay and we could go back to our sleepovers and young loves and choose a different song to sing. But we can't, so we have to sing this song about everybody who hurts, but let's not make it a competition, I know all the hurt people and I've hurt enough to sing it straight.

I always begged for someone to sing this song with me, so we could hurt together, if only I knew you then, we could have sang it together. We could sing it straight because we both know what hurt is and we've hurt enough to keep singing that song until we no longer believe in anything but pain.

The Last Plane Out Of Sydney

I looked at my father and tried to find the parts of him that were like me. We had the same nose and the same sense of humour, but that's all I could find. He told me he was going away and that made me think of the times when I was younger when he would tell me he was moving to another city. He'd show me the city on a map, like knowing where he was going would somehow make it easier because there was only a ten centimetre line separating us.

I remember those times I'd try not to be emotional, because I never knew him anyway, so what difference did ten centimetres make? But then I'd go to bed and cry myself to sleep, because I didn't know him, and now I never would. He's only a few centimetres away now but I still cry when he says he's leaving because in twelve years, nothing has changed.

I have all these songs that make me think of him. Khe Sanh by Cold Chisel is my favourite. I was in the car with mum and dad one night when I was only young, but old enough to remember songs and we were driving him to the airport, mum was doing him a favour since he didn't have a car anymore. We were driving past the planes taking off and Khe Sanh was playing on the radio and I was in the backseat with tears in my eyes because the last plane out of Sydney was almost gone and my dad was getting on it.

So I look at my dad and wonder what it's like to be a dad, and if he ever wished he was like other dads, or maybe that I was like other daughters. Because I don't know anyone like us. Atleast I know there are two things that will always keep us together, our noses and our sense of humour.

All The Small Things

She kissed me on the stairs and all I could think of was that I tasted like garlic and onion and meat. Meat. The stairs reminded me of the girl I liked when I was 12. She was my brother's girlfriend though, so I guess that complicated things. I tasted like garlic and onion and meat and she had just kissed me on the stairs. But all I could think of was my brother's girlfriend who I liked when I was 12.

I smelt like flowers and wasn't that strange? Flowers are feminine I guess, but she probably didn't notice that when she kissed me. Because I tasted weird and I was thinking about my brother's girlfriend and she was kissing me and I was going up the stairs and she was going down them.

And all I could think of was how I wished that I tasted sweet when she kissed me and how this wasn't the right time and I'd wished that she'd kiss me again, somewhere else when I tasted as good as I smelt and when I wasn't thinking about my brother's girlfriend and when she wasn't going down the stairs and me going up them.

I'm Only Pretty Sure That I Can't Take Anymore

So you go and live your life, you go and forget about me, go and replace me with someone similar, tell yourself that you are doing the right thing for all of us. You go and do what's good for you, because what's good for me stopped being good a long time ago.

I've had this dulling pain in my stomach for the last seven days and I think it is the pain of losing slowly, it's not sharp and intrusive but it's always there, when I wake up, when I think about you. This dulling pain heightens when I see you, when I think about seeing you, it becomes sharp and intrusive because I realise it is easier to hate you than to love you.

And so that's what I do, I hate instead of love and all the residual feelings of sorrow and loneliness are now replaced by an urgent angst, I am punching the brick wall now instead of crashing into it, slowly, sadly.

So you go and do what's good for you. You go and worry about yourself and don't you worry about me because I've decided to hate. You are going now with the pieces of my life that I handed to you, the pieces I told you to throw away.

So go and live your life and I'll live mine. I'll forget about you and the pain will pass.

You go and climb over those brick walls, and maybe you'll say hi to me as I crash into them, as my fists crash into them, as my heart crashes and my mind takes control.

Go and do what's good for you because I know you will. Forget this mess and just remember that you left a mark on me. So go and live your life, that's what I'm supposed to do right? Now that you are gone, or now that you are going, you did everything I said and now I hate you for it, because this dulling pain won't leave me and neither will my feelings.

I wonder how it's going to be when you don't know me anymore?

It's like you are removing all traces of yourself from my view, from my life. It's like you are scared. It's like you are being overly cautious. It's like you think I'm a danger to you. It's like you are gone.

So you go and live your life, you go and forget about me, go and replace me with someone similar, tell yourself that you are doing the right thing for all of us. And what happens when you do? You say we don't forget, but then what? If we don't forget then are we destined to fall?

In My Mind I Still Need A Place To Go

Clementine is the city that sits in the corner and never begs to be accepted into the middle. It is most fascinating when unoccupied, or when there is just one person, trying to find their way, asking what gives voice to mercy. Is it the stranger who leaves hope behind, because they are finished with it, because they believe you need it more. Because they know you are going home to no one and you are still searching for something to make it all worthwhile. Or is mercy the things you don't say, the words you forget when it means the most.

Visiting Clementine is like looking for hope in the tiny uninflected patch of sky that covers the universe. It is thinking of every city that came before it and realising it's like nothing you've ever seen. It is ignoring the green rolling hills and the tangerine sky and admitting that you are lost. That you've been lost a long time and you've come for forgiveness, you've come to find it in Clementine.

The shaded buildings hide the sun in Clementine. It is dark so you can find your way, not because you have lost it. Leaving Clementine is like sitting on the edge of the world and not caring whether you fall or fly, because there is nothing at the edge, it's all behind you now, back in Clementine where it all began. It is questioning what it all meant, because surely it meant something. It is forgiveness and accepting what's been left for you, because for as long as you can remember it's always felt like nothing.

Clementine is the city that reminds you of the girl you fell in love with, the one you left behind. The girl you've spent the rest of your life looking for.

The Spaces Between

I was so prepared for this to fall gracefully from my mind that I got caught in the space between falling and forgetting. So instead of this falling gracefully, it has stumbled, just like me. Unable to land on anything solid, unable to grasp anything real again.

Living Room

We are all voyeurs. We look into others lives with accidental intention and try to refrain from making comment, from correcting the misplaced apostrophes. Accidental intention cannot be said of my neighbour however.

I believe a neighbour is anyone who noses their way into your life, whether it be, asking what you are cooking for dinner, in the hopes that it might appear on their doorstep, or watching you from their windows with a great deal of intention. To me, a neighbour is not the person who lives in the apartment next door, the unnamed antagonist who keeps me up at night, going insane over their bad taste in music. Think: the circus meets Pavarotti. There is never talking or shuffling footsteps, but always muffled artificiality, seeping through the walls and encasing my bed in stone, in noisy, badly played stone.

But back to my neighbour, the one who has scrawled ‘my windows look into your living room’ in black marker on their window. There may be two footpaths, a four lane road, a thousand cars, several flights of stairs and our whole lives separating us, but this neighbour feels inherently close to me, to my life. They are in the living room of my mind. Always, just waiting, sipping a quiet tea while I’m out back going mad over caffeine. They are just sitting, waiting.

I can’t recall if the writing had been there since I’d moved in, or if it was newly written, and in my own secret pain I’d failed to notice. My neighbour watches as I slip into another narcoleptic state on the couch. I don’t actually own a couch, or the traditional meaning of the word. What I own is chairs, many chairs. Chairs that form in the shape of a couch but never mimic the indulgent comfort. I’d learned to live with this, told myself it was only what I deserved.

My neighbour watches me as I sit on the floor with the blinds flung together, drawn open, knees to my chest, sobbing because I had just let everything go for the second time in my life and it didn’t feel good like it did the first. They watched me as I began to wonder why. The person in the apartment next door did not see this, nor did they hear it. But my neighbour sees everything; they live my life with me through four panes of glass. They watch me sit on the balcony on my vintage bicycle, eyes shut, speeding blindly through the streets, ringing the bell madly and knocking people down like they were empty rubbish bins. They understand why I do this on the balcony and not the street. Because the street is full of terrible people like the person who lives next door, listening to circus opera.

Me and my neighbour, we understand that the city is not brimming with life, full of people surging through its veins. We understand that this is a desert we live in, that it is only as real as we let ourselves believe, and that at any given moment this desert will become imaginary, and we will be separated from one another forever.

So when those words scrawled on the window begin to make me feel uneasy, I just remind myself, this person, this person is my neighbour. My neighbour understands me, understands why I’m alone all the time, why I’ll never leave the house again, and why no one will ever come to my door. My neighbour understands because they wait for me in the living room of my mind, every night, just waiting. Waiting for me.

I Feel Something, It's Better Than Nothing

Whoever said time heals all wounds lied. It's hard to let go of you, to forget, when your words are all that I can remember, I can't stop them making me sad.

I guess I was looking for that immediacy again, that release, but it isn't the same this time. It is slow and painful, it is remembering everything you ever said and trying to tell myself it meant nothing.

Breaking the chain doesn't mean it's not going to happen again. This ugliness will mutate itself into another form and take hold when it feels like it. I don't have control, and that thought makes me sick. Trying to take control of this is a pointless venture into the ocean.

I found this quote in a book I'm reading at the moment 'How easy it is to destroy the past and how difficult to forget it.' Sometimes things just make sense, they just stick, and that sticks. It's so rare to meet someone who just gets it, and so isn't it natural to do everything you can to hold on to that?

Time doesn't heal all wounds, no. Not at all.

You've Begun To Feel Like Home

I'm becoming very uneasy about these feelings returning. What does it mean? And why, when I was so sure I was past this, that it was not what it had been made out to be. Why am I starting to convince myself that I've been wrong all this time.

You are appearing in my dreams, and you always seem so real to me. It's always the same story though, I lie even in my dreams. At times it feels like there is so much connecting us, but I realise these things I hold on to, they mean nothing to no one but me. And what do I do with that but go crazy around the thought.

I was so sure, I'm always sure. But now I have this urge, to throw it away, to be honest with you, with myself. But I can't. Not now. What good would it do anyway? Break things apart. Lose the few things keeping me together. But I can't spend my days circling around these feelings, feeling empty, feeling full, feeling afraid that one day you will be gone and then I will be back to where I was before. I've begun to trust you more than is good for myself and it can't be like that, ever.

I can't escape this. And I'd never have guessed not long ago, that I would be in this place now. That all these things would have added up to anything, that they could have such an effect. It doesn't matter where I go, you can call the city whatever you want but you are always there still, somehow, you follow me and I'm not sure I'm even trying to run from you.

We All Begin With Good Intent

And now for something completely different...

A ginger cat sits on a windowsill, poking its head out, searching. A man kneels before a house not his, he is holding something. A beer bottle, it’s 3pm and he looks a little like Cat Stevens. A guy and girl walk past with matching black dreadlocks, it is their only connection. A pair of faded shoes hang from the powerlines above.

None of this can be seen from inside the house though. Audrey is spitting in the bathroom sink. It’s the bitter taste of losing everything. Sound creeps under the door from the bedroom. She’s playing her weekly playlist, but it only has two songs. One encapsulates a hidden zeitgeist for life. The other is the song she will listen to when she stuffs up her life for good. It’s important to have these things. Audrey is that girl. The one who has a default answer for every question thrown her way. Most often you will hear her say “no” or “I’m okay”. This is also important.

Those shoes hanging from the powerlines, they are hers. The math isn’t important but she’s had them since she was 15 and they’ve been up there for 10 years.

She used to imagine the kind of animated characters that would climb their ladders to the sky and leave their shoes behind. Audrey thought shoes were for wearing, but that didn’t stop her thinking of ways to get hers up there. The shoes aren’t important however, at least, not imperative. There was nothing tragic about being 15, or the years that followed.

Audrey has often thought about chasing the black lines to the edge of the horizon. To jump up and pull them down, tangle them around her body, feed them through her veins and feed off their currents, because she’s running out of ways to feel alive again. There is nothing scientific about it though.

Truth is, Audrey has already played that song, the one about losing everything. You could probably guess why. There isn’t much to say, and she’s stopped counting the years because the time that has passed isn’t important. There was power in isolation and Audrey knew that best.

She hanged her soul from the powerlines one day because that was all that was left to do. And like those shoes and the ginger cat, and the man who looked like Cat Stevens, and the boy and girl with matching dreads, Audrey’s soul remained an indescript speckle on the landscape, chasing the endless sky. And that is important.

All The Lies That You've Been Living In

I woke up and saw Christmas in my eyes. It happens like this every night, or is it morning? I’m never really sure which. They say green is the colour of envy, but I don’t believe it. At least, not this green that stares back at me. This green is a mix of endless sky and the changing fallen leaf. But it’s the red that always stands out the most and I no longer see Christmas. I see an old man in the bar at 1am, he’s on his fifth. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it doesn’t take him much these days.

There are no windows and the dark, warm silence provides refuge for the fitful hours I spend between sleep. But it’s not enough to keep me there. I go to you, I stumble. I am that drunken old man, fumbling in the dark, grasping for something tangible, something real. I ask you the time, because I haven’t been counting tonight. You tell me that time doesn’t matter while you’re asleep and while you’re meant to be asleep.

I guess that’s the thing you don’t understand, I can’t sleep. These truths that I’ve been hiding from you – they are becoming real in your dreams and I stay awake in a sweat every night, waiting for it to all unravel. If I empty my mind into yours then maybe this will wash away the black stains on the walls. However, it is this darkness that comforts me, because you cannot see my eyes, you cannot see all that I’ve been keeping from you.

The Day You Went Away

It's been four years today since you passed. I may have a good memory, but it is not a date I like to remember, nor is it one that is easy to forget. Sometimes I still think you are a coward for leaving, but I've never been angry about it, just sorry. If it was us who you cared so deeply for, then why? Why did you leave, and after you left why did you leave us to live in fear of your return, only to leave us for good in the end.

I can't imagine what they feel, but I know what I feel. I know that I still remember that sunday. And the saturday and friday too. The shock, the guilt, and finally the sadness. You were gone, out of our lives, but suddenly you were back and we had to remember the good times, in order to go back to that place. I've never told anyone about the guilt I felt, keeping it from them. I guess it wasn't important at the time, I did what I had to do in order to keep going. It's funny how your death has a soundtrack that I listen to from time to time. I listen to 'Heaven Help My Heart' by Tina Arena when I'm feeling guilty. That was the song playing at the time- as the three of us sat in McDonald's, the two of them so blissfully unaware that their father was lying in hospital, on the verge of dying. How could I tell them that? Of course they had a right to know, but they were so young, she barely even remembered you because you left so early in her life. And he was so much like you, even back then.

The sunday was the worst, of course. It was the day you passed. I think it was the suddenness of it all that really hit us. You were out of our lives for years, sure we saw you at the local shops and it was awkward, and hard for mum, but this, we never expected. I don't think anyone ever does. It's one of those tragic things you read about in the paper and hear on the news, but god, you never think it will happen to anyone you know, let alone the man who was once your stepdad.

I didn't go to the hospital to visit you, you were unconscious anyway, not that it's an excuse. But they said you didn't look the same, the accident, it had changed you. And I couldn't bare that. I didn't want to see you looking so beaten. I wanted to remember you as the man who made me love Disney movies, the man who taught me math without using a calculator, and the man who once helped me make that styrofoam boat that won the race. I wouldn't remember you as the coward who was always running away from us, from life. I wouldn't remember that night that changed us all forever, the glass house that came shattering down. And I wouldn't remember the way I selfishly feared for my life that night.

What I will remember is the phone call that sunday afternoon. Mum took it in another room, and my older brother was there with her. I didn't know what had been said, but the sound of my mums helpless cry told me everything. And then we all sat, crying, except for the two young ones. We cried because suddenly and without warning our life had changed so dramatically, so tragically, and now we all had to live with it. With the regret, the sorrow, the memories.

I know I shouldn't, but I regret it. Not going to your funeral. I made so many excuses at the time and they all seemed to fit. I had a test that day, I had nothing to wear, and we had no money to buy funeral clothes, can you imagine that? I was just a burden, so my older brother went with my mum instead, he was stronger, they were closer. I would have just cried, stayed frozen, I couldn't do that to her.

My only reprieve was finding your funeral program a few weeks later. Your photo plastered on the front, a hurtful reminder. I looked at the songs they played at your funeral, because I believe that kind of thing is important. If we are going to remember you, then we need the right soundtrack. I can't remember the order, but I think it went something like - The Day You Went Away - Wendy Matthews at the beginning of the ceremony, Many Rivers To Cross - Toni Childs in the middle, and Bat Out Of Hell - Meatloaf at the end. I still smile at the last one because that is your song, above all others, the other two are fitting for the occasion, but this song defined you. It's how I'd like to remember you, when the bad memories take over the good. I'll remember your cowboy hat, and the long drives in the van that my brother and I were so ashamed of, your music (Meatloaf) blaring the whole trip. I used to get so mad, the music was so loud, you were so full of life, I just wanted it all to be quiet. And now it is quiet, and I can't help but wish for those times when we were all living so loudly.

I often wonder if mum remembers the date, she's bad with things like that, but I'm sure she estimates. My younger brother and sister, I know they don't. Do they even remember him? Sometimes they tell people and I feel sad for them. Sometimes they tell me they miss him and I say I miss him too. My older brother, I wonder if he misses him, if he remembers the day. Something tells me not, he's got his own life now, but I'm sure he remembers the loss. And me? I remember every year, and I try to live the day in sadness, if only to preserve your memory, a life taken far too soon, a life that I will miss until the end.

I Know What I Should Do But I Just Can't Walk Away

When they talk about emptiness I suppose it's like a hole, one that could never be filled. A canyon in which your voice bounces and echoes off the walls, into air that no one else is breathing, no one else is listening to. But surely there is another way to describe it. Because logic remains that if we are alive and breathing, then we are not empty. We are full, bursting even, but never empty. It's a shame I never believed in logic

I'm crashing into walls now because I've done everything I can and it has come to an end. Things have been said and done that can't be forgotten.

I need help, but don't know who to turn to because I am in so deep and I am suffocating under the weight of my decisions.

You all know too much. You are there, but I can't turn to you because it should never have been like that. I have to face the thought of you everyday now and I don't know how I'll do it. It's too much to ask someone to worry. When they themselves already have so much that is filling them up. And I am left here, empty. But isn't that the way it's always been?

A House Doesn't Make A Home

There's something strangely symbolic about the way our house used to smell. When we arrived it was a warm, sweet smell. But as time went on the smell changed, you could say that's not the only thing that changed.

The house on the hill took on a smell that signified all of its troubles. A decayed rotting smell. Something had died, several times. It wasn't what it used to be, and neither was I because of it.

It's so easy to pack up our belongings, shift from four walls to another, but we always leave something behind, and something is always left with us. I may have left an empty shell of a life I used to live, but the smells will always stay with me. The ones that were often so enticing, tempting, they drove me away.

I don't know if I would have ever called it home, but right now I can't call anything home. And I don't think I will for a long time. Maybe I've learnt that home is not a place, so much as it is a feeling.

It feels like I'm forever leaving, running, and there are things I miss already that have been left behind. A closeness to you, the last thing I've been holding on to, to keep me sane. It's gone now and I don't know how to deal with that. Although sudden loss is no stranger to me, I will miss the journey home, the one that gave me hope over convenience.

No matter how foreign these places are to me, they are no stranger than myself, and the places I have found within.

Please Don't Tell Me This Has Been In Vain

I feel like I'm standing right on the edge of my life right now. There's no pretty way to describe it. It's actually quite ugly. It's all at the tip of my fingers, so ready to crumble in my grasp, or to form into something solid, something I can hold. These things I've gotten myself into, I'd never believe.

You wouldn't believe it either. And I wouldn't know where to start, so I just don't. And I tell myself it's better this way. But I can't lose the anxiety.

It's so uncertain, and it always is. But this kind of uncertainty is one I can't get comfortable with. I can't take this on everyday, but I don't know how to confront it, or even if I should.

I'm standing on the edge of the world now. I can't go back.

Never Have I Been A Blue Calm Sea

We were the storm chasers, only, we weren't really. We were running from the storm. But they didn't know it. Maybe I was the one running. But I'd never tell you from what.

It's eerie out. A stretch of orange marks the sky and it reminds me of a painting I once saw. It had the same intensity, only I wasn't frightened of it. I watch out the back window of the car. The sky flickers like a light in a cellar. There is no sound though. A silent storm - the thought of it seems so unreal. Sometimes it feels like I have a silent storm raging through me.

Nostalgic music floats through the car, it feels like a movie. The ones where the characters are all so oblivious to their impending doom, but I'm not, I've always seen it coming. I've always been afraid. It's the fear of losing control that gets to me. I guess this runs deeper than nature, but I'd never tell you why.

I'll Never Live To Match The Beauty Again

As of today I've been living in Brisbane for one year and there are things about this city that will always pull me back, no matter where I end up. Just like in Sydney, there are places that I miss, both new and old. Some I have just discovered, and already find myself yearning to revisit.

I guess each city is its own entity, and while superficially it may seem that a city is defined by its places and people, there has to be something underneath all that, that makes it what it is. Because without that, then it is just another suffocating landscape.

To me, Brisbane is an endless stretch of the horizon burgeoning on sunset, full of hope and promise, but always disappearing just before you can grab a hold of what it is you are looking for. But you wake up the next day and it's still there, that little promise of greatness pushed far into the distance, waiting for you to reach it.

Brisbane is beautiful in the most ordinary of ways. It is an earnest beauty that needs no explanation, or maybe I just can't find one. How do you describe the way the light falls on certain parts of the landscape, and that this in itself gives you hope, and makes you breathe easier somehow. Perhaps it is because from where I am, I can see it all, the mountains, the city, the small people below, going about their daily lives as if they are blind to the natural beauty right before their eyes.

There is much about this city I am yet to uncover, but I want to find it all, take it in, and never for a second take for granted what is in front of me. And aside from that...pretty girls talk to me in Brisbane, so I can't complain!

Kick, Push

My feet are glued to the deck and I'm an unstoppable force. There's nothing graceful about it though- at least, not the way I do it. It's gritty, fast and clumsy. I look at the videos, try to imitate their style, but it never quite seems right. And then I realise it's not about the way they do it, it's about the way I do it. The way my front foot is never far forward enough, and my back foot hugs the tail, so much so that I risk flipping myself off the board. And the way my arms hang aimlessly, feeling left out, you can't imitate that.

I stop to take in the view. It's such a contrast, the pureness of the mountains and the fields, and then the ugly mess that we've created. And then it begins to rain, and it's just what I expect. It feels good against my skin, cold from sweat. My arms glisten and the road becomes slick and dangerous, but the ride is smoother and faster. I enjoy the rain but yearn for the sunset, which is the thing I really came for. The view from here can only be described as magnificent, it makes me feel small, but in a good way. The rain has clouded over my sunset and I miss the pink and orange stains in the sky. The gold, that seeps through the cracks. The kind of gold that can't be manufactured.

My music filters out the world while I ride, makes me feel invincible. I'm listening to Incubus, because it's angsty but full of hopefulness, I guess that's how you'd describe me. The tingle in my feet that I get when I step off the board reminds me that I'm alive, that I'm feeling again. And even that small inch of fear that creeps in when I start to go too fast down a winding road, that disappears eventually too. Not because I am foolish, but because I'm flying, and nothing else matters in that moment.

All The Same

Sometimes it's hard to believe we are all looking in to the same sky. To think, that on the other side of the world someone else is looking into the very same space that you are. I need someone to explain to me the way the earth turns, because it never quite makes sense. Are we all really that connected? And if so, then why are we so often plagued with loneliness? At night when we look up and try to connect the dots- figure out what it all means, who's to say there isn't someone else out there, doing the same. Staring into the same sky, feeling like an insignificant speck on the landscape. Because that's all we are right? Specks on the landscape. When you're in the sky it all looks the same, it's the same shade of green all over. And so if we just live our life remembering what it looks like from the sky, then all these things that don't really matter, like if you're big or little, they shouldn't matter should they? Because if we are to look down from above, we will realise, it's all indistinguishable. I guess in the big scheme of things as they often put it, we are all so much smaller than we think we are.