If walls could talk, what would they tell me? I long to hear the secrets of my fortified enclosure. Would each bleached bathroom tile tell a different story?
Or would the testimony of the yellow kitchen better suit? After all, what's a crack here or there, when all is said and done?
If I put my ear to the parquetry floor, would the stained wood whisper into it? And what of the cupboards and doors? Surely they too have a tale to tell?
I am sure the cool glass of my windows, with their voyueristic recounts, would be the most interesting storytellers of all. After all, people are well aware that walls, though mute, see everything.
But windows - they are treated with contempt. They are hidden behind dusty blinds or curtains. They are peered through mercilessly, and locked at night.
I'm sure they hate it. And of course, anger is always the best catalyst for forbidden knowledge.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Mauer im Kopf
She is her own Iron Curtain. I believe that she was born hairless and blind, within a Berliner Mauer of her own purposeful creation.
It was tantamount to a life sentence. She is free in every physical sense of the word, and yet she lives but a half life. She is manacled in darkness behind encumbering, onerous walls. Walls of gelatinous ice that grow thicker and colder by the year. Nobody could scale those walls.
Angular shadows circle the perimeter. They tote sleek, black revolvers stocked with the silver-tongued ammunition of sharp words. The orders? Shoot to kill. The heavy artillery is in fact, a fusillade of barbed rhetoric designed to wreak mayhem on magnanimity. These guards have no qualms in kicking a grounded bitch.
You may ask, as many have, why she hides behind such fortifications. I sometimes entertain fanciful notions of drawbridges or ladders; of a secret door or a knowing prince who could penetrate her sanctity, though I know of none myself.
But the truth isn't nearly so romantic. She severed her own golden locks and flung them from the window of her Rapunzel tower; barricaded the doorways with red brick and mortar, and melted up the iron keys with her own fiery temper.
She doesn't want to be saved. She never has.
It saddens me, because I feel in my bones that the very walls that house her are about to come under seige.
And I hate to think of them falling in on her.
It was tantamount to a life sentence. She is free in every physical sense of the word, and yet she lives but a half life. She is manacled in darkness behind encumbering, onerous walls. Walls of gelatinous ice that grow thicker and colder by the year. Nobody could scale those walls.
Angular shadows circle the perimeter. They tote sleek, black revolvers stocked with the silver-tongued ammunition of sharp words. The orders? Shoot to kill. The heavy artillery is in fact, a fusillade of barbed rhetoric designed to wreak mayhem on magnanimity. These guards have no qualms in kicking a grounded bitch.
You may ask, as many have, why she hides behind such fortifications. I sometimes entertain fanciful notions of drawbridges or ladders; of a secret door or a knowing prince who could penetrate her sanctity, though I know of none myself.
But the truth isn't nearly so romantic. She severed her own golden locks and flung them from the window of her Rapunzel tower; barricaded the doorways with red brick and mortar, and melted up the iron keys with her own fiery temper.
She doesn't want to be saved. She never has.
It saddens me, because I feel in my bones that the very walls that house her are about to come under seige.
And I hate to think of them falling in on her.
I can't find a wall to pin this to.*
I'm quite partial to walls.
Mine are blue.
Yours are black. I saw the picture
of the face you painted.
It glistened as it slid down the wall, unaffected in its liquid state.
I had an image of you sliding down that wall too. Mentally, mind you. You'd never actually
let me see you.
Completely affected. I know how you are.
The posters are peeling now. They've been forgotten in your dizzy haze.
You never open the curtains, they hang listless in your wake.
It's hard to discern night from day lately.
In the unmade mess of your tangled sheets I see you sleep.
Troubled.
How I wish I could save you.
You have your walls though.
Solid, comforting.
I have mine too.
Maybe thats the problem.
We need doors, and windows and a better metaphor.
-----
i found a note i had written a year ago : i remember writing it. Sitting outside the science block, one of my last remaining free periods. staring out at the quadrangle, at the place that had been home for 6 years.
-----
Sorry- if i left you
hanging
it wasn't intentional-
if i bit your pretty heart in two
into a thousand shards.
you're like the wall behind me-
cold among other things.
i would collect you if i could.
paint you 40 shades of content.
what happens in the heart simply happens.he said. i wish i had listened.
how do they stay up there? floating. as if they dont fully exist- an opaque impression of life.
i want to remember this
the sky, the grass-
so symmetrical as if its trying to live up to some imagined expectation. the gum-stained concrete, the cage-like canteen.
the lack of lockers, soap, toilet paper.
the abundance of insults, loyalty and adolescence.
the garbage bins painted varying shades of mustard yellow and apple green. deformed attempts of a cylinder. trying to prve they were once something special.
the corridors that stretch and echo with shouts and steps.
the familiar variations of songs rolling out of the music rooms. the pathetic absence of air-conditioning, the lurid sports uniform.
the sounds, the smells of every other grade, of understanding, of a new day.
the people who know me, accept me, acknowledge me. I like having somewhere to go, i like knowing what im doing, where i am. i like the comfort and constancy of fitting somewhere. I want to see every part of this place that has encapsulated my being for six years.
--------
School
had walls that were so perfect i was afraid to leave them, to even look beyond them. I did though.
I have new walls now. Not so familiar. i dont love them as much. enough.
the walls keep changing and moving and i have this feeling that one day soon i may have no walls at all.
-----
* i can't find a wall to pin this to because it has no category. i can make neither head nor tail of it.
disregard its nonsensicality.
antidisestablishmentarianism.
Mine are blue.
Yours are black. I saw the picture
of the face you painted.
It glistened as it slid down the wall, unaffected in its liquid state.
I had an image of you sliding down that wall too. Mentally, mind you. You'd never actually
let me see you.
Completely affected. I know how you are.
The posters are peeling now. They've been forgotten in your dizzy haze.
You never open the curtains, they hang listless in your wake.
It's hard to discern night from day lately.
In the unmade mess of your tangled sheets I see you sleep.
Troubled.
How I wish I could save you.
You have your walls though.
Solid, comforting.
I have mine too.
Maybe thats the problem.
We need doors, and windows and a better metaphor.
-----
i found a note i had written a year ago : i remember writing it. Sitting outside the science block, one of my last remaining free periods. staring out at the quadrangle, at the place that had been home for 6 years.
-----
Sorry- if i left you
hanging
it wasn't intentional-
if i bit your pretty heart in two
into a thousand shards.
you're like the wall behind me-
cold among other things.
i would collect you if i could.
paint you 40 shades of content.
what happens in the heart simply happens.he said. i wish i had listened.
how do they stay up there? floating. as if they dont fully exist- an opaque impression of life.
i want to remember this
the sky, the grass-
so symmetrical as if its trying to live up to some imagined expectation. the gum-stained concrete, the cage-like canteen.
the lack of lockers, soap, toilet paper.
the abundance of insults, loyalty and adolescence.
the garbage bins painted varying shades of mustard yellow and apple green. deformed attempts of a cylinder. trying to prve they were once something special.
the corridors that stretch and echo with shouts and steps.
the familiar variations of songs rolling out of the music rooms. the pathetic absence of air-conditioning, the lurid sports uniform.
the sounds, the smells of every other grade, of understanding, of a new day.
the people who know me, accept me, acknowledge me. I like having somewhere to go, i like knowing what im doing, where i am. i like the comfort and constancy of fitting somewhere. I want to see every part of this place that has encapsulated my being for six years.
--------
School
had walls that were so perfect i was afraid to leave them, to even look beyond them. I did though.
I have new walls now. Not so familiar. i dont love them as much. enough.
the walls keep changing and moving and i have this feeling that one day soon i may have no walls at all.
-----
* i can't find a wall to pin this to because it has no category. i can make neither head nor tail of it.
disregard its nonsensicality.
antidisestablishmentarianism.
I Doubt It.
Doubt is the tool of tools for the professional pessimist. When times are hard, and optimistic fools, in all of their ignorant glory chant 'Everything is going to be fine', we cynics are able to stand back, shake our heads, and say 'I doubt it'.
Better yet, we almost always have the joy of being able to say 'I told you so', and I assure, this gives endless satisfaction.
I like to think of doubt as a protective type of cloak. You see, it has to be a cloak, because doubt is always described as 'dragging', or 'weighing'...heavy, if you will. So it could never be anything summery.
Anyway.
Shrouded in heavy old doubt, I feel safe from the anguish that it so incidental of hope.
Ah, hope. The wicked antonym. It's a showstopper, to be sure.
Hope should be banned for it's sheer masochistic nature. It's the friend with a well-concealed blade, just waiting for you to turn around. Alas, I stray too far from topic.
I think the real reason I prefer to doubt is because it makes me perpetually right about everything - seriously, what miniscule percent of the things we hope for actually happen? And more to the point, on the rare occasion that hope prevails [snort], one is happy to be proven wrong...yes, even me.
Having said all of this, it is virtually impossible, no matter what one says, to irreverently doubt everything. I have hope for things, even if I doubt the probability of such things ever happening. I don't want to. I just do.
I just had a thought. Maybe it's the other way around?
Better yet, we almost always have the joy of being able to say 'I told you so', and I assure, this gives endless satisfaction.
I like to think of doubt as a protective type of cloak. You see, it has to be a cloak, because doubt is always described as 'dragging', or 'weighing'...heavy, if you will. So it could never be anything summery.
Anyway.
Shrouded in heavy old doubt, I feel safe from the anguish that it so incidental of hope.
Ah, hope. The wicked antonym. It's a showstopper, to be sure.
Hope should be banned for it's sheer masochistic nature. It's the friend with a well-concealed blade, just waiting for you to turn around. Alas, I stray too far from topic.
I think the real reason I prefer to doubt is because it makes me perpetually right about everything - seriously, what miniscule percent of the things we hope for actually happen? And more to the point, on the rare occasion that hope prevails [snort], one is happy to be proven wrong...yes, even me.
Having said all of this, it is virtually impossible, no matter what one says, to irreverently doubt everything. I have hope for things, even if I doubt the probability of such things ever happening. I don't want to. I just do.
I just had a thought. Maybe it's the other way around?
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Seeds.
This year.
Hasn't been rosy.
It has been rather shite actually.
This year was laid out like an ancinet, dusty rug.
Falling apart... a little frayed around the edges,
The kind of rug you never sit on. The kind of rug you eye contemptuously from another room. The kind of rug thats is kept because you can't throw it out... but you actually kind of hate it.
The kind of rug that is usually rolled up and packed away.
However, in this life, putting something away never solves the problem. The rug will be hauled out again eventually... will demand that you deal with its presence.
Thats why, in these winding down months I have no doubt that we will drag that ugly rug of a year outside.
We will hang it on the line and in the stirring humidity of a summer morning we will beat the hell out of it with a tennis racquet. We will roll the rug up and we will donate it to Vinnie's. It will have a new lease on life and we will begin next year with polished timber floor boards. Solid, conforting, invigorating.
Next year the windows will be open, and air will blow through and the cobwebs of cancer will be brushed away.
The rug of this year will be no more. And that makes me unbelievably happy.
Hasn't been rosy.
It has been rather shite actually.
This year was laid out like an ancinet, dusty rug.
Falling apart... a little frayed around the edges,
The kind of rug you never sit on. The kind of rug you eye contemptuously from another room. The kind of rug thats is kept because you can't throw it out... but you actually kind of hate it.
The kind of rug that is usually rolled up and packed away.
However, in this life, putting something away never solves the problem. The rug will be hauled out again eventually... will demand that you deal with its presence.
Thats why, in these winding down months I have no doubt that we will drag that ugly rug of a year outside.
We will hang it on the line and in the stirring humidity of a summer morning we will beat the hell out of it with a tennis racquet. We will roll the rug up and we will donate it to Vinnie's. It will have a new lease on life and we will begin next year with polished timber floor boards. Solid, conforting, invigorating.
Next year the windows will be open, and air will blow through and the cobwebs of cancer will be brushed away.
The rug of this year will be no more. And that makes me unbelievably happy.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
She Said:'The creativity is in the shape-shifting'
Once upon a time there was a blossom.
The bud of a blossom.
It liked the look of Signs.
It would ask impertinent questions.
It learnt to read,
and write,
and blossom.
Truly.
The blossom decided to change.
It seemed change was inevitable.
A change is needed.
Why fight the inevitable?
She read once- if you can't beat 'em- join 'em.
'So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book once...but shouldn't it be the other way around?’ [1]
& so, Change occurred. Metamorphosis. Transformation.
But you can never fully change what was once there.
'Born to blossom, bloom to perish'[2]
bud to blossom to bloom.
She is-Living,
Creating,
Learning.
Changing,
You cannot have one without the others.
One is another-entwined beyond distinction.
The blossom is She.
'To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour’[3]
----------------------------
[1] Film; You’ve Got Mail. 1998
[2] Song; What you Waiting For. Stefani.G, 2004
[3] William Blake, Auguries of Innocence, 1803.
The bud of a blossom.
It liked the look of Signs.
It would ask impertinent questions.
It learnt to read,
and write,
and blossom.
Truly.
The blossom decided to change.
It seemed change was inevitable.
A change is needed.
Why fight the inevitable?
She read once- if you can't beat 'em- join 'em.
'So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book once...but shouldn't it be the other way around?’ [1]
& so, Change occurred. Metamorphosis. Transformation.
But you can never fully change what was once there.
'Born to blossom, bloom to perish'[2]
bud to blossom to bloom.
She is-Living,
Creating,
Learning.
Changing,
You cannot have one without the others.
One is another-entwined beyond distinction.
The blossom is She.
'To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour’[3]
----------------------------
[1] Film; You’ve Got Mail. 1998
[2] Song; What you Waiting For. Stefani.G, 2004
[3] William Blake, Auguries of Innocence, 1803.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Subtle Changes.
'Tis easier said than done, I'm afriad, but I am learning.
Especially of late.
I have spent a great deal of time attempting to define myself, and with little luck, I'm sorry to say. Today, I had the silly notion that such wisdom would be imparted upon me if I did something to stimulate the muse, and thus, I hopped a peasant-wagon to the Quay and sat on the top-most step of the Opera House, pen and leather-bound notepad in hand. Despite the soundtrack in my ear, and the view before my appreciative eyes, I was really no better for the journey.
No literary genius graced my page, and in fact, there were no words to speak of. So instead, feeling defeated, I rested my head on the rail and stared up at the mid-aftenoon light coming through a crease in the clouds. Now I don't know if it was the sun in my eyes, the location, or the U2 track ringing at top volume in my ears, but I had an important thought.
I find it very difficult to let go. Thus, I must be a person who is intent upon holding on. It isn't much of a thought to be sure, and certainly not a clever revelation. But do you know, it made my melancholy self smile (to the amusement of several passing tourists, I am sure), and renewed my determination to survive the next five weeks.
Having said this, I do realise that holding on to some things is unhealthy. This can be said of the year-long lolly collection that I held when I was 5, the penchant I developed for coffee in my late high school years, or indeed, the shoe collection I have now. It can also be said for the desperation with which I wish to belong to something that has already passed.
This in itself, has undergone a change of late. How to explain myself? I suppose that I have felt these past months, that the other shoe was never going to drop. I stepped out into nothingness, believing that something was going to catch me, but up until now, I have been in freefall.
I can't really say what it was that changed my mind. Perhaps my subconsciousness found a parachute.
Methinks it more likely that I have found a way to appropriate the best of yesterday to the worst of tomorrow. I had help, of course, and it has been a long road. The best part is that I feel I am finally ready to walk down it a way without looking behind me.
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