Institutionalised.

Hand in hand. Eyes closed. It's what she wanted all along.

The others had laughed. They were the type for it. Or perhaps they weren't, and that was the problem. Either way, she saw them as straight-road people. The type of road you can see along for miles and miles and miles until the horizon cuts in; a purple faced hopeful who never did manage to print his name on the dance card.

She couldn't bear the thought of it. Of that type of life. Fuzzy, street-cam scenery set on a five year loop, only each time the film is worse...more difficult to decipher. Everybody looks older. In fact, everybody gets older. They have aspirations. Cook, clean, sit and die. It's just a piece of paper. Why complicate life with living?

She wanted it if only for the distraction. Death. A perpetual deadline. It would come for her eventually. Perhaps suddenly, with a bang and a clatter...perhaps not for a while - a sigh on the stalk, ready to volunteer itself as the last in a long, long line. She didn't know - couldn't know anything other than that there was no avoiding it. Experience wouldn't buy her immortality - not the valuable brand of it, anyway - but it would buy her satisfaction. Better yet, it put a few bends in the road; a left turn here and there, and she could duck out of grim sight, even if only for a moment or two.

Hand in hand. Eyes closed. It's what she wanted all along. It's just a piece of paper. She knows it - she barely glanced when they asked her to sign. But it wasn't the paper that mattered - not the paper, the dress...not even the ring.

It was the excitement. The difference. Time is cruel - a year, tedious. One must suffer through 365 days, most very similar to the one before, and so it goes and goes and goes until ring around the rosie, we all fall down. An engagement gave her something to differentiate from simply being. To look forward to.

Besides, it conjured a fantastic sensibility. The happiness was heroin to her - something to be abused until supply ran out, or else, until it damn near killed her. She was hooked - wired by the planning, by the panic. To imagine missing out on it! Gold coins slipping through invisible fingers that grabbed and missed angrily. Eyes closed to falling snow. The absurdity was nauseating!

And at the same time she was terrified. A steady lead-up of nervous flutter and pedantic organisation and it would be done with - over in a brilliant crescendo of white taffeta and violets. She would be back to where she started - searching for another distraction; a career; a baby - anything to magic her world of impermanency and farce into a more durable existence. To make it mean something. She frowned at the thought of it.

But as he smiled at her over the three-tiered cake, she was very suddenly at ease. No. The others, they were wrong. They, the have-alls, were content with being, because it jeopardised nothing. They valued monotony.

Right then, she didn't care that marriage was a cliche. She had gone tree-climbing in purple silk dresses, hooked rod in hand, and the hope in mind that perhaps, if only for a day, her world might spin in a different direction.

She would throw the wedding certificate out. It wasn't important.

Everything else had been.

Despite what They say, you can judge a book by its cover.

Cold hands and football socks.


A stack of books and piles of papers. French doors. White curtains. Milky coffee. Hair that goes on and on and on.

Listening to Blondie does not make you edgy.


Your hand, his hand. I couldn't tell anymore.

Your cool indifference never seemed so practiced. Pretty young things like you stand, waving glowing embers in the semi-darkness and hurling hyena cackles at the cars that pass. You’re too uncovered to keep it in. Your regrowth, your too-white thighs, you grin and bare it all. Oh dear. Mascara never looked so much like liquid eyeliner.

'Hollow and glamorous. It was ironic really, the way she took in cigarettes as though her life depended on it. She was a perfect mix of contradictions. How she managed to pull off those red, sequined stilettos with even half the grace she did is still beyond me. Vulgar and gorgeous all at once. She carried men like handbags, on the arm and never the heart. The way I remember her changes a little every time. She's always on the balcony though. It is always twilight and it always the tiny glowing end of the smoke in her hand that makes her real. It was too easy to confuse her with the images on the wall. '

Things fell apart, he left with a suitcase you couldn't fit inisde. He took you anyway.

It was harder to look up to you then. Mostly I stayed behind half closed doors.

The glass was half empty. The milk was out of date.

You sit with your cigarette [why is that image so inextricably linked to you?] and your blossoming Moleskine playing Peter Sarstedt over again.

Dangerously close to your edge. I dangle with chipped nails and jagged teeth, clawing at nothing.

Gravity will let me down when you do. Again.

Literary Damnation.

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.

Words as water. They
leak from the open mouth of
a red-crusted pipe;
leaving filthy, orange
scum rings on the brittle,
grey walls of my skull.

Thought interrupts thought;
each snide interjection
the white-hot brand upon
Redundancy's ripe rear.
Wait your turn!
Selfish girl! Selfish girl!

A flash in the pan, little
poem, little poet - that's
all you ever were and will be;
boiled potluck in
old Medusa's cauldron
full of muck and madness.

An ovum untouched,
my mind rots; the bloated
head of a putrid cow floating
along the river.
Dead water. Dead water.
This poet's done for.

Fishtail.

Relevance has little to do with it.

I wish I could put on another pair shoes.
I think mine are too comfortable. I like to look down and see my white capped sneakers. My feet feel safe wrapped up in the familiarity of the blue cotton.

But...is there such a thing as too safe?


I'm 19 now. A year older and none the wiser.


Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, small, but valuable. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer.
I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void.
So goodnight, dear void.

Feels Like Autumn Again.

Nothing ever felt so perfect.

Pulling on a worn, knitted beanie. 5 shades of content. maybe more- it's quite loved.
Taking your hand in mind. Cold, but okay. Refreshing, like the breeze that tangles what little of my hair it can get at.

Your sneakered feet take on the leaf litter. You are the king of the world and every satisfying crunch only confirms it.
I feel like your smile. I am the mirror image of your laugh.
I can feel my heart swelling and I love it all the more.

The small black notebok sits open on my lap as I watch you wandering away. Aimlessly- lost inside some other world you have created. The weak autumn sun falls through the diminishing trees. It illuminates you. You illuminate. The sun here is so strong- I can feel every line of you.
And my words don't make sense. The only things that make sense anymore are you,
And this beanie,
And the sound of the leaves revelling in our bliss.

Autumn.

In an impressive show of onomatopoeia
the cold has snapped once more, and
I am whole again.
The sun redeems itself, and warms to suit,
instead of to swelter.
Everything is crisp. The leaves. The air. The wind.

My mind is set racing...it wants to escape from
months of languid summer crawling. Nothing
moves in the heat.

I find that I can write again...that I can breathe again.

How I love autumn.

Emma's Comprehensive List of Injustices.

1. The name Renesmee.
2. The Genocide Studies class that is too full for me to now enroll in.
3. The timing of my writers block.
4. The fact that Twilight is now only showing one session a day, and yet, is not available on DVD for me to peruse at my own pleasure.
5. The sense of equilibrium I was 'blessed' with.
6. The high chance that I will genetically inherit my mother's thighs.
7. The bogus nose I have. All the better not to smell you with, my dear.
8. Global Warming.
9. The melting of snow, and in fact, the existence of Summer and Spring altogether.
10. My love for Cabriolet Crysler Cruisers juxtaposed with the unmerciful amount in my bank account.
11. My penchant for nachos and mint icecream, in direct review of point number 6.
12. That Edward Cullen is real to me only throughout non-waking hours.
13. That it does not snow in Sydney.
14. That my year 12 excursion to Rome was inexplicably cancelled.
15. That Meryl Streep has been nominated for 14 bloody Oscars, and as yet, has won only 2. Unfair to the max!
16. That seasons 1 and 2 of The Nanny have been released on DVD, and yet, the four delightful seasons remaining are still confined to tape.
17. That I now live nowhere near my two favourite stores in the world: Berkelouws, and Vinnies (which in Paddington, was three stories high!)
18. That I dropped avacado onto my new (and favourite) jeans yesterday, and am having extensive issues getting it out.
19. That I have to wait so long for the remaining three Twilight movies to be released.
20. That my year 12 business teacher gave me 99% in an assessment [placing me 2nd], because she thought that it would encourage me to 'Strive harder in my class' - WTF?!! Worst injustice EVER!

Ah, life is so unfair.