I don't drink the dregs, I've told you this.

'The footpaths there concern me; there's too much bitumen. I prefer smooth cement on my footpaths. That's what the councils are doing at the moment; trying to reduce the amount of bitumen on the footpaths in the city.'


'You're basing how much you like a suburb on the texture of their footpaths?'


'Yes, for sure. How did you get that scar on your breast?'


'My cat scratched me when I was seven, before I had breasts.'


'At least I said breast, not boob or tit. It looks like an arrow pointing directly to your nipple.'


She raised her eyebrows and tried to remember the Saturday in the suburb with the uneven footpaths. The eye blinked at them from the shop window, beckoning with its tantalizing price tag. It was covered in things, bits and pieces of sorts. Coloured silk, a tarnished frame, shoes with worn in heels. The man in the shop beamed at them, his simple smile dissapitating when he realised what they were after and the challenges that might be involved in lifting the desk from the window front.


'I'll just get the boss for you.'


They waited quietly, as they'd finished their conversation on 'muse' (the word, definitely not the band and their overpriced hooded jumpers) and looked at the trinkets on the counter, searching for hidden beauty that wasn't quite found in a brooch with no pin, a broken key ring, a scarf that was too large to be worn properly without giving the impression you were trying to smother yourself in floral chiffon. A short man scurried to the shop front, sizing them up quickly when they asked to buy the desk with the blinking eye that was positioned in his window display.



'How are you going to carry it home? It's very heavy.'

'I live just down the road, we'll be fine.'

The process of removing the one-eyed desk from the shop front seemed unnecessarily stressful. She floundered about, trying to help but just getting in the way. There was a crash, and they thought it was a drawer falling to the ground and cracking, though it turned out not to be. The other one stood to the side, knowing better than to get involved, her sunglasses hiding the smudges of black that were still left under her eyes (later she would leave those glasses on the countertop, where they would have to return). They had planned to carry the desk, strong and agile girls whose mothers' had fed them milk and yoghurt as young children. The shop man 'tsked' and offered the lending of a trolley, with the condition of a drivers' licence and credit card. They conferred between them and miraculously managed to produce both items, cracked and interstate. She was excited, envisaging a large industrial trolley on which the entire desk would sit and they would steer expertly down the bitumen footpaths to where the cat vomit was, outside the front gate.

The reality was different; it was a narrow trolley that she'd seen previously to move gas bottles, boxes, or other non-challenging, non-heavy items. It bore perhaps a sixth of the weight of the desk, balanced precariously in the middle. They promised to return the trolley (or no driving or extravagant impulse spending for them) and were on their way, relying soley on the vision of the blinking eye, because they could not see past the scratched timber frame. She felt that it was not very heavy, though she assumed it was because she was not bearing her share of the weight. They zigzagged along, compelling other pedestrians to flatten themselves against the walls of buildings in order to avoid them. They turned the corner hapharzdly, breaking into a run onto the road and pulling in to the curb in a way they pictured reverse parallel parking to be conducted (though neither of them really knew how).

She hadn't imagined that in less than 6 hours, little possum with her frightened stare would be splayed across the road, her slight and furry frame shaking in shock and fear while the car that hit her panicked, while passersby buried her under an avalanche of coats and called an ambulance, not worrying that she might be sick or dirty (we are in the place with the bitumen footpaths, after all). Poor possum, she tried to jump from one branch to the other too quickly, but the car knocked her down and took all the wind from her lungs.

They conceeded the trolley was defeated by the time they got to the front gate, and lifted the desk and its closed eye from the bottom, cringing at the weight on their stubby little fingers. There were screeches from both sides as shoes with too-thin soles schlepped through the cat/dog/animal/human vomit on the side of the road next to the broken television. They rested in the hallway and there was a scurry to clear space in the room, moving aside CDs, a box with a letter from Centrelink ('please lodge your employer details to avoid Centrelink debt') floating on top, a guitar and a mass of cords with dust bunnies clinging onto them for dear life. She swept with a dustban and broom, they moved the desk into a corner. They were satisfied, she smiled in delight at the sanctuary they had created, she took the chair from the kitchen where there were never any clean plates and put it at the desk. They placed textbooks on it and marvelled at how productive it felt.

Then it was late, and there was a rush to shower. She lay in the rubble of picture frames of Miles & Otis, of tangled blankets and sheets that needed washing. She read two pages of 'Le Petit Prince' and half-listened to the dilemmas of finding a jacket that didn't reek of cigarettes. Then they were ready, and went to leave, before remembering the cursed trolley that was nowhere to be seen.

There was a rush, and a brief flash of panic, before finding it sitting patiently on the footpath where they had left it. They were relieved, and went to leave the house, not before seeing a couple, one in a sombrero and the other carrying a pinata.

'What is that? Where are they going?'

'They're going to a Mexifest.'

'Why are you so matter-of-fact about it? Does everyone go to Mexifests?'

'Yes, Mexican food is delicious.'

'Oh. I suppose you're right.'

They left and got on the tram, not before seeing a child strapped in a carrier close to his mother's chest, though he was far too big. He could've easily walked.

Disclaimer: these aren't my emotions

En Décembre

I notice the sunlight no longer enters
the window, but hovers outside. I take
an hour to shower and dress, watching the
water pool at my feet. I make coffee only
to leave it to stand cold, undrunk. I listen
to halves of songs, regarde la télé, write halves of poems.
I sleep in the centre of the bed with
my arms outstretched trying to lessen the
empty space where you used to lay.

I buy cheap apples with brown flesh before
I remember I can’t eat tarte tatin
without tasting your lips and thinking of
my white pillows and your blonde tousled head
watching the dust particles dance for hours.




La Nouvelle Vie

I filled the gaps you left with silly little things
I buy new crockery, a teapot, though
Iva doesn’t drink tea. Candles, scarves, new
pens for the poetry I seldom write.
I’ve buried away memories of you
in the back of the drawer, with lost socks and
folded notes (I loved your cursive script) so
I feel brave enough to place one foot in
front of the other. I’ve rebuilt the wall
that crumbled in dusty pieces before me.

When I saw you, you were wearing a blue
linen shirt (creased in two lines at the back)
I took the bullet, tasted the salty
iron of blood, then quickly turned away.

You should have called

You should wake up at 7am, and your eyelids should spring open without the aid of an alarm, because you should be well rested and rejuvenated from the 8.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep that you've had. You should reach for the tall and tantalizing glass of water that you placed beside your bed the night before, and drink it immediately. Because you've risen before you needed to, you should throw yourself into a fitness regime coupled with sports attire and uplifting music plugged into your ears. You should return home gasping slightly, a light sheen of sweat covering your brow, but definitely not struggling to breathe, definitely not throwing yourself on the floor/couch/bed as your muscles seize up in angst. You should then eat a filling and nutritious breakfast, perhaps a bowl of muslei (low-in sugar of course) with natural yoghurt and fresh apple, coupled with a banana and a mug of green tea. You should shower, shampoo, condition, exfoliate, moisturise, tone, moisturise, remove offensive hair, cut offensive toe and fingernails. You should dress indiscriminately, you should be neither hot or cold. You should have an umbrella in your bag, shrapnel and $20 cash in your wallet, a bus ticket that has been pre-purchased. You should pack your lunch and a bottle of water. You should take vitamins and you should eat five vegetables and three pieces of fruit daily. You should limit your snacking in between meals and avoid saturated fats, palm oil and MSG. You should eat your dinner before 8pm and you should drink a soothing cup of cammomile tea before you retire to bed, your mind a clean slate ready for the following day and you should fall asleep within approximately seven minutes.

You should have an equal balance between work, study and a social life. You should keep all your notes in individual folders, separated by neat and labelled dividers. You should tick off your readings as you complete them, you should write summaries of the texts and keep them adjacent to your lecture notes. You should complete not only the presribed readings but the additional and further readings, because you have a fire to learn that is burning within you, which means that in addition to getting 8.5 hours of sleep a night, you should be able to read 200 pages of dry and poorly written research information each day. You should dedicate an additional 4 hours of study time for each subject each week. You should attend each lecture and each tute, you should ask innovative questions, you should complete assignments the week before they're due. You should request practice exams and additional exercises from your tutor. You should spend the time in between your lectures and tutes in the library, which should be a quiet and studious haven filled with like-minded beings. You should print out your lecture notes before each class and make colour-coded annotations in the margins. You should participate in co-curricular activities and volunteer on campus. You should arrive at your classes with enough time to have your books out in front of you, to secure a seat where you can see the screen (and the clock).

You should save 10% of your income each week, you should give to chosen charities, you should save your coins in a sealed tin and empty it every few months. You should resist the urge to make impulse purchases, you should avoid credit card debt and you should have a high interest savings account. You should pay your phone bill on time, you should have high-speed Internet. You should send birthday cards and thank you notes to your elderly relatives, you should speak to your parents at least twice a week. You should give kind and guiding advice to your younger siblings, you should attend family functions as a social and animated being. You should wash your sheets once a week, you should get a haircut before your hair breaks off on its own. You should be able to make idle chit-chat with your co-workers even if you don't like them and you should listen to your music at such a decibel that your fellow train passengers can't hear it through your headphones. You should give your seat up for the elderly, pregnant or disabled, you should recycle your plastics and cardboards, you should stand to the left of the escalator. You should scrape leftovers into sealed Tupperware containers and eat them the following day, you should have a compost bin, you should use environmentally friendly cleaning products, you should have a water-saving shower head and keep a bucket in the shower, emptying the additional water into the garden each morning. You should dryclean your coat every 6 months, you should learn another language, you should give your old clothes to the op shop, you should wash your frying pan with the soft side of the scourer. You should wait until the green man flashes and avoid J-walking, you should park in between the lines.

You should be balanced, well-adjusted, emotionally-stable, in good health both physically and mentally. You should make strong decisions, be kind to yourself, be kind to those around you, not blasphem, be tolerant of others and their views. You should seize each day, you should avoid looking directly at the sun, you should smile at shop attendants and hold the door open for mothers with prams. You should sew the buttons back on your clothes when they fall off, you should wear slippers when it's cold, you should pull to the side when you hear ambulance sirens.

You should, and you could, but do you?

Why are you wearing stockings with holes in them?

In the photo, the baby lies in her arms, swaddled against the unknown perils of the world she's just entered. Her soft newborn head is swollen with a bump and one of her hazy blue eyes was half-shut and bruised. Her little mouth is pursed in distaste and she is bright red with the shock of birth, her complexion resembling that of a boiled monkey, the skin fiery red and inflamed. Welcome to the world, little one, the angels croon. Even the grainy print of the 90's film manage to capture the unique expression of love, shock, disbelief, fear, amazement, accomplishment on the face of her holder. First child and she's here stamping, along the path, leaving behind dusty gold footprints.

Years later, her face scrunched and turned purple within seconds, eyes swelling with tears that are already shut tight with pain. Never the attractive crier, she lies howling in the red dirt, her high-pitched screech elongating the name of the person that she needed, the only one who could bring solace to her devastation and rage at having fallen from the flying fox into the pit beneath when her fat little fingers could hold on no more.

Her sobs shortened to gasps and her hands smeared dirt, snot and tears all over her disgruntled face as the cool and calm hands dabbed at the blood on her knees. She sat with her party shoes leaving marks on the newly-installed bathroom cabinet, relaying the trauma of the incident to the sympathetic ears that half-listened while trying to extract the gravel from shredded knees. She was panicked with the thought of the four candles being blown without her, the candles that studded the birthday cake she'd selected months before from the dog-eared recipe book. The calm voice of reassurance grew tired of her pitiful wails, taking her firmly by the hand and leading her back to the party, holding a tissue for her to blow her nose and lighting the candles of the cake shaped like a clock.

The nest is built in a place that you can't jump from easily, especially in bare feet, as you're bound to get that sharp shooting pain grab you by both ankles and cripples you for a second. Don't try and jump, it's a swooping motion, but you have to do it quickly. No use hopping along the branch. She'd always had one foot outside, itching to fly away sooner than her wings were grown. At the bottom of the tree there were screens with times and destinations, and sterile polished floors. So, with a gentle push, a lingering hug laced with a little bit of hope of lasting longer, there she went.