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.

Hacker

Is it the long list of pressing things that need to be done,
by a certain date, certain time
Maybe it's the ever-present drizzle
And the fear of slipping on the concrete in shoes not designed for wet weather.
Is it the forced imbibing of a book, published in 1986, that turned out to be pleasing to read, cocooned in a nest of featherdown with eyes itching from tiredness?
The leftover coffee foam is sugary sweet, remaining on the walls of the glass in a way I can't quite explain (perhaps because it's separated from the rest, just like this?)
I hid my disappointment in my generic choices, my wide and expansive choices
'I hate accounting, I hate numbers, I just don't understand them. I refuse to study something I hate.'
'It's education' he said. 'Sometimes you don't get a choice.'
I told her about this
As well as this vice of mine, that I maintain isn't an outpouring of emotion (I hate that, in a public forum).
Maybe it's because I need a response, a 5pm Monday response, that's why I'm this way inclined, today, yesterday? (Write it, write it, write it).

I'm just sayin'

1. 'We're dreaming of a bright white Christmas (and I'm crying like a newborn baby)'

In my dream I say this to you while I'm singing it, and secretly grin on the inside while I watch your forehead terse in disgust and confusion. I wait for the familiar spiel that I now know, and dream-like me doesn't feel the cold so manages to find it that much funnier. I mentally prepare myself to ask the questions I already know the answers to.

'I've been through this with you before - snow isn't pretty. It might look pretty while it's falling down in little flakes but the next day it turns to slush, and then it turns to ice.'

'But at Christmas isn't it pretty, you're inside with the lovely fire and all the Christmas images that are plastered all over everything match how it actually is outside.'

'No, because it hardly ever snows at Christmas, it's just fucking cold. And we have central heating, not a roaring fire.'

'I still think snow's exciting, I really hope it snows again here before you leave.'

'Why do you want that? Do you not remember when it snowed last time and it was just really really cold and all the sidewalks and roads were slippery with ice? You fell over in the middle of the street, remember, and you complained about it for ages. Don't tell me you want it to snow.'

'Well it hurt, that's why I complained, I can still feel the egg on the back of my head. And I do want it to snow because then we can make snow angels.'

'I'm done talking about snow.'

In my dream, I don't feel the cold, and I have wings. The Pacific Ocean is a puddle, and 5c pieces are worth a thousand dollars each (I've got a jar of them on my windowsill, just imagine that).

I'm going to cut up my roast dinners and put them in my Thermos too

1.

‘He said it was overwritten, I don’t even know what that means.’

‘It means just really over the top descriptions and paragraph-long sentences that are filled with all these rare adjectives. You visualise everything really intensely and use too many metaphors.’

‘What? That’s not fair, I thought this was the one subject where I’m allowed to do that.’

I could visualise what she was doing while we were having this conversation, separated by the Hay Plain (the most boring stretch of land known to man) and 8 hours of vehicular control. She wouldn’t be sitting still, she’d probably be lurking from one room of the house to the next. She might pause in front of the glass door that looked out into the backyard, but not for long. The fridge door might open and she’d pick at something like cheese or a salad or dish that had been made the day before, but never take a plate and fill it up like I would. She wouldn't eat it while we were on the phone either, having screeched at me before if I took a loud sip of tea close to the receiver. I could visualise the expressions on her face and her body language while she spoke, and be able to predict what she was going to say before she did. Her listening fillers were usually in the same tone, same emphasis, though I suppose mine were as well.

2.

‘I saw a girl get her shoe stuck in the escalator at uni yesterday.’
‘Ha! Did you? Did you tell her that I did the same thing?’
‘First I started laughing hysterically, like I couldn’t stop. Then I said to her “My friend will be so relieved to hear that this has happened to you, it happened to her last week..” She was much calmer than you were about it though.’
‘How on earth was she calm? Were there waves of people coming behind her so that she couldn’t get her shoe back?’
‘Yeah and she was just waiting there with this really tired expression on her face, her shoe was more mangled than yours as well, it was a Haviaana that was all caught up in the teeth of the escalator and flapping around.’
‘I don’t know that I feel any better after hearing this story.’
‘I thought it was pretty funny. Are you going to use the rest of that soy sauce?’
‘No, you can have it, can I have some of your miso?’
‘No, you can’t, you’re sick. And you’ve made me sick, I can feel it already. I have a very low immune system.’
‘There is no way I could have made you sick this quickly, a cold incubates for 3 days at least.’
‘You have.’

3.

‘This is what people do, they work all their lives at jobs they don’t even like so they can come to Ikea on a public holiday and spend their money on a perfect house that looks like it came out of the catalogue.’
‘Everyone wants a perfect Swedish house, don’t you?’
‘No I want to move to Paris, but you won’t let me.’
‘Yes I will, I want to move to Paris too. That’s why we’ll be together forever, because we both want to move to Paris.’

‘Did that movie really have an effect on you or something?’

The first one was 3192

It’s not love – you never swept me off my feet. I struggle to believe that anyone would be able to, but even you, with the broken diamonds in your teeth and glitter in your eyes, and that swagger, even you couldn’t manage it.

I’ve always been able to think about other things rather than you, but you were a better option than the alternative. With that said, I feel more than endearment for you and I don’t know that I could turn my back without a moment’s thought. We’ve progressed over the last few months from a mutual and grudging affection, to an acceptance.

You terrified me at first. I was certain I could never really know you, wasn’t sure that I wanted to. The first few weeks after our introduction passed quickly, blurrily. I didn’t trust you and didn’t trust myself around you. What did we even do those first few weeks? They left me drained, wrung-out with exhaustion. I used to wake up at 4am and be near-death by 4pm, blind and deaf with tiredness. Though our union was chosen, I sometimes questioned that choice, wondered if the other one might’ve been kinder to me, easier. Carrying a steel midbeam by myself on the tram that rattled down Burnley Street made me ask that question, so did the lunch room conversation and so did the colour of our bedroom walls, a slightly off mint green that was punctured with old Blu-Tack. I won’t lie and say that the question wasn’t asked.

I strayed. I needed to, needed to make the comparison and to be reminded of the right choice. Needed to have the sugar bowl filled back up to the brim, swap the batteries over so I could look at you and say yes, instead of no. It was only a couple of days, and I came back, didn’t I?

I’ve never liked you for the same reasons that everyone knows you for, never really seen the characteristics in you that others guffaw over. It took me a while to see past the bravado, but I guess luckily for you, I liked what I saw. You took some things from me, gave me back others. I never thought about it too much because my head was busy deciding what to do next. You had taken all my money, so there were some choices I would have to make. You and your bravado took it from me when I wasn’t being careful, while I was caught up in the newness and excitement of it all. Then there came the moment where I was able to grab what I wanted, and there was purpose and drive behind our existence together. Everything was screaming out a reason.

I’m thankful for the year, happy about it, I don’t look at it with any scorn or vengeance. On days where I don’t feel like leaving my feet planted on the ground, I live where there is an accent on top of the ‘e’. It’s become a comfort of sorts, this thing between you and I. Perhaps it’s still not easier than the one who pronounces their vowels properly, but I know you well now, so there are fewer moments that startle me. So here's to that year.