um

Um

A hesitation

A pause

A breath

Collect your thoughts

in the space of 0.2 seconds

Don’t fuck this up

Fingers glide over silky keys

At the speed of a thought

An idea

Gone

Letter to my seven year old self

Needless to say, this letter comes a little late for you.
I could tell you the standard, work hard, be yourself, don't obsess over your shitty friends or short lived crushes or the overwhelming sense of insecurity which followed you like a dark cloud since the age of ten.
But you're too young to understand all of that yet.


Instead, enjoy yourself. Be courageous and reckless. Run down the road in bare feet on hot summer days, enjoy the sensation of scalding tarmac and the lazy hum of the warm air.
Be kind.
Not just to others, but to yourself. So what if that boy tells you you're ugly, he's as gangly as a tree so he can't say much.
And no, you don't hate that girl. Trust me, its a fine line to tread.
Keep wearing jeans, wear trousers to school if you'd prefer, don't be afraid to experiment with how you look. Even if you do look like you've rolled straight out of a fruit bowl.
Look after mum, she needs you to understand her, if you grant her this and treat her with caution and patience, she will grow to understand you one day.


Get your hair cut, trust me. I know everyone else like long hair but its such a pain to brush through in the mornings, not to mention pin back in that nit-prevention pony tail which inevitably fails every time you get too close to someone scratching their head.
Keep reading, not just Alice in Wonderland or The Chronicles of Narnia or the fucking Bible (although I do love that apocalypse story) maybe try reading one of Churchill's memoirs. But keep in mind its essentially propaganda and everything you will be taught about the world is similarly, a lie.


Whatever happens, don't let yourself go. You don't have to be weird to be different, you don't have to be pretentious to be profound, and, most importantly, you don't have to listen to that Now 65 cd. The Beatles are much cooler.


I hope I am a person you would be proud to write about in your quirky fairy stories
Ru

An Attitude of Observation

As much as youth have been painted to be derelict, wild children; lost in a swathe of second hand smoke and idle internet absorption, the experience is entirely contradicting.

Imagine a group of eight girls- eleven years old and outcast from the high societies within secondary school. Recognising their fellow fallen, they group together rapidly, soon realising how similar they are to each other despite having completely varied personalities. They manage to contain themselves in a bubble of immaturity accompanied by academic brilliance.

They are what high society would label as ‘’nerds’’.

 

As a key member of this group, I can justify that we were not interested in parties, drinks, alcohol, or sex. The prospect of dating was considered, however more in concept than in practise, as even we did not escape the tendrils of Twilight overwhelming teen fiction. Due to this lack of participation in these activities, we viewed ourselves as in some way, superior.  We were too good to become involved in such things.

We continued our peaceful lives in a hazy bubble of laughter and soft hazes lining the corners of our eyes. Oblivious to any thorns crowding around us and coasting across the azure blue waves of our high-achieving education.

We remained this way for several years until-

Not everyone was okay.

 

Secrets began to bond some members closer than others. Iron chains and rope cords holding us suspended in the frozen animation of idyllic smiles- sadness coiling beneath them.

We held it in until it exploded.

 

                Sorrow scattered across our young minds like the shards of fallen stars, embedding themselves deep in our craniums as we desperately clung to the cords and chains which wore away under the acidity of regret. We interfered too much at the wrong time and too little at the right- a seismic current threw us off course, the winds of our relationships changed and we settled finally into two new divisions.

 

With only two cords bridging the gaps.

 

I precariously tiptoed across these cords from one group to the next. Urging them closer together and shortening the rope each time in a desperate attempt to make us whole again. Foolish, but young minded.

Adamantly it failed; so I comforted myself in the fact that I was still a part of both worlds. Neither one nor the other I drifted like a ghost between walls of identical rooms.

                They were all the same- but they were not together

                They were all the same- but they hated each other

And I could not understand why.

 

All the while, we swathed in our tiny bubble and its puffy clouds interrupting our blue skies. But outside of the bubble thunderstorms were gathering, we were oblivious to the sound. As the grains of time slipped slyly through our fingers we relished the last few moments of innocence and warm summer days soaked in strawberries and lime.

The sands ran out. And we moved on so fast to new faces.

Too fast.

 

The worst part is-

I’m not sure if I care about them anymore, other than for memories sake.

 

 

 

She lived in a time

She lived in a time of rebellion- it was the eighties. Punk rock and Pink Floyd, Ska music and cultural bleeding; intertwining into one another like a Jackson Pollock painting. The air tumbled chaotically around them with political tension and anarchism. In a Thatcherite era of poverty and youth estrangement from society, any chance of derailing the system was grasped enthusiastically with both hands and drenched in gasoline- paraded above their heads in a flaming cascade like the torch of Olympus. They were gods, revolutionaries, rebels, university dropouts who had no care for the future because the end of the world seemed to be a breath away, a fingertip touching a red button unleashing the fires of hell.

Doc- marten coated toes tapped the floor in 4-4 beats to the heavy drum of urban decay, and the gradual silence of mines which once pumped fire into the veins of the country. Thumping heavily like an industrial heart. She was moulded in the fiery heart of change, sparks flew as she and her pack dappled the ground with their footsteps as they ran, breathlessly, from roof to rickety roof, always one step ahead of shiny heads, always one step away.

In this grey jungle she grew claws, hidden behind gloves of politeness and eloquence but constantly drawn and prepared for combat. Keeping her wits closer than she kept her friends, survival was the ultimatum, but surviving alone was never tolerated. Many outcast and wandering souls were drawn to her entrancing strength and generosity. They swore camaraderie and cast their bonds in iron; defiantly facing the future and its hooded face arm in arm, prepared to sacrifice everything for each other. To drive and pick one of the flock up at three o clock in the morning was a simple errand. They protected each other and understood each other in a way no family ever could, lost in their beautiful moments.

But, they were no lost boys, and this was no Neverland; growing up was inevitable. She acquired jobs in the tough side of town, preaching and patiently moulding tiny minds to perceive the nature of the world; its beauty and arrogance and cruel boys who hit other children and children with violent minds to mirror their violent pasts and small voices calling ‘’Miss!’’ and consuming tiny printed letters on pages and wonky letters and writing and marking and files and paper and faxes and-

Then it began to speed up.

Love, marriage, child, annulment, child; alone.

Somewhere in between these years her pack had fallen through the cracks of work and life and exes and a new home in the countryside. Far, far away from the colourful, rich smog which clung to her clothes like a bad cold.

She never recreated that pack. The local villagers were too gossipy, too shallow, too invested in materialism and pints at the pub. One by one, she lost her friends numbers.  Contact restricted to an occasional phone call around Christmas time and a promise to visit, to keep in touch. They were white lies, both parties knew that continued contact was highly unlikely. If anything they were only calling for nostalgias sake. There was no harm in indulging in memory.

Her time became filled with high pitched giggles and unchanged nappies. Her children grew in the shadow of a patient smile and an iron fist cloaked with duck feathers. Enclosing them in a tiny tiny bubble, they lived in a world apart from the rest. Utterly isolated apart from a rickety bus which passed through their street three times a day.

Her work began to pull her head into the sand, as the house around her shrunk as her children grew and gradually became more and more fractured. She went on unaware. She looked up briefly to glimpse at her children. The elder, losing themselves in music, applied war paint each morning to meet the world with a sultry scowl. The younger increasingly anxious about her appearance, the tendrils of insecurity began to wrap around her young mind as she was drawn into the world of makeup and clothes and magazine art and models.

And she carried them, with twelve hour work days, weekends drowning in books to mark. When the tide of papers subsided, she looked at her children. Properly, for the first time in three years. Her children had changed- extravagantly. The younger has slimmed, conscious and careful of her appearance. She blossoms beautifully under the impression of mainstream media, but maintains the sensitivity her mother gifted her with. The elder still wears war paint, defies the preferences a ‘’girl their age’’ should submit to; with self-pierced ears and ripped combat boots. So similar to how she used to be.

Now we stand at a crossroads- she is ageing and aware of it, of how soon her eldest will overtake her into adulthood and of how soon it seems that they could leave. Her younger about to begin her first set of qualifications, pushed to her limits which the eldest managed with a blasé attitude.

Where will they go?

What will they become?

Will they leave her?

How will she manage the world around her without the anchor of her children?

As of New Year’s Day 2016- the eldest had 533 days of childhood remaining.

So-me-ti-mes

Sometimes i

Look at her and i

Catch my breath and i

Dance with death and i

Wonder how she flies

Somehow above the skies

Leaving me behind

And i                           

Fallen one

Can’t fly

And i

See her wings and i

Call her name and i

Start to cry

And she

Looks down at me

And she

Smiles at me and sings

Catch my arm and swings

Me into her arms

And we

Fly

Stay

Your fire is like a candle

It’s small and soft and warm

Slim arms are like a barrier

To hold me in the storms

Your voice is soft and calming

Like when the summer sings

Please stay with me a while

And thread these broken strings

And though I am but feeble

No light inside my mind

You always melt the ice in me

How could you be so kind?

 

The Room

Your head is a hotel

You never pick your room

But in the end it’s just a shell

Your head is a hotel

You may leave very soon

Your head is a hotel

You never pick your room