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"There are always perfect times with the people we love, moments of joy and equality that sustain us later on."

Ann Pratchet, Run, (Bloomsbury, 2007).

Reflection

That night her reflection taunted her in the gilt-framed mirror. Far from home, a case of unfamiliarity breeding contempt. Her thoughts patchy, unsettled as the night. The face staring back was enrobed not in beauty, but indifference - the worst kind of ugliness.

ants

Sometimes, when she's stressed, she has this dream in which she's being eaten alive slowly by a myriad of ants, black and shiny with small teeth. They devour her feet and their way up hot calves, chomping muscle, cartilage and sinew until the bones remain, grey and smooth. She almost always wakes up once they get to her thighs, some things are too awful to imagine, even in dreams.

Last night was an ant night. She woke, some time before dawn when the first light pokes itself gingerly through the slats on the blind. Scratching her hot legs, eczema devouring those first precious moments before waking. At once, she's distracted, the day creeps in and the night is gone, and he ants with it.

Nine Dragons (again)

Though mountains surround me,
Clear lakes and skies of azure,
Stillness, stasis in darkness,
My favourite sight - tress, black
Against the sky, I can't feel
At home here. It's my homeland,
My country, that I know, but
My heart looks East and no
Matter how hard I try I can't
Help but search for nine dragons
Siloutted, black against the sky.

Po-faced cheeks

Inside the hushed darkness of the gingerbread shop, there were two po-faced ladies, trussed up in blue ticking, white lace bonnets crowning their scorn. It got me thinking... if you're grumpy, why work in a gingerbread shop? Surely happiness and tea and thoughts of houses enrobed in icing and dolly mixture should prevail therein?

Leaving

I pulled a familiar dress over my head, and waited for the rushing in my ears to subside. I sat on the edge of my bed and thought for a moment. My head hurt. Two clamps around my ears, a dagger through the back of my cranium. I can do it, I said to myself. Go in, you have to. It's the end, and the end is always important. I did a Myers Briggs once and I'm a completer-finisher. I like to tie gifts in grosgrain ribbon. So, I slowly and diligently clasped my oyster card in one hand and walked decidedly to the tube, each step accentuating the swoosh of blood through my head. I made it, opened the door to the office, and sat at my desk for the last time. Inanimate objects took on a sentimental touch, I found myself putting old mugs, a greasy mouse mat and a badly-written book into a bag. At 2pm I tried to leave, laughter had left the building and I was alone. In the ladies touching up faded blusher I felt a sadness, a low kind of regret, and I returned to sit at the desk for another few minutes. Just me and some memories, now fading, now not mine, and I cried. I'm ashamed to say, I cried, with no one watching but God.

Untitled

Each week I pay a not-insignificant-sum to a man in a white shirt, who sits perpetually in a white room. A small low chair, a blue screen and a bed with two pillows. I stand with my back to him and his eyes stroke my neck, looking for change - am I crooked? Still? Stiff? For an hour I let him touch me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, squeezing gently, pushing below each shoulder blade, holding my head in both hands firmly. Each time I leave and I try to work out if I feel better. I do! is the usual conclusion... But today, as I wake with a stiffness in my neck and a feeling of strangeness I wonder why I keep on keeping on with him... I don't like the reason, it doesn't seem right... I go because I like being touched. I feel safe there, I feel free, valued.

Sick

I reckon I've spent more time being ill this year than the last three years put together. Bronchitis, migraines, stomach bugs... most were exotic, picked up alongside souvenirs and unfamiliar food in countries far from home. Germs blowing decidedly through aircraft air flow. All this sickness has been a disability. I've fought it, ignored a cough for weeks until the stuff coming up is red and thick and I drag my aching lungs down to the hospital, where a guy my age guffaws in shock and doles out high-strength drugs. Surely this can't go on? The rest of the year will surely stretch out like a white sheet of health... vitamin-enriched, mineral-full, health-surrounded?

Untitled

Once I saw a girl fall clean off her bicycle. It would have been more tragic than amusing had she been riding it at the time. She had stopped at the traffic lights on Exhibition Road, her head facing up towards the lights, waiting patiently for them to change, when she fell sideways - perfectly at 90degrees into the tarmac. No one saw, except me. Visibly shaken she dusted herself off and heaved the solid red bicycle up onto its wheels. Cautiously she got back on, and limped slowly along the pavement towards Hyde Park.

Marionettes

I have a friend who, when he's stressed, has this horrible recurring nightmare that he's being eaten alive slowly by a milliard of small ants, black, with shiny teeth. My mother shouts at anything, usually my father. My father sulks and speaks to no one, save the motorcycle magazine, which is afforded all interest and deemed worthy enough to receive the occasional grunt. Stress is elusive. It creeps up, unknowingly until you're slap bang in the symptom and it's too late to work out what it is that was so hard to deal with in the first place. Take me, an averagely stressed out 20-something. I was a chubby teenager, so you'd expect that my innate reaction would be to reach for a Kit Kat - the four-fingered-wonder, of course - at the first sign of anything untoward. Hmmm... No. What do I do instead? Dance? Come out in a faint rash? Shiver? Go red? Nothing so common! No, I vomit. Predictably and grossly, approximately 45 seconds after getting out of bed. Three solid wretches and usually it's over. I'll rub my tender stomach soflty, just for a bit, and tumble from the bathroom. Five minutes later, I'm fine. This routine has been like clockwork since I was small. Exams? Jules is in the bathroom chucking up. Ballet recital? Oh, yep, she's there again, at least she'll fit into her leotard. The irony in all of this is that I only recently found out that my sister does exactly the same thing! Imagine! Two marionettes, joined not by string but by genes, 150 miles apart, simultaneously emptying the contents of their stomachs at the side of the road each stress-filled morning! We're ok though. Don't get concerned. Peace is on the horizon and the Shreddies and toast and tea will soon be worth their nutritional value.

Change

When I somewhat younger, I would always cry when we went on holiday. Not for long, a day or so, until I was used to the new surroundings, food, heat, whatever was different from home. My parents didn't know what to do so they'd ignore it, buy me an ice cream and watch me acclimatise, after which I'd undoubtedly be happy as larry and cry when we left. Strange child. That fear of newness has never left me, though I'm aware of it now and know to ignore the gulping emotion that gathers at the back of my throat. Last year there was so much newness that I think I became numb to some of it, or maybe I pushed it down far below the surface. This year change is coming in the guise of excitement, but the familiar lump is at the back of my throat and my head is hurting. I'll try to smile and forget about it, until I emerge, content, swishing my way through autumn leaves on an unfamiliar pavement.

Untitled

When you don’t call or sms
I imagine all kinds of horrors…
You’ve fallen into a canal,
Into the section with no life buoy.
Pesky vandals! Don’t get me started!
Think they have a right to ruin our fun,
Law-abiders that we are. I mean…
Oh yes, when you don’t call or sms
I imagine your train has been
DE-RAILED, and your left leg
(it’s always the left)
Is lying cold, clammy and alone
On a grey track, far from your
Other one, and then…
I wonder what you’ll do for trousers
And if the alteration lady
Will take pity and do a bulk
Discount on sewing up all 17 pairs
Into one-legged pants… and
What she’ll do with the spare legs?
A mystery. Oh, when you don’t call or sms
I do my best thinking.
And then,
I don’t miss you
so much.

The upside down boyfriend

You’re more like a mushroom than a boyfriend… alive in the darkness while I’m asleep. Time zones our enemy, fertilizer your friend. I set my alarm to speak to you. 5am, unearthly by anyone’s standards, lest mine. Groggy, I dial. You answer, cheerful and bright, out playing Frisbee in a park far from my imagination. I’m thoughtful, waking delicately from a cold bed and pressure on my bladder. You tell of beaches and a warm sea, you may as well be talking of unicorns. I’m indignant. Lifting the curtain I see white dust through darkness, cold moisture kissing the early crocii. I tell you, but you’re laughing at a girl in a green swimsuit whose name you pretend not to know by heart, and I know not to set my alarm again for you, my upside down boyfriend, my exotic wanderer, my illusionary.

MTV

The aeroplane has a lot to answer for. It took you from me for a start! Cruel wings, miniature pots of marmite - your breakfast favourite - numb your pain at leaving. The airport, so grey, so dull, so cold, and why oh why is there always a lost Italian, pathetic and dim asking directions when you're trying to kiss me and pretend it's ok, we'll be fine, whatever. I can't do it again. Another day coated in watery film, snot clogging up a stripey sleeve full of tissues, while you watch MTV in economy.