I can't get my head around it. I can't get my head around why. That is always what I am searching for.

Why?

It's such an ambiguous, such an elusive answer. Nobody really knows why really, do they? The sad fact is that it just is.

I'm sitting in my living room thinking all this. I'm just waiting for QI to come on. We've spent the day milling around each other, speaking occasionally and then just eating dinner. Repeatedly she told us to be quiet whilst she watched Casualty. I could tell that she had gone already. Gone was mum and in her place was her own personal Hyde.

It's the only way I can describe it. The only way I can make someone realise just what it is like. At one moment she is my mother: coherant, tolerant, beautiful. Then she switches. Her features sink into her face, her mouth turns down and tenses in a clowns frown. Her chin seems to sink into her neck. Her voice becomes slurred. Her walking becomes staggered.

Alcoholic.
Even the word sounds like someone drinking gin straight from a bottle.

Be safe.

I felt like writing something last night. Actually really, truly writing. I got a pencil and a pad and I wrote something. I don't normally do this. I normally type out whatever pops into my head. I hardly ever get the urge to write something.

It felt really good to see the words on the paper, coming from my hands. From my brain. And I've sat and read it back over and over again, and only in little bits does it become stale and over-used. I'm going to type it out for you to read. Not for praise, not for anything. Just for you to read.

I imagine folding in on myself. I lie on the cream leather sofa, limbs sprawled out as if I am sunbathing. I imagine my fingers and toes bending the wrong way, being pressed against my wrists and ankles. I see myself curling into myself. I imagine I am becoming compressed. Depressed.
I lie there and wish I could fold up neatly. Become a pile of clothing, hair and flesh that can be tucked away into a corner and saved until later.
I wish to be inanimate.

I'm lost in my wishing. Different images visit me on my beach of leather and pillows. In one I am a sheet of skin, stretched taught and pale, hanging from a washing line. I see an underground map of veins, arteries, capillaries. The tunnels of me that lead to my heart, exposed and vulnerable. Impossibly the blood is still flowing; I still live as I hang there, crucifed, for no ones cause but my own.
I feel guilty at this. I refocus on the ceiling; whitewashed but punctuated with birthmarks of tea-coloured damp. I try to make shapes. I watch as the stains tremble before my eyes, and as I blink they become clear images, like an optical illusion.
A man in a bowler hat, a flower half open, a knife, a cloud. The exercise is exciting, refreshing in a way. But after a while I keep coming back to the same shapes.

If that isn't a good analogy to real life, I don't know what is.

I know it doesn't make all the sense in the world. Mostly I was just exploring my descriptive side. Trying to become more of an artist in the sense of painting with words. I don't know if I succeeded. I just hope you enjoyed it.

x

You're the line in the sand when I go too far

I am not elegant. Most of the times I walk into things, trip over things, trip over myself and knock things over.

I used to have an image of myself where I was a woman of elegance. I would wear fancy ball gowns and be hanging off the arm of a man wearing a tuxedo and looking suspiciously like Tom Hanks in Big.
Now I can't help but thinking that I've deviated away from that vision. I don't know if that's a bad thing or not, I don't even know if I will become that in the future. Just because I have a tattoo doesn't mean I'm inelegant, but somehow I feel I have changed. Not just because of the tattoo. The way I dress is far from lady-like, the way I talk is not at all elegant, but it is me. And isn't that the most important thing at the end of the day?

I still hold views on romance that will never be wavered. I want the Tom Hanks look-a-like who looks so good in a suit you can't wait to get him out of it. I want a man to kiss my hand, tell me that I look gorgeous. I want a man who will do something extravagant and tell me he loves me every day of his life.
I'd hate to think that I was a hopeless romantic, doomed to spend my life lamenting over lost loves and what ifs.

That is why I'm making this decision.

I'd rather regret things that happened rather than regret something I never did. I'd rather say those three words and get knocked back, because at some point the world has to give me something. I live in hope that one day the one for me will turn around and confess his undying love for me and we will walk into the sunset into our 'happily ever after'.
My best friend told me today that there isn't enough hope in the world. I agree, but you make your own hope, don't you? I will not change who I am to conform to something. I won't be the girl who dotes and falls over herself for a man who doesn't want her. I will be the calm, elegant and poised woman, who holds her head up and don't take no shit from no man.

And I will be that woman wearing jeans and a band t-shirt, because, damn, this is me and I can't run from her.

By the end of this year I will fall in love. My life will be an explosion of colour and sound. Music that I've never heard before and colours I don't know the name of but will wear everyday of my life because they look good on me.

The future is bright. We all have to believe that.

When I caught myself, I had to stop myself.

I am well and truly out of my depth.

I was waiting for him to come back after our row, my eyes watering periodically and tears streaming down my cheeks in unpredictable downpours.

I'd sat there staring into his green eyes and he pleaded with me to tell him the truth. There was no other way, I had to tell him.

"You're dying."

The words fell out of my mouth and hung in the air. For a moment I thought it would be okay but then they came crashing down like lead weights. He didn't believe me. He screamed at me, pacing up and down the room.
"You're scared. You've never gotten this close to anyone before and you're trying to push me away." I wanted to shake him; make him see that no I wasn't trying to push him away. I was trying to tell the truth.
"No, it's true. I can see it."

And with that he'd stormed out. His timer slowly ticking down, taking all his precious seconds with him and leaving me with what seemed like eternity.

I was looking for beauty...

I wrote a new poem and wasn't sure where to share it. I wasn't sure who to share it with. So I guess I'll put it here so I can share it with everyone/anyone.

If you're reading this: enjoy.

I saw God in mitosis,
he told me that it’s not
always as it seems.
The boats on the ocean floor are
full of mermaids. Starfish eyes on Broadway
and coral perms.
He laughed –
It sounded like waves against a rock.
Dangerous.

It's not supposed to be a serious piece. Just something from the crazed recesses that exist in my mind.

This is the last time...

Oh man, oh man, oh MAN!

I made that comment about being predictable and you said I wasn't and I knew, I just knew, that you were referring to the e-mail.
MAN!
Why did you have to waltz back into my life and shake me up so badly.

I was quite drunk, but I wasn't drunk enough to realise maybe what you were doing. I can't help but think that you started talking to me that night, after months and months of silence, because I was in a vulnerable position. Maybe I shouldn't have updated my Facebook status, but why shouldn't I?! It wasn't for you, because I never expected you to react to anything I wrote on there anyway.

I commented on your picture too. Yeah, maybe that wasn't the best of moves.

You spoke to me and I didn't feel scared, but I don't know if that was the alcohol numbing my senses or that I am actually over you. I could have bought it up. I could have confronted you; asked you why you were talking to me now. Maybe she had gone back home or something and you felt free. I don't know.

I don't want you to, impossibly, read this and think "Oh, shit. I shouldn't have done that. Now she thinks I love her." Because I don't. Honestly, I don't. I just got a little bit confused and couldn't help but think that you were trying to catch me off guard.

Anyway, this is now going to be addressed to my actual audience.

Can you believe the nerve of him? Doing that after so damn long?!
It was totally uncalled for. He even complimented my profile picture. I couldn't believe it. But at the same time I didn't care enough, I just didn't care.

College is out for Christmas. Yeeha! Although I've been ill for the past week because of a nasty flu/cold kind of thing. I'm very nearly over it.
I have to revise now, everyday. Because if I don't get AAB then Birmingham aren't going to want to have me. I don't know though. I kind of want to go to Plymouth or Hull. Because they're by the sea and I love it so much. I want to be able to learn how to surf - which if I get on the Cornwall campus at Exeter uni that is exactly what I'll be doing. Watch how my creative writing gets less and less creative.

It's exciting though. I was reading over some old school reports and the one from year 7 says that I have a flair for creative writing. I was just sitting there thinking 'Wow. It's like I was destined to be a writer.'

The novel is getting ever clearer in my mind. Bits of the plot come to me at really random times. But it's actually becoming a good read. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to write it so I could just read it. That sounds horribly big headed.

Ahh, still single. Still solitarily single. I like this guy. His name is Dave. There's no chance he will ever read this so it's okay. He's just funny, and easy to be myself around and fun to be with and talk to. We were at my friends house and it's the first time I've ever been in an environment like that with him. I wanted to be close to him, he has some kinda magnetism about him. Maybe the world will start turning my way soon? Who knows.

Ciao.

Oh please, I'm in love...

I felt like writing, but didn't know what to write so I looked over some of my old poetry for inspiration. It was strange.
I read a poem. A silly little poem I wrote during an English lesson and I literally felt my heart swell up with love for it. I'm not saying it was the best poem ever written, because that would be a huge lie. I got so passionate about it because I love writing things like that. When I look at my poetry of 3/4 years ago and then look to now I see such a difference. I can see just how much I've progressed as a writer without any real educational guidance, just through sitting and reading poetry written by other people. I feel proud of myself for doing that, for perservering and carrying on. I feel like I am a writer now. I feel like I can call myself a poet.
I won't carry on being all saft - it's not really like me. I'll just leave you with the poem.

The man from next door
has a wooden leg and a parrot.
Everyday he sits on his doorstep
tapping wood against stone; foreboding.
The rhythm; a mismatched waltz mimicks
my heart, sets it on fire, makes me want
to run,
run so very far away.