Saturday 27 September 2008
Wednesday 24 September 2008
Why
“Why?”
After the long silence, one word is what I get. I didn’t see it coming. I’d gone to brush my teeth, and walked back in my room to find my mobile screen light had come on. I opened the message from my estranged former partner and stared at it.
“Why?”
What am I supposed to respond and say, if anything? What is he talking about? Why we broke up? There’s blame in that word, accusation. In a sense, “why did you destroy something that worked so well?” or “why me?”. He was a master of blame, looked for it everywhere around him but himself. I hated that. Is he really trying to blame me for everything?
Beneath the layer of accusation I can also read despair. I can see him now, on his sofa flicking through the channels on television as he usually would, not watching much, though now I suspect the volume would be turned up a little louder as he tries to scare away my ghost lying there next to him, hugging him from behind and falling asleep with my head against his. I know this is probably what he’s doing, I know because this is what I have done.
I’m not as sad about losing that relationship as I am heartbroken over what I’ve done to him. I love him still, I never will stop caring for him because I know him so well I can see past anything he says or does.
Yet this one word, staring me in the face, I can’t even reply to. Why.
A few possible responses run through my head. The one I began to text back was “You deserve a lot more than I can give you right now.” Corny, but true. I wasn’t ready to move in with him, throw in the towel so to speak and focus what little time I now have every day on just furthering a romantic relationship. This is obviously an item on my agenda, but it is one of many. Or maybe it was because I’ve betrayed him several times during the 3 years we’d spent together, and, finding that I could no longer maintain my own self-respect, I decided to run in the other direction. Or maybe it was because I felt so weak around him, used him as my moral compass, felt bad when he felt bad, and only happy if he felt happy; I’d lost control of myself and my own conviction, and I resented him for it. Maybe that’s “why”.
In the end, James, I really don’t know “why”. People’s paths cross, and some souls are closer together than others. Life without you is in many ways a living hell, but I’ve just begun to get back on my own feet, feel like my own self again. Maybe that’s overrated, but right now, even with all this doubt, it feels right.
After the long silence, one word is what I get. I didn’t see it coming. I’d gone to brush my teeth, and walked back in my room to find my mobile screen light had come on. I opened the message from my estranged former partner and stared at it.
“Why?”
What am I supposed to respond and say, if anything? What is he talking about? Why we broke up? There’s blame in that word, accusation. In a sense, “why did you destroy something that worked so well?” or “why me?”. He was a master of blame, looked for it everywhere around him but himself. I hated that. Is he really trying to blame me for everything?
Beneath the layer of accusation I can also read despair. I can see him now, on his sofa flicking through the channels on television as he usually would, not watching much, though now I suspect the volume would be turned up a little louder as he tries to scare away my ghost lying there next to him, hugging him from behind and falling asleep with my head against his. I know this is probably what he’s doing, I know because this is what I have done.
I’m not as sad about losing that relationship as I am heartbroken over what I’ve done to him. I love him still, I never will stop caring for him because I know him so well I can see past anything he says or does.
Yet this one word, staring me in the face, I can’t even reply to. Why.
A few possible responses run through my head. The one I began to text back was “You deserve a lot more than I can give you right now.” Corny, but true. I wasn’t ready to move in with him, throw in the towel so to speak and focus what little time I now have every day on just furthering a romantic relationship. This is obviously an item on my agenda, but it is one of many. Or maybe it was because I’ve betrayed him several times during the 3 years we’d spent together, and, finding that I could no longer maintain my own self-respect, I decided to run in the other direction. Or maybe it was because I felt so weak around him, used him as my moral compass, felt bad when he felt bad, and only happy if he felt happy; I’d lost control of myself and my own conviction, and I resented him for it. Maybe that’s “why”.
In the end, James, I really don’t know “why”. People’s paths cross, and some souls are closer together than others. Life without you is in many ways a living hell, but I’ve just begun to get back on my own feet, feel like my own self again. Maybe that’s overrated, but right now, even with all this doubt, it feels right.
Saturday 20 September 2008
Sticky and Sweet
“I want to thank God, and all my friends, that it DIDN’T FUCKING RAIN TODAY!” screamed Madonna mid-set. Sean, standing behind me, was 30 minutes into screaming and now his voice sounded more like an owl after a swig of diet coke. JS had got us tickets so close to the stage, I could practically smell the dancer’s resilient anti-presperant. Now that’s what I call Sticky and Sweet.
Sticky and Sweet, though not nearly the emotional tour de force that was the Confessions tour, was sexy, and total innovation – from the stage design to the remastered versions of all her great songs. Aside from some punk-ass bitch that tried to cut in front of us, the show was a visual treat, and the sounds that came from the mega speakers were divine. All hail the Queen.
Less than 48 hours later, I was strapped in a tight flight suit, bracing myself to jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet. I wasn’t even nervous, but at the fear of looking like the Dalai Lama I tried to joke around a bit. My instructor was more playful than I was. Since it was my first ‘Jump’, he was strapped to my back to guide the skydive, and, when it finally opened at 3,000 feet, the parachute.
“Mate, what’s the difference between a Ferrari and an erection?” He yelled at me as I sat on his lap in the cramped, noisy wooden plane (yeah, I was ready to jump out of that thing if it ever got us to 10,000 feet). “What?!” I managed to yell back. He moved in a little closer and said “I don’t have a Ferrari”. All of a sudden, the air got colder, the sound of the engine faded. I was dropping, so fast. The clouds were far…below me. I was coming at them full speed. The air was so clean and crisp. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, yet it was going by so fast.
I was coming up on the clouds, and as the mist hit my face, the parachute shot up.
Sticky and Sweet, though not nearly the emotional tour de force that was the Confessions tour, was sexy, and total innovation – from the stage design to the remastered versions of all her great songs. Aside from some punk-ass bitch that tried to cut in front of us, the show was a visual treat, and the sounds that came from the mega speakers were divine. All hail the Queen.
Less than 48 hours later, I was strapped in a tight flight suit, bracing myself to jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet. I wasn’t even nervous, but at the fear of looking like the Dalai Lama I tried to joke around a bit. My instructor was more playful than I was. Since it was my first ‘Jump’, he was strapped to my back to guide the skydive, and, when it finally opened at 3,000 feet, the parachute.
“Mate, what’s the difference between a Ferrari and an erection?” He yelled at me as I sat on his lap in the cramped, noisy wooden plane (yeah, I was ready to jump out of that thing if it ever got us to 10,000 feet). “What?!” I managed to yell back. He moved in a little closer and said “I don’t have a Ferrari”. All of a sudden, the air got colder, the sound of the engine faded. I was dropping, so fast. The clouds were far…below me. I was coming at them full speed. The air was so clean and crisp. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, yet it was going by so fast.
I was coming up on the clouds, and as the mist hit my face, the parachute shot up.
A tale of two cities
He makes him feel alive.
In London, the dark streets smothered with impatience and the silent shuffle of black suits blur his vision as he paces towards his office. The grey clouds above swirl, and in his eyes they merge with the square pavement, the asphalt, and the stone, steel and glass towers. The Royal Exchange and its Corinthian columns bear the Greco-Roman qualities of autumn like no others. A cold breeze runs through the streets unchallenged, floating around black taxis, down escalator shafts and through his own jacket.
The monochrome bleakness of his surroundings drives and animates his thoughts. His brain, surrounded by robotic movements and disengagement, jolts inwards, implodes with thought and colour. His thoughts take over his senses, simulating powerful sensations and memories of times long lost; like an ex drug addict hit by a flashback each feeling tingles through his veins and sends a sharp pang through his hollow chest.
At his desk, the computer’s processor hums silently, almost imperceptibly. Hundreds of documents lie in neat folders and piles around him. He picks up a piece of paper. The font is uniform and small. The language looked familiar. His eyes search for the beginning of the first sentence, but just as he starts reading a dab of blue jumps at him, strikes him from between the lines. Like a watermark hidden behind the black ink. He bites his cud, pauses. His eyes struggle to readjust on the page. A few more words and the sharp pang hits him deep in his chest, again.
A page and a half later, he gives up. He closes his eyes, leans back in his chair. The dab of blue swirls in his head, like cotton candy. It creates a pattern, then a circle. An eye, an eyelid, an eyebrow- a face, a smile.
In London, the dark streets smothered with impatience and the silent shuffle of black suits blur his vision as he paces towards his office. The grey clouds above swirl, and in his eyes they merge with the square pavement, the asphalt, and the stone, steel and glass towers. The Royal Exchange and its Corinthian columns bear the Greco-Roman qualities of autumn like no others. A cold breeze runs through the streets unchallenged, floating around black taxis, down escalator shafts and through his own jacket.
The monochrome bleakness of his surroundings drives and animates his thoughts. His brain, surrounded by robotic movements and disengagement, jolts inwards, implodes with thought and colour. His thoughts take over his senses, simulating powerful sensations and memories of times long lost; like an ex drug addict hit by a flashback each feeling tingles through his veins and sends a sharp pang through his hollow chest.
At his desk, the computer’s processor hums silently, almost imperceptibly. Hundreds of documents lie in neat folders and piles around him. He picks up a piece of paper. The font is uniform and small. The language looked familiar. His eyes search for the beginning of the first sentence, but just as he starts reading a dab of blue jumps at him, strikes him from between the lines. Like a watermark hidden behind the black ink. He bites his cud, pauses. His eyes struggle to readjust on the page. A few more words and the sharp pang hits him deep in his chest, again.
A page and a half later, he gives up. He closes his eyes, leans back in his chair. The dab of blue swirls in his head, like cotton candy. It creates a pattern, then a circle. An eye, an eyelid, an eyebrow- a face, a smile.
Poems on the Underground
She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
-Robert Graves
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And puts out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.
-Robert Graves
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)