And on a lighter note...

My dad thinks he's going to make his fortune with spreadable cucumber.


Picture ketchup, but cucumber.


He's developed just short of a business plan. Coming soon to a supermarket near you...

Strike.

Today I embark on my first bonafide strike. Embark, is a strong word to represent my inaction first thing this morning and further sloth-like behaviour since. You see, it's lovely to have a day off, no matter where in the chain your role resides. And anyone with any desire to excel in their job, if not for the pure and simple sake that the children need you, would use this time to plan and prepare. I am no exception, but still relish the opportunity to do so in my pyjamas. 

The cause behind the strike is also something I feel strongly about, the only issue is in which direction I lean. I would love to continue to pay in the pension contributions as I have been, however with me only having done so for little under a year, I am by no means reliant on the figure that stands at present. However, a large community of teachers (and other public sector employees) have been paying into their pension funds for longer than my life-span, just to be told that this will be cut.

Work longer.

Pay more.

Get less.

Yeah, that seems the message. But behind this is a very true and vast problem: recession. Pensions, as they stand, are unsustainable. You could argue this money should be recouped from MP salaries and by returning to manufacture (on presentation of a receipt and tags intact) the expensive arms our country loves to invest in. But that seems a futile approach to a problem that will cause devastation likely in the fighting ranks first. The working class will pay for the debt, will pay towards it and ultimately be destroyed by it.

Maybe pension cuts are a useful way to stave this off a while. 

Maybe not.

Maybe Michael Gove, our so-called education secretary, should try becoming more acquainted with school policy and the culture of education before suggesting that a troop of parents swoop in to save schools from having to close today. Whilst it is paramount that all those working closely with children are CRB checked, it seems that, to our Gove, this is all superficial and unnecessary. It is simply outlandish that parents should be checked, they're parents right? Or is this just a further example of the flippant expressions of MPs and their constant approval of middle-upper class misconceptions and naivities.

Plus he's rude:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12171281

Prompting my work-mate's inspired t-shirt idea...

Who knows, I'm gonna get a brew and further philosophise.

Why I love my mum.

Mum: "If I say something's white, you lot say it's red...the complete opposite!"

Me: "Mum, red is not the opposite of white."

Mum: [Pause] ..."Well it's even worse then - think about that!"

Abandoned items

Here's a little collection of things I have found which people have left behind, forgotten or discarded. 


In my little head I imagine whole stories behind them: epic love tales, drug wars and ... room advertisements.


Nevertheless I have at some point found each one of these items hard to walk past and so am collecting them in the hope that one day the people they belong to will see them ! 


(P.S. you can't have them back, you realise that right ? !)

Thoughts on a break-up

I wrote this. I wanted to remember. Maybe it was more about never wanting to forget but I tortured myself with these memories for years. They changed my life and I wanted to share them. Mostly with myself. Another part of me continues to want you to understand. 

I remember that feeling. It makes me recoil and scrunch all my features up. My nose wrinkles and my head shakes involuntarily, as if a tremor has passed through my spine. I attempt to steady my visuals. I stare out of the bus window trying to find normality; picture other people's lives. To look into someone else's world is to wander from yours. You can allow your imagination to create those intimate moments; snapshots of diverse perspectives. They distract you from your own.

Imagine a circular army of eye soldiers trying to hold fast their ground in the theatre of my brain whilst a vengeful army of potential visuals attempted to defeat the eye-soldiers and pass through. I could have pierced the glass with my eyes, the effort was so determined; begging to be provided respite from the impossible flashbacks of the scenarios and dialogues infecting my peripherals. They triumphed, over the impossible feat of forgetting the way I felt in that room - and the way the room felt with this conflict - and the way you looked as kingdoms came crashing down. 

The army of rejection pull in the permanent visual. 

Like a curtain of memories descending to reveal me heaving, with tears streaming, begging, 'please love me'. You sat across from me with your hands in your lap. You looked awkward as if you were embarrassed. You were uncomfortable and I was cultivating a tragedy. 

I watched cities turn into villages and rumble over fields to meet forests overlooking streams feeding into rivers, and waited to reach you. I watched seconds turn into minutes creating hours moving along roads to approach and to reach you. Flutters in my tummy and I'm speeding towards you because I think you're amazing. You've made me amazing and I want to feel amazing by being in your amazing arms. As I take the steps down I see you waiting at the platform for me, your eyes light up and my butterflies flutter endlessly until you hold me close. Those journeys across the country to see you were torturously long but oh my god to see you there - my whole life never felt this certain. It was me and it was you. 

I can see him now. Looking through me, into me, trying to communicate his conviction. I don't love you anymore. My heart couldn't hear it, my mind couldn't feel it and my body wouldn't allow it. My head hurt because I was trying to breathe and the tears were congesting my brain. It felt as though my thoughts were being received by cotton-wool, struggling to meet and create cohesion. Creeping in on me was a stealth buzzing sound which invaded my senses and sent each fracture of thought inching along the fibres of my brain but never liaising to discuss my well-being. Hurt physically starved my body of air. Winded by the force of words I continued to disbelieve, I caved in on comprehension and was broken.

I want you here. I've grown old without you. Grown off into a stunted direction because of the lack of light. Like a plant I cowered in the darkness of misery without you and couldn't move on.

I need to explain. You really need to understand. I actually can't do this without you. It became all about me. Self-preservation created a wreck. My quest to make him stay caused further pain. Despite my tears and pleas and shaking and talking. Speaking words that were inconsistent with what we both knew to be true. I was forming my own reality in order to masquerade the truth, and blend his understanding into a safe shade of yellow - that was where I'd be able to have him back. I never wanted him to leave, just needed him to love me the way I needed him to love me. 

We hold hands and watch the time. The clock in my car tells us you have 5 minutes but we're ready to see that through. All we can do is smile at each other because neither of us have been so far deep in love, swimming in it and refusing to come up for air. We watch those minutes disappear and the train roll past and I start the ignition because we're going home. Home is everywhere you are. We laugh because we've cheated - we denied destiny the chance to bring us apart and that was really only the beginning. We were fighting for each other from the start, demanding the chance to just be, in spite of the disharmony our love was bringing to those around us. 

How time has moved since then, to bring us to a new reality where I'm looking ahead through tears at the on-coming bus, bumping over road and weaving its way through traffic towards us. You wait with me but I guess you're hoping to be somewhere else - I'm continuing the cycle of pain because I can't move on. Take my hand, pull me back, pick me up, kiss my face, take me home. If you let this happen to us what will we become? Every second you wait I feel like an eternity is stretching around me and has me in a vacuum, and I'm lost. 

A part of me will always be with you.

You're wearing a gifted green hat when you arrive to visit me. I sit connected by wires to machines that bleep incessantly but I can see you and you're coming towards me, so I'm fine. You give me a cigarette and I walk with you, in slippers, to the back door. Why don't we have anything to say to each other anymore? It feels strained but I just want to touch you and for you to hold me. I want to be in bed beside you, hearing you keep me awake. I can't watch you so close to me and yet feel so far apart. It's as if I'm holding my breath; if I slip up you'll fade out. I am so, so scared here. When you leave I'll be on my own again. You'll go home and see your friends, maybe smoke, maybe watch the football. You'll go out to a reggae night and dance and laugh. I'll sit listening to the silence of the ward, with it's shuffles and coughs and bleeps and tap-tapping of heels to and fro, past my room. Despite the sounds, it's silence. 

To have something that was a bit of me and a bit of you. That potential new bond, a life within life. Those moments are to share but I couldn't find you. I knew where you were but I couldn't get to you. I was so alone. I'd always thought you'd be there to support me, but talking to you from a distance through a knot in my stomach blocking the receptors of my emptiness, I screamed my secret loss. Where were you? Even when you were there and you heard, in fact you were all too far away from me.

I'm driving and I'm crying. I can't understand how I've ended up here. Where are you? I need you here so much because I can't breathe and I almost can't see. I don't even want to see without you. If I could see you now I'd tell you what you needed to hear. This was all nothing. We love each other. Why don't you love me? I see traffic lights and drive on, I turn corners and drive on; tears blur the road and fill my eyes with fragments of light that crystallise the thoughts of you. I don't know what I'll have to do to make it alright again. Please help me. Please.

The embarrassment of the betrayal remains a painful sting, wounding both my heart and my pride in equal measure, from time to time. As I move on through the seconds, I can maintain this awkward sensation with thoughts of words exchanged. I pretended to have moved on, before the wound had properly been inflicted. As the knife was turning, I was holding your hand and looking into your eyes and hoping to get through. Without you nothing will ever be the same and it's impossible for you to ever understand how you left me. 

I'm in a safe place now. Hiding under my covers my bed feels empty but I fill it with salt water and sobs. I can't open my eyes and my body's shaking so I pick up my phone to call you. Tone - flat, desire - gone, voice - impatient. This means nothing to you anymore and hearing me die inside feels as if it's making you sick with repulsion. I used to feel like the most beautiful woman. If ever I was insecure you showed me your devotion and if I couldn't find the words to express my happiness with you, it wasn't necessary. We both knew; it was a secret between us that everyone was witnessing. Now I'm in so much pain it manifests as literal heartbreak and every moment that you're away, my body convulses in agony. Involuntarily my body shows it's hurt by moving without thought and smiling without meaning. It feels good to cry you out. I cry until there's nothing left to cry, smoke a spliff and try to sleep without you. It feels like a thousand nights before I can leave this world and dream of you. 

I can feel his body up against mine. I cradle him and sing into his ear.I know that there's a 1259 lullaby tonight…

I miss you before you've left. I'll know that empty space without you before you step away to reveal the gap.

If she was to ask me about you what would I say? It would have to be a polite request to change the subject because my eyes will flash back and see your balcony and your stairs and my room with those shorts and the spare room with it's stickers and I can't discuss you any further without bursting into flames. 

I'm sick of trying to find life without you. I wake up, get dressed, brush teeth, leave the house, see people, read words, listen to harmonies, see flashing lights, tip my head back and the alcohol flushes down. It misses the pain and creates the clarity of which only I have the misfortune to keep re-living. I feel like you're haunting me and I'm scared that every second dissolving without you is bound to forge a cavity between us so large I won't be able to jump over it. I'll try, but I'll fail. I know this now.

Now I see you with someone else and I guess she makes you happy. I connect with you; but she's who you lay with. I want you despite our failings, so relentlessly I pursue something, anything that brings me back to my baby. You're not my baby anymore but when you kiss me and tell me you miss me, I can forget that as soon as I leave I'll face being away from you indefinitely. I can handle it. It's only sex that I want and if I can have that I'll be fine; you can't provide what I need and you wouldn't even if you could... Only it isn't fine. One hand on each side of your face, I'm sure you don't realise that I'm searching for you. How can this be my baby when he loves someone else. I can't understand that you're ok without me because I am devastation personified.

I bought this song to remind me of you. I still can't get you out of my head. If I let you creep into my consciousness I feel sick to the stomach without you. Who am I now? I never felt completeness like being your girl. You loved me despite myself. The thought of you leaving me. Leaving me to leave you and not allowing me back on my word. You killed me that day. Those days - that I dragged out - making it impossible for you not to run. But I needed you so much you will never understand. I couldn't conceive of being without you because you made me better. You healed me because you loved me and I was sure of that.

I draw randoms.

I try to draw people with character. Their faces tell stories. 

I track every freckle, line and shadow - following no structure other than FACE.

What structure does your face have? Could it fit into a grid system format layout guideline? I flippin' hope not..

Poetree.

I wrote this around a year ago. 

For the most-part my writing comes from deep seated emotion. Soon, I will write about a bog standard average day in the life of...but for now here's some heartbreak.

The Winged Spindle Tree

I was once the winged spindle tree,

My branches whispered of our love-story.

Leaves carried your name in the wind through the air,

Happiness endured in their veins to declare.

Too soon you forgot to understand, to celebrate;

The truth of the words you could once relate.

You became the woodchopper, prepared to kill

Where once you'd carved your message, at my will. 

Blossom showered down, hitting ground with no life;

The bough, my heart: Your axe, the knife.

I did not speak as you worked, did not weep as I fell

I'd always been here, living to tell.

I felt it, despite the fragility of its nature,

Every leaf spoke of it: to be yours, to be sure.

I landed, and there was a stillness in place

The noise and movement made room for my case.

You had never even heard me, never really listened

But now you understood, like dew it glistened:

You'd been my thoughts and my praise

Since you touched me, to these last days.

And as you stood, finished and ready to leave

There was nothing left here, no way to decieve.

It seems what was between us was clear for all but few

See the wind had been carrying my words away from you. 

Finally, with your eyes upon me, I lay undisguised,

I imagine it was then that you realised.

Wednesday's Haikus

So these are a compilation of poems created by Karis and I on a week of sangria, lost friends, lakes, basket exhibitions and hip hop.

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The grass is tended

The deer appreciates this

But tomorrow gone.

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Stony paths lead up

To the empty heart of the cave

But with you it's full.

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Weave one under one over

The basket will hold for you

Treasure that is unfold.

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Flat lands are no more

Steep lines rise up from the floor

It's hard to climb them.

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Blossom litters paths

Yours is obscured by pattern

Tangled in fortune.

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Water is colour

Cascading without limit

Becoming homeland.

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Men carry their boats

To cup them in the vast flow

They bob with each wave.

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Wind surrounds my wings

To guide me on the surface

Swim swimminey swim.

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