The ones that slipped away

I've been thinking about the past a lot recently.  It's come to me in dreams.  Some of them just silly little reminders of people who were once a large part of my life, others haunting images that tell the tales of past and future selves, and how they meet in the middle, or maybe not at all...

Obsession with the past is never a good thing, and I shake these things off, because it's necessary.  All the same, I feel slightly emotionally exhausted from trying to reconcile my life now with the life I was living just 12 months ago.  Am I the same person?  Do I want to be the same person?  Is it weird that the most important people in my life now are slightly different?  Should I be scared about the future, because of the change?

Sometimes I really think that Poland was all a dream.  Did I really live there?  Did I really use to get the train and the bus on my own in the dark on a Sunday night, travelling from town to town, not speaking the lingo?  Did I really have those zloty in my purse, instead of pounds?  And have that weird fish salad thing that they sold in the little shop downstairs?  It all seems like a crazy fantasy that I made up when I was bored.  Then Sue or Leanne or Ana or someone drops me a line, and I have to accept the fact that I did live with Sue and Ana, and I did work with them both along with Leanne...otherwise how else would I know them? 

Then I remember the others I met in Poland, and how I may never see any of them again, and this really deeply saddens me.  These people walked into my life, they made an impact, and then they disappeared.  And for some reason I feel everything like it's a big blow.  Maybe just because I'm in a reflective mood, maybe because I've always found it difficult to let go, or maybe because you never really realise how much you relied on a network until it's not there anymore.  I had to make a new network of friends whilst on the continent, with my family physically far away....and now even though I'm close to my family again, without the network there just feels an absence.

Maybe that also explains my utter fascination with the life of one of my friends, who, I hope with all my heart, does not class herself as a former friend or just 'somebody that I used to know'.  See, she really was someone I could talk to anytime about anything, even if I hadn't seen or spoken to her in months.  And I could always rely on her to come round with food and drink and a big smile for games and giggles at my place.  Now I see her life only through pictures on Facebook, and she even looks different.   I dreamt about her: there were two of her.  One looked like I remember her, the other looked like her in the new pictures.  Old friend introduced me to her new self, but I didn't feel the connection - it didn't really seem like her at all.  My head couldn't connect her, this persona I see on the Internet, with the person I used to know. I know it was just a dream, but I can't stop thinking about it.  Does that person still exist?  Yes, I'm sure she does, but I feel quite scared, quite alarmed, after that really scary dream, as though she has been replaced by an imposter.  (It should now be noted that directly following this encounter in my dream I went upstairs and found a panda in the bath.  I'm not really taking the meaning of that all too seriously, so perhaps I ought to take all of the dream with a pinch of salt?)

The point is, with her seeming to slip away from my life too, when I used to rely on her so much...it seems bizarre, it seems strange....and the absence is sorely felt.

Even though things in just the space of a year have changed so dramatically, it doesn't mean that things have changed for the worse.  I'm happy and I've grown.  It's remarkable that the people who now belong in my life include some people who I never thought would play the major roles that they do.  In fact, instead of focussing on the friends who I've had to leave behind, even just because of geographical barriers, I should really be focussing on the new ones, because they're just as important. 

By no stretch of the imagination could my heart ever really leave behind those friends I made in Poland, or elsewhere. Even those people who left my life by choice have left their mark and I doubt they will ever be removed.  It just makes up another part of me, teaches me important lessons and enables me to understand humanity a little more.  I've left the light on and the door open for these people, in the hope they might return.  Maybe they never will, but at least I gave them the opportunity.

In the meantime I'll just be grateful for everything I have, because I'm privelleged to know and be friends with some fantastic people!

How Edward Cullen isn't god-like and other counter arguments

Since the release of the books and films, witty analyses of Twilight and its sequels have been dominant on the Internet.  Most of the critique, or appraisal, centres around the reason for its success, how transparent it is, and the need for an explanation because, of course, how 'lame' it all is - it is as bizarre as that phase where year 11 kids started bringing their childhood lunchboxes back into school, claiming it as 'retro' or something (anyone else remember that?)

The explanation goes a little something like this: Girls like Twilight.  Girls like Twilight because of the hero, Edward Cullen, who is immortal, and loves the awkward teenager Bella unconditionally.  Edward is god-like, and as all girls are an awkward teenager inside, with a longing to be loved by an immortal being, Twilight fulfills their dreams of one day also being loved unconditonally by a god-like creature.

For me there are a million and one things wrong with this argument, but I'll just give you the 3 main issues I have with it.

1)  The first premise is that girls like Twilight.  I would like to deny this sweeping generalisation, which assumes that Twilight is liked only by girls.  And I'm pretty sure there a few women who couldn't give a flying fig what happens in Forks.  Additionally, I can name men who like Twilight.  I have heard it said, in response to this, and also in anticipation to such a response to the above argument, that any men who like Twilight are gay.  Well, firstly may I congratulate you on re-affirming a stereotype and secondly I might point out that the derrogatory way in which you use the word 'gay' is offensive.  Thanks.

2) Edward Cullen is not god-like.  I don't even know where to start with this, because there are so many reasons why, so let me just give you a taste of some of the reasons I have to counter this.  1) He's selfish - he freely admits in book 1 that he is and that he should stay away from Bella, as it is in her best interests, yet still he enters into a relationship with her 2) he attempts to kill himself in book 2, not in a self-sacrificial act for the good of man-kind - no- because he can't take living without Bella (again...selfish?) 3) he doesn't have unconditional love for everyone, just for Bella.  He actively hates some people.  Namely Jacob Black and certainly Mike Newton in book 1. 

3) If Twilight is able to fulfil the needs of those girls who long for a god-like figure to love them the way Edward loves Bella, then how do we explain all those women who love Twilight yet are believers in a religion which has a God?  If they believe in a Father-Creator, a Heavenly-Paternal being who loves them so unconditionally, or have a relationship with Him, then why would they crave this sort of re-affirmation?  I don't think they would.  However, assuming they do want some sort of secular, pop-cultural point of reference to solidify their beliefs or to re-affirm their own values, why choose a hero of a book who, at one point, abandons the awkward-teenage Bella and cuts her out of his life for months on end? 

So, why am I annoyed enough to write this post?  Well, mainly because I wanted somewhere to tell people why I like Twilight.  It has nothing to do with Edward Cullen, his stinky breath (seriously Meyer you mention his breath too much, it makes me feel a little sick!) or my identification with Bella Swan (not that I particularly see myself in her.  Rather she is way too cool and aloof compared to me as a teenager.  And she does the washing up.  A teenager who does her chores!) 

The reason I like Twilight is probably the same reason everyone else loves Twilight: the love triangle. Simple as that.

Team Jacob BTW.

Traffic

Waiting at the traffic lights
hoping for the red
that means you don't have to deal with the pedal that's under your foot.

You can wait patiently
as long as it takes
to see it was all a waste,
just as you imagined.

But whilst an amber glow stares you in the face
the only real thing you know is that you've stopped or started the race.

The cat might be alive, you know,
and what will you do then?

You didn't expect to see green
you didn't expect to go
part of you really wants it
but you can't be seen to, though.

Heart going faster than the second hand on your watch
your watch just stops
your heart beat hops
you make a move
and chance it
heart now dancing...
afterall -
it's orange,
you can go!

GO!

Why I'd rather bury my head in a pit of eels than be an athlete.

Well, it's always in the summer that my attention has to turn to the complete standstill of the world because of the supposed importance of some sporting event or other.  I probably sound a little ignorant right now, what, with the olympics just starting, and surely this ancient competition that is steeped in history and culture, a celebration of diversity and community deserves a little more credit than a blasé label like that?  Maybe you're right.  My point is that for someone who has about as much interest in sport as a butterfly has in Masterchef, it's rather frustrating, to say the least.

The news channels forget that anything is happening in the world other than people winning (or not winning) gold medals, or trophies, or whatever it is that you get for winning the Tour de France (???)  Suddenly, violence in Syria, or debt in Greece, or unemployment in Spain, is not even news worthy.

Moreover, those who do not understand the sport or the athletics are left behind.  I have no idea the rules of many of these sporting events, I don't know what constitutes a loss and what constitutes a win.  When Wimbledon was on the telly, I wasn't really sure why people were clapping?  I could barely see the tennis ball it was so fast up and down the court...is that a good thing?

My memories of sport as a child are something like this:
Firstly Sports Day at primary school.  Running along with an egg and spoon, and that weird obstacle course that involved bean bags, hula hoops and some weird net thing that you had to crawl under, like you were training for the army or something.  I never quite realised how bad I was at any of these things because of the fervent cheering on I got from my Mum when she came along to support me.  Somehow finishing last didn't register on my radar as a bad thing because, well, people thought I was good enough to cheer on.

After this, sport continued in secondary school less as an ad hoc, 'Have you got your trainers?  Right let's do some PE then' and more as a timetabled activity.  That is when it became apparent that I was about as much use as a copper wire in a spaghetti bolognase.  Suddenly, I was expected to play football.  I had to chase the ball, and when I got it, kick it to someone else, or you know, into a goal or something.  Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?  Yeah, well, no-one actually explained the rules of football to me.  Beyond the simple system of how to score a goal I had no idea what a penalty was, or why it was required, or why you might need to take a corner, and what's the deal with swapping the goals at half-time?  Talk about confusing.  It was hardly surprising that I used to run in slow-motion on purpose just to avoid actually having to do anything with the ball.

Throw in a couple of PE teachers requesting I sit out of sport because I was nigh-on useless, an incident when I was so utterly pathetic at high jump that I was made to stay back at lunch time until I could get over the pole (the teacher gave up in the end, just as well or neither of us would have had a lunch break) and an incident involving hurdles that I don't really want to go into (years of taunting and teasing over that one) and my will to want to learn and to watch sport was completely annihilated.

During PE at school I was teased for being bad at sport, for not having breasts (the sort of thing that becomes rather apparent in the changing rooms) and for my clumsiness.  During a Judo lesson I relished in actually being told rules to the sport, and was happy to be able to use it effectively.  Someone who didn't really like me in my class used it as an opportunity to just beat me up, without any adherence to the rules and she had to be dragged off me by the teacher.  Is it any wonder sport came to be something more akin to torture in my mind than enjoyment and fun?

Watching sport often reminds me of my own inability, it reminds me of the taunts, the criticisms, the helplessness of the teachers who really couldn't believe there could be someone that bad at physical activity.  It's not something I like to subject myself to.

So, now, I'm 24, surely I can get over all the stupid history of my awkward teenage years where I had little or no athletic ability growing up in a cruel social hierarchy?  Surely I can just sit there and watch and enjoy other people doing something that they're good at?

Well, sport isn't as universal as music.  It's not something that everybody loves.  I agree that you don't have to be good at sport to enjoy watching it, but if you don't really understand the game then where's the joy in it?  If you only have bad memories of playing it and not understanding it, then where's the pleasure?

When I was in Australia I had the opportunity to watch an AFL game.  Not something I would have particularly chosen as an activity for myself, but the ticket was there, and I took it.  Whilst watching the game I had some of the more important rules explained to me, and it was sort of like a lightbulb was switched on.  The game became interesting to watch because I knew what was happening, and I had no bad memories of any such sport to taint my enjoyment of it.

This summer, whilst the olympics reigns the television screens there will be a few things I'll enjoy.  1) The continuing discussion and appraisal of the opening ceremony which seems to have been a platform for politics, cultural expression and, for some, provoking a critique or assessment of British history. 2) My own personal commentary on events for my own amusement.  For instance, I'm pretty sure that the amount of air time that the shower room in the diving events gets requires some sort of comedic commentating on the 'shower olympics'.  3) Lastly, I'm going to enjoy not needing to don an ill fitting outfit for physical activity, a catalyst for a string of taunts from peers.  I don't need to do PE anymore, least of all in some unattractive outfit designed by sadists.

Dear athletes of this world, take no offence at my words, there's lots of things I can do that I'm sure you'd find boring to watch.  Writing this blog for instance.  Despite this, I wish you the best of luck!

It was Earl Grey too...

For Sue:

Hey
where've you been?
I missed you, right before you walked out the door.
I didn't let you see my tears
and others didn't know
what they were for.


Hey you,
crazy you're on the other side of the world,
and yet hide
so easily, despite the web,
the world quite widely manifested.

Did you know you taught me how to travel?
Did you know you taught me to relax?
Did you know you taught me 'no worries'?
Do you know how much you make me laugh?

I bet soon you'll sneak sugar in my tea again
I bet soon we'll be laughing on the net again
I bet soon we'll dance around the room again
I bet soon we'll use plants to defend our brains
(against zombie attack
 - do you remember that?)

Hey
how've you been?
I miss you, but I know that's very silly.
I guess I just need a good laugh lately.

Hey you,
crazy you're on the other side of the world,
and yet I'd bet anything I tasted sugar in my tea just then,
and then I smile and lift my pen.

Packing

We're always lead to believe that life is the only journey you can't pack for, that what you take with you from experience to experience is determined by your previous experiences, and the emotional and psychological result of these.  I am starting to believe that this is untrue to a certain extent.  I mean, let's face it, we're not just our psyche.  We are more than this, and, although it is not always easy, we can control our action, so why can't we control what we think?

Well, we can.  How you feel is not what you think.  What you feel can't be helped, what you think is a decision.  Sounds sort of easy, but I don't really think it is.  I haven't read a lot on this, but I have heard some people in the sort of 'self-help' business go on about it.  I didn't really give it much thought, but have found myself driven lately to move past what I feel, and make a conscious decision to think something which goes against the grain of that.  Thought leads to action, so thinking right leads to doing right. That's why this is important.

In a physical sense, when we go somewhere we think carefully about where we're going and what we're doing to decide what we need to pack.  We try to cover all eventuality, but, inevitably, we forget things, over-estimate what we'll need or under-estimate what we'll need.  In a psychological sense, you can't always prepare for what's coming.  You might try to psyche yourself up for something, but we don't always know what is around the corner, and even when we do, often we have no idea of the psychological impact.  The only thing we can do is try to alter our thought pattern.  Turning feeling into thought leads to turning thought into action.  Trying to think things you don't feel is very difficult, but I think I'm going to try and do just that as an experiment.

For example, at the moment I'm about to prepare for a physical journey of my own.  The feelings I have are of apprehension, fear, and excitement.  I don't want the negative feelings to have a negative impact on my journey, but if I allow them to overtake then they very well might.  What I'm going to try and do instead is think, consciously, about the positive aspects of my trip, and everytime a negative thought comes into my head I'm going to turn it into a positive one.  Anything which is a worry which can be helped by physical activity (i.e being more physcially prepared) then I'm going to deal with it as soon as I can so that there is no basis for a negative thought surrounding it.  I'm doing this to try to have a positive impact on me, and I'm not sure how successful it will be, or even what the real impact could be... but I think it's worth having a go.

So...I guess I'll let you know the result in the near future :)  Wish me luck!

BFF

My best friend
wraps his arms around me
he doesn't have the words to say
but that's okay
his ear is the only thing I need today.

My best friend
reads my face like a book
he knows how to hide
the truth we both denied
I clipped his wings, but now he wants to fly.

I can't shake it off
like the way I shake my head
as if somehow that means something
and saves me what I've got.

My best friend
wears his pain on his skin
he disappeared
and now I fear
there'll never be a best friend here.

My Best Friend
wraps His arms around me.
It's okay,
you're here, you're safe
and I'll still be here when you wake.

Life is like a tin of biscuits..?

I know a lot of people who don't believe in destiny.  To them, things happen because of the law of cause and effect.  It's only by complete chance that you bump into an old friend in town, that's just because she needed to get some more bread and you needed to go to the bank, you crossed paths: co-incidence.  Or you know how you met your partner, yeah your eyes met over a crowded room or something? Well he was just looking up to see if his mate had returned from a ciggie break and you were just absent mindedly staring at the poster on the back wall, and you accidentally made eye contact - co-incidence.  Oh so he loves Radiohead as much as you?  Well it doesn't mean you were always meant to meet.  I like Radiohead too - are we soulmates now or something?

Maybe.

I don't believe life is a chain of events, one causing another, yet disconnected from the chain of events happening in the lives of people around you.  No, I believe life is a complex structure of inter-connected and correlated events.  A web that's weaved around you.  I don't believe you are powerless to affect the way the structure pans out, but that certain things are laid down, and can't be avoided, they are simply part of the pattern in the weave.

Perhaps I sound like a crazy person right now, but I've given this a lot of thought over the years, and everything seems to make sense.  Things have happened to me recently that I didn't expect to happen, but the more I think about it, the more I think that this is the way it's meant to be.  No-one ever really knows but in hindsight, what was a wrong turn on your journey through life, and what was a meaningful learning curve put in your path for a reason.  And maybe I'll never really figure it out.  But is it stupid to think that some of these events, which I take meaning from, were always meant to be there so I could take meaning from them?

I'm not suggesting that while everyone else, without a moment's thought, shoves their hand in the biscuit tin and pulls out the first thing that comes to hand, I ponder thoroughly whether the bourbon biscuit is part of my destiny, or the digestive is an inevitable part of my fate.  I'm not that bonkers, and no, I don't really think biscuit choices have too much significance in our lives (although you may be surprised by life one day, who knows?)  Additionally, destiny isn't a foreboding thing which looms over your existence, weighing heavy on every decision made or considered.  No, I mean more like, after something has happened, a pattern emerges, and I take meaning from the pattern.

For example, I was looking at flights to Mexico.  I had more or less chosen which flights to book, when I was suddenly otherwise advised by friends.  I took their advice, and by surprise it turned out for good.  I met a guy on the flight from LA to La Paz who was excellent company and helped combat my nerves about the journey and challenges I'd face on the trip.  We shared stories, and he was a welcome ear to my problems.  Before we parted we compared return flights on our itineraries, and it just so happened we were on the same return flight.  I'm willing to concede that this may very well be a big, fat co-incidence, as flights from La Paz to LA are infrequent and only fly on certain days.  So if we both wanted a couple of weeks over there, we were most likely going to be returning on the same date.  BUT, there was no need for us to share the return flight together, as we were seated in different seats on the way back.  Despite this, no-one was actually sat next to me, and halfway through the journey said guy realised this and came and sat next to me anyway.  Again we shared conversation and my worries about travelling seemed diminished.  If we hadn't met on the first journey I certainly wouldn't have had company on the second!  Co-incidence? Or was he meant to be part of my journey to and from Mexico?  I think so.  Maybe I was there for him more than he was there for me?  I don't fully understand the meaning of this pattern, but perhaps it will become apparent later.  Quite often that is the case.

I haven't really proved anything here, I'm more than aware of that.  No matter what structure we choose to view our lives it is inevitable that as long as we are taking meaning from it and continue learning, then it is building us up.  That, for me, is the most important thing.

Someone once told me that the utter pointlessness of everything in life is the meaning.  Although I disagree, I like that there's still meaning to be had.

So really, what I'm getting at is, no matter whether you think destiny exists, or whether, for you, life is a series of unfortunate co-incidences or happy accidents, make sure you find something to take from it. Even if it's just the last bourbon cream in the biscuit tin.

An unexpected meeting with inspiration.

Lacking in inspiration for my latest piece, I sat in the garden, only aiming to catch a few rays and paint my nails. I hadn't thought about the possibilty of being overcome with such a renewed sense of writing inspiration merely in the back garden, but that's what happened.

It is a sore point that I'm longing to return to my perfect thinking place, the river in Durham. And on a day like today, the weather was perfect for a frappe and a meander round my favourite walk, followed by some sunbathing on the river bank in the company of only my Johnny Depp beach towel and my mp3 player.

I don't know if it was my choice to mirror the ideal with my beach towel on the lawn and my earphones on my phone's music player (since my mp3 player seems to have breathed its last...) or simply because it was such a beautiful day, but inspiration seemed to find me.

The sky was a clear, bright blue. I didn't feel the usual sense of panic when the bees came near me (and they always do. I can distinctly remember running along the walkway by the river shouting 'there's a bee!' interrupting the peace of some poor family on a Sunday afternoon walk...) and I began to take note of the things in the garden, and the birds in the sky. One thing I'd never noticed before was the budding of the willow tree, about to come into leaf. For some reason I only seem to notice the willow when its branches are bare or when the leaves are falling, but today I broke that rule...

The afternoon was only made more perfect by the Owl City which I was playing through my phone. The album 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' reminds me of two things 1) summer 2) possibility.

It was last summer that I first heard this very album, when possibility lay before me. The possibility of travel and adventure. The possibility that my trip to Poland would bring.

Right now I'm faced with that exact same thing. More travels bring more possibility, more excitement and more adventure. Sure, I don't really know where exactly I'll be in a year's time but all I can see now is possibility. Positivity.

My nails are now a bright purple, my vision for the future invigorated, and most importantly...inspiration rocked up. And now my main character is faced with more possibility than ever!

What happens in Poland...

Staring at the open suitcases, half un-packed, I sit here wondering how I got here. Not home, that's obvious. No, I mean, here figuratively. My life was going pretty much the same as everyone else's. I left university, I got a job, I moved out. I worked hard, I earned money, I shopped at the weekends. Then suddenly I decided it wasn't what I wanted. The hum drum wasn't what I wanted for myself, not right now. So I got a job in Poland.

And it was fantastic! The people I met, the things we did, the mad crazy adventures. Waking up one day and deciding to go to Czech. Hopping on a train for day trips to places I never knew existed before I rocked up in Polska. And the work barely even felt like work. It was a job I enjoyed more than I'd ever enjoyed a job before. I still worked hard, but I laughed and smiled and sang through working days, as though it wasn't really work at all.

But now I'm home again. The adventure came to an end. And that makes me sad. More sad than I thought it would.

But it's not the end!

I'm not going to sit here staring at my suitcases, mourning an adventure that has been completed. I'm not going to see myself as a time traveller, going the wrong way, fighting against the progress of my own life. Am I the same person as when I left in Spetember? No! I am different because I've grown with the experiences I've had. And now I'm about to embark on a series of new adventures, and I don't have time to be held back by my own negative thoughts, rearing their ugly heads, making me feel sadness, when really I should feel joy.

Today I'm going to finish unpacking, and finally signify the end of my Polish adventures. It doesn't mean Poland never happened. It doesn't mean I'm the same person I was when I went. Experience gives you so much self-growth and development that you can't undo it simply by being somewhere you've been before.

And when I start my new adventures, in a mere few weeks time, I will continue to grow from my experience, and have more to bring back to my life in the UK.

All journeys have pit stops, you have to rest up, grab a coffee, get some sleep and plan the rest of your route. A pit stop doesn't halt your progress, it actually furthers it. It gives you time to reflect, to learn, to enjoy!

So, I'm not gonna be sad about leaving Poland anymore. I left Poland to go on more adventures. So... the rest of the world better be ready for me, because Frankie's on her way!

The dis-organised internal monologue of an anxious traveller...

I want to be

the bag,

the weight,

you drag round the world

on your shoulders.

Couldn't get closer,

want to be closer...

Pick up a postcard

and write me something

even if it's not what you want to say.

Couldn't get further,

couldn't get further away...

I don't need to kiss you

or love you

or need your body wrapped round mine,

I just want to be closer

closer than I got last time.

No land

no seas

no heat

no freeze

can free me from this ill-at-ease.

Let me be closer

pack me with you

take me with you,

please.

Shouldn't have gone to Specsavers...

Sometimes I don't know where I'm going, I don't particularly know how I'll get there, and I don't exactly know how to survive until the next day. Much like my glasses fog up when I come in from the cold, much like they blur my vision when splattered with rain, both the good and the bad affect my vision of the future. It's all very well saying that the future is the future, live in the here and now, and praising the power of positive thinking...when in reality I'm home alone, I can't see past my next cup of tea, and I'm practically freaking out.

I don't doubt that the world is a beautiful place, I don't doubt I'll get where I need to be in the end, and I certainly don't doubt that the mystery can be, and often is, exciting. Rather, I doubt myself when uncertainity looms.

How did I dodge these obstacles in the past? Why do I feel I have to prove myself at every turn in the road I'm taking? Why does this matter so much now, when it was just another hum drum part of life before?

I guess because what I want to do is take my glasses off, and I've only just realised how crucial this is. If you'll allow the metaphor, this is really quite hard to do. I can't see much without them, only those things close to me. I have to let others guide me, I have to be trusting. I have to make decisions based on what I know, not on what I imagine things to be - those blurry lines and colours in the distance. It takes courage to take off your glasses, to stop relying on your mind's image of what your future will, could or should be. It's important though.

Without my glasses, that shadow up ahead becomes a ghost of the past, haunting me. Without my glasses, the jacket hanging on my door is a person with a scowl, looming. Without my glasses, that glorious view at the top of the mountain I'm climbing is nothing more than a collection of foggy clouds and moving lights. I'm not reaping the benefit of my own journey. I'm not doing anything for others, I'm too selfishly obsessed with my own personal well being in that image of the future I'll never quite make out.

Just because you can't see what's in the distance, doesn't mean it's not there. Stop imagining what that shadow is, take your glasses off and look around you. Look, there's a cup of tea. Drink it, relax, enjoy the ride.

This Cold...

This cold gets in your veins
seeps through your skin
creeps
keeps
frozen jolting beats
constant, dripping pain.

When it burns
you come to learn
that this cold is taking turns
not a parallel
or chiming bell
but a sudden glimpse
of what-the-hell?

Red cheeks
swollen face
iced up hair and lashes
doubled up people
fast feet, mad dashes.

Inside an emptiness is real, won't be heated.
Blood won't get pumping and disturb the pain.
You need to move or it won't be defeated
and the stubborn snow won't sleet into rain.

When it fades
you think it was made
up in your mind, you look away
snow never fell
you just can't tell
when waters run
oh what-the-hell!

Red cheeks
sweating spring
tied back hair and skirts
laid back daze
fickle feet, seasoned play.

This cold gets in your veins
seeps through your skin
creeps
keeps
frozen jolting beats
constant, dripping pain.

Lost in Munich

There is something following me. It is my past. It is my baggage. And it really sucks.

Everytime I think I'm over it, I find I'm not. I still harbour that bad feeling, I still want to cry when I let the memories in, I still carry the weight on my shoulders. And it's not doing me any good.

It's burning in my chest, boiling; a firey red heat. It's waiting to be unleashed on someone innocent who doesn't deserve this bout of hate, or, perhaps even worse, it's waiting to burn inwards. To self destruct its creator. Oh blimey O'Reilly, I didn't bank on this.

What can I do with it? Where do I put it? How do I let it out? Screaming, crying, thinking, worrying are all futile and do nothing but intensify the roaring heat. I want answers, but I know I'll never have them, and I struggle to accept that.

If I could put it in a box, throw it away...if only! Instead, my fingers find my keyboard and I type out these letters, making words, making sense, but still not finding any conclusion.

I can't undo the past, I just have to wait for the anger to fade, or try to soften the pain somehow.

The present is here, the future is hopeful, maybe my baggage will become lighter with time, or maybe someone can help me carry it?

Failing that, I can always hope it gets lost in Munich airport.



****suggestions of constructive outlets for anger welcome****