An awkward conversation.

There was a dull chill in the air, a handful of stars in the sky. Her skin had taken on a pale defence to the night's weather, and yet still she sighed contentedly. She must've been sat on this mound for around four hours, more or less. Her legs had become slightly numb, but she needn't have realised for lack of movement.
"You don't always come here, do you?", Came a sultry Voice without intention, as though it had always been there.
"Well... no", she replied rather obviously, glancing downward slightly to the mound on which she sat.
"Oh", came the Voice once more, as though expecting much more of an answer, "Well... You aren't planning on leaving?".
"No actually", she replied wistfully, her colourless eyes fixed upon the few stars and the lack-lustre blue beyond it.
"Well it won't go away..." came the Voice, now seating itself beside her, though she paid it no attention, "That is to say, it won't come back? Well you know, that, that down there... it won't go away, but, the thing that it was, well... it's... gone. Yes. Quite gone".
"Aren't you supposed to be a little more... informed on this matter?", the girl asked quite naturally.
There was a pause after this, in which the Voice sat quite calmly at her side, imitating the girl's glance toward the stars. It shifted it's weight upon the earth now and then, and applied itself to an itch upon it's arm, but otherwise it was rather still.
"It just becomes a little bit of all the same... if you follow?", the Voice queried as an unidentifiable bird swept past heavily with one lift of it's wings.
"I don't I'm afraid. I'd of only assumed you were here to offer me something".
"Offer you something?", the Voice's velvety slithering tone took on a slight crackle.
"Well yes, advice, a choice, an offer, an exchange... Is that not how the stories go? The stories I had read as a child...".
"Well that should tell you it all! You were a child when you read them, things have changed", the Voice came with a classic huff, had it have bothered moving it would certainly have folded it's arms and turned it's head at this point. But it's ancient-tones shared enough.
"I am eighteen years old. And these stories have been passed to my school from the Greek times. I do enjoy reading you know", the girl maintained her wistful tone, her eyes ever upon the blues and silvers of the night.
"Well... do you not suppose you should be at home, reading then? There is not a sweeter way to mourn than to read into another view of life that you only wished was yours!".

Her expression did not change, but she said no more. A desperate and rolling cry came from somewhere nearby, of which the Voice assumed to be that recently passed large bird. It ceased, and the general clatter and scurrying of the middle of the night (which It was so very used to) became clear once more.
The Voice rolled it's hands around one another slowly, and glanced back to the mound on which they were sat. The girl had slightly sunken into the fresh mound of earth, having been sat on it for so long. Little tufts of grass from either side of the mound were poking through and swaying in the breezeless eve, and the stone of which the mound leant slightly against glistened silently and still in the silver glare of the moon. It looked alone, and for the briefest of moments, the Voice felt rather sorry for the girl. But it passed, as it always had done.
"Look", came the Voice once again, after a long quiet, "I didn't mean what I said, I suppose, well... you know... you've got that job at that bar and... well, don't you just get irritated when customers tell you how to do your job? Not to say you're a customer... Or even a client, I mean, this is different...".
The girl looked slightly toward the Voice, and sighed. He really was mumbling on about nothing, and with her view on life as it currently was, she was aware that she no longer had time for such rambling.

"Suppose I were to just stay here with you", the Voice's classic tone said later, "Suppose I never bothered others again, nor stalked the night, nor exchanged anything or made any deals..."
"Have you not collecting to do?".
The Voice went to reply, but for the first time in history, was politely interrupted.
"Excuse me for stating, but in all the stories, in all the books and the unwritten legends... you are rather important. You are feared so much as you are necassary, or something along those lines. If I were to grant you to sit beside me forever, mourning upon my loved one whom you did not even know, I would not, in some twisted and strange way, be doing the earth any favours".
"But I'd be doing you a favour", It said rather simply.
"But you do not grant favours, you only exchange them. And any way, I never asked for any company tonight, I was quite happy to be sat upon this heap alone. Thank you".
"It is only a dog you know...".
"I beg your pardon?".
"No... no, I didn't mean that either, I know it's a human. I apologise. That was uncalled for". The Voice began to wring it's hands again, referring it's glance to the mound and the stone. "I suppose we could carry on arguing though? For quite some time?".
"You really dislike your job, do you not?", the girl asked the Voice, pushing her feet comfortably into the disturbed earth.
"Yes. Quite.", Came the Voice.

~

Unedited.

Salt and Sand.

As of late, I have caged that washed-out summer feeling, and once again it is encasing my emotions. Death has reared it's claw to another familiar face and voice and distracted with the masses elsewhere. It's being disgusting at the moment, I am not sure why, not that any are, but I feel it too common a place.
A friend, not so wise - it must be said, once said to me after the death of a very close loved one to us both;
''How old are you now? 19? -Here, he shook his head, fiddling with his thinly rolled cigarette- It's all down here from here, one after the other now''.
Of course, he was referring to deaths. It was a terrifying thing to hear, no doubt. But I remained calm, and responded only with a tilt of my still mind, a glance at him that he did not return, and the idle fiddling of the gift from her who had passed in my hands.
I have not been in that living room for quite some time, but then, it was exactly as she had left and decorated it.

Much of this, many of these thoughts, have provoked nostalgic, dry, white thoughts of the East end streets. The common, natural, and ever flowing longing for returning 'home' has returned. I see the crowded buses without faces, the tube journeys and the summer heat between Dagenham east and Barking. The cool tease of the tiled floor of Chadwell heath station, the dusty dry streets just outside of his home. The suspicious eye of the shopkeeper as I buy a countless amount of Jamaican Hardo Bread, listening to the likes of Amy Winehouse on my i-pod. The cracked, white cool of his kitchen floor, the strange and unidentifiably comforting scent of his then home. His final home.

The sky here at present is muggy, it is grey and lightless, thankfully, but the heat still rests at the door.
It is a home, that is for sure, but I find it rather difficult to connect these two places. It is not the first time that I have felt like seperate people, that I have been torn right in half for want of one place and need of another.
My life is pleasant, magical and astounding now, oh the thought that ran through me just weeks ago;
'It's my turn now, to live my life'.
My heart screamed out and turned in my chest, I have more than one home, how fortunate I am. But the people, those within those homes now, what do they scream?

And yes, I am having my summer block. Writing is difficult to structure, thoughts will not meet my lips with ease and my skin is tightening beneath the glare, but still I am here and to try. This rolling upset, this longing, these photographs, yes, they will always breathe down the back of my neck strangely alluring and soothing...
But what I have before me, oh what I have.. There are not words for the astoundment. I have not a way, yet, to describe how fortunate I feel. How scared that my lips tremble a smile. It is true, some people have it handed to them upon a plate, and squander it mercilessly. But at the moment, I feel like the only one. I grip this beautiful thing in my hands like the sand on my so-missed seaside, discovering silver shells and shimmering pebbles as the grains fall.
Water collapses at my feet.

Yes, I do miss you all, but I am aware that your lives are a little too advanced to be missing me too.
Moving photographs so I can see the waves, a stone heart beats softly into the sand.
I'll never know another day like the one that my uncle and I sat, getting rather off it on Rose from plastic cups, upon the seaside. Oh the pebbles and the sand, we waited for something that never did come about, throwing rocks at a coconut on the water's edge. It was our sunny evening.
The train back, the scent of sand and salt, tearing faces from the news papers and putting them upon others.
My hair was claret and blue, yours, of course, was slap-head. And we did.
'Your wondering now, what to do, now you know, this is the end'.
Taking notice of my music, reminding me of yours. You truly wanted to know me.
Oh how distracted we all were.
And then, there were the nights. How voices still run through the memory, the smell of whiskey and wine. The sight of Jack bottles in the bin outside, the constant damp of the garden. Amy wording the back ground, dices rolled and how I always managed to 'get the glam questions'.

It has grown cooler, the nights will begin to leak in earlier now. I ask the winter, the winter I have confessed my Love to, to treat me well this year. To be kind.

To be read quietly.

And I shall live now,
As I always intended upon living,
For I have taken fresh air,
Into lungs that had just fluttered out the old,
And threatened upon me something dire and unthought,
And as I sit now, chest once again peacefully heaving,
The crow caws at my back door.
And some where far, the sparrows hum.

Now it is I, who am able to read and speak,
To dance and walk,
To be and be with,
To be pleased and to please.
For life is able, and only as I make it.
For it I, who was standing in my way before,
And no other.

Give in now, to the passions that have stepped beside me,
And lead them. Lead them to the brushes, to the strokes,
Oh, of which I seek beauty in.
Find me, by sand and by pavement,
By cobble and by book,
To the scent of home,
And the trickle of tea.

I am to be me.
And finally, me.

~

Note to this - I just came over very queer, a couple of hours reading and suddenly air seemed to flutter into my heart, a tremble down my throat, my quivering lungs. I ran to take air from the breeze in the garden. Unlike any anxiety, for now I breathe clearly and my head pain is gone. So near to the next seven years, have I been reborn?
To be read quietly.

The important day.

Today was not especially carved for me, today was dull and lack lustre. There was not a slice of weather that I was particularly fond of, not a scent of fine baking and I drank my tea alone, padding over bare wood floors.
I stepped into the garden once or twice, overcast it was outside, and I could barely open my eyes to the colourless glare. Not long after I had hung my sheets out to dry did thick thuds of slow rain begin to pound at the window. I went on with my day, as you always should with a day off, cleaning and catching up with myself. Whilst my stomach has been a tangle of light emotion lately, it has been bittersweet. Each day I recieve a different pain or a different pang, each day I find myself pondering on what I should just simply be getting on with.
A quick proposal was made by a friend, and so i ventured out into the reality I had left at the pub door just last night.

Ryan Dunn died today. And for a reason beyond my knowledge, the news has hit me hard. And it is rather mean to say, I should think, but it is not so much that it is he who has died (and in a pathetic way, I find, as the details surface). Remnants of death linger in the air today, the quiet of a graveyard has swept the city.
I find that every one is solemn and self-collected. Each strangers face a pale shadow of what it probably was.
I set off at a fair pace to reach Lauren's place for dinner, ignoring the change in the rain, enjoying the cool I recieved. It was some where near the start of this journey that I witnessed an accident, and 'Time Of Your Life' and 'Last Train Home' played on Radio 1.
And then the emotion swept over me, the strong feeling I could not ignore. Today is important.
I searched the memorised dates in my head and came back with nothing. What is today? Why have I the sudden strength in my chest, in my aching limbs that something will or has happened today?
Just 'She', that's all I am to all that pass me, and yet I, today more than any other, feel I have a purpose. I am supposed to let some one know, I am supposed to witness something. To spread a word. I am supposed to aid, I am supposed to be the victim. Today is the day.
And who to tell?! I battled with myself for a time, paced further into the grey haze that was the city below my step, below my view. The yellow warmth of a friends cosied home was as bittersweet as my stomach has been lately.

Of course, we have slipped into tomorrow, now our today, and that feeling went no further. I don't feel I have wasted it, however. For now that the day has slipped by, and I am still without knowledge of this feeling of importance I recieved, I shall and can only assume that it was the beginning of something hopefully wonderful.
Where my life starts another chapter.

My father always spoke of seven year cycles. And if this is a theory true and to live by, my next is certainly approaching, rapidly with my 21st birthday.

I buried it in the sand.

"My my, such whispers, such night...."
A little echo amongst the brambles and spikes of graveyard hedges. His head turned as quickly as his sensitive hearing picked up upon it. Not a movement, and silence regained, as if the voice from his very throat had moved the air around him.

Such necesseties were pondered,
through like-minded fools of age.
Five hundred, moving on six and still they little but grew,
I made such an effort, were such thoughts a daily delay;
To withdraw my feeling from each subtle feeding and take upon madness, a stride.

I gazed into eyes that had long since sunk back,
and I cupped hands around heads of the new borns.
I could see life in each, and the tide did receed on the beach i had only now begun to call home.
There were footsteps on the beach, some were a thousand years old,
I could see them engraved in the gristled sands,
Some more aparent than most.
I realised now, such soles of feet were ones i had become aware,
past lives that I'd known, past spirits imprinted upon my stone,
A whisper in midnight's light's breeze.

I heard his laugh,
And i saw another's eyes.
I touched familiar skin and I winced at usual words.
Regretted a person i was, appreciated change in my ways.
"Look, there it goes" came a strong whisper unseen. "Our lives right ahead of us, i can see it now;
One of us alone on this beach".

How it happened.

So when you kiss me, make it so that it hurts.
I cannot understand, take nothing but that of which was given to you.
She stared outwardly, a steel wall behind her eyes.
So he turned on the bar and questioned turntables and fables.
Smiling, she nodded. Her eyes shielding a glaze.
He imagined her burrowing, into his shoulder
A shield to the world beneath velvet and tassle.
Bedside lamp even cutting out direct light.
There was a fireplace in the room below, though all that was left of it,
behind it's wall,
Were embers still flickering, eyes watching warily.
London streets holding onto their lamp posts,
Each a candle waiting to be distinguished.
Highlighting each damp cobble beyond her gaze inward.
When the jungles of the world and the depths of the oceans were known only by the ones who died seeing them.

But there were dragons and witches, just waiting to be written of.
My own eyes seeking backward pasts
And leering in all the darkest crevices of the city.
I waited in doorways and watched the regulars pass
Til morning arrived and the sunlight attempt to bleach my retina.
It won't last forever,
but it shall only evolve.
Toasted to long marble tables, adorned in gold tupper
And tassles, like the ones of the bed you hid me in.

I think i realised, a-top the palm tree.
That gripping would only ever result in sliding.
Sweat, tire and tears of desperation.
So i mightn't see the sea for the endless length that it is,
However, to fall, only ever, will take me right into what i glance.
A salt wave may push over my eyes,
remove the glaze harshly.
I saw green waves rumbling, and the world. The sky branching endlessly as ever.
But when submerged.
A world below, that even though i saw the sand lying unevenly,
carried on beneath just as did the sky.
My body, like an arrow, cut through the ocean, the granules growing closer,
Until they filled my eyes, until they clogged up my nostrils,
Until my own shoulders would no longer move
As the essence i once used, to make the castles for the dragons i'd dreamt of as a child
Devoured me and took me in as i had wished,
At one point i think i may have stopped.
But the fresh feel of my toes beneath now, wriggling and scathing,
A worm through mud, i knew i would find an ant's nest,
I must keep going.
No longer could i see, with eyes still open, the night time air was probably easier, two layers above
But a treasure chest, I'm sure, led some where below.


I died that night.