Pace.

She drew blue parallels to an island

beating near

But remained confined by fighting walls.

Slam. Snigger. Slap.

Brutal realism stung scorched skin.

Pure pale freckled white stored her innocence,

held together fragile tormented bones.

She held her breath, pinch her freckled flesh

and hungered for distance.

From them walls.

Those determined fervent walls.

Hiding in the shadows of her own despair she checked her fear fraction.

A private shock.

Weeping into cloudless lucid distances she summoned the familiar.

A dream state.

One shaped like wonder.

There

she greeted herself in mirrored lanes of frenzied illusion.

She drank from endless vessels of bright

and from the shadows.

She watched her trampled soul heal.

found myself here. muse&skip.

i am lady at that quarter-life-hollow-me-out-soul-seeking-searching-cross-roads. though aware that i am not a lone soul who has these forever feelings of restlessness. i am not comforted by the fact that anyone else is. i work at a job that pays the bills. i all day consider. consider my next path of action toward my dreaming. then spend all afternoon in flux procrastination.

i am noticing with increasingly regularity the lines on my neck. the furrows between my eyes. and the crows feet fighting through. however imaginary; i have googled botox. have thought about saving for future facelifts. have moved from the ‘youth’ cosmetic department. have tentatively enquired on wrinkle prevention. and maintaining a ‘youthful suppleness’. “it’s for my mum”. where once everything was fitted and streamline. i am noticing a cardigan and chino trend slowly infiltrating and swallowing all clothed brightness with blacks, navy and creams.

my university degree[s] and hecs debt that taunts reflect none of what i ever hope to be or achieve. i often wonder whether any of what i pained over at uni will ever have any real world relevance for me or whether i was just a hoop-jumping lamb like the rest. baaaaaaaaaaaa.

i am in love. a bearded man made me wife. he continues to quietly sneak and steal into my thoughts while i [shallowly] fight to have them back. i love this love but i graffiti my own white picket fence with predictable confusion and unbaited restlessness. he buys me unwavering sanity through kisses and tightening of hinges.

i live for nephew giggles. sister cups of tea. brotherly enthusiasm. sales. wine. beer. alcohol. travel. mid-week soirees and stealing paid weekends away. as well as the usual; music, daisies, sunshine, festivals, summer. and puppy dog tails.

i am trying to figure out me and what to be before regret. this is part of that. and this. i can’t tell you where it will take me. or you. x

To market or boot...

It always begins with virgin naivety and infected enthusiasm. Brightly coloured notices littered with illustrated specifics and mapped wallet-doom do little to prepare you in advance for their pleas. Of course, fortnights do roll unabated by their fever. But, you knowingly wait, aware of the impending regularity of this ant-like gathering of sapiens and their regular wares.

“There is a car boot/thrift/boys scout/community/church/school/carpark sale/MARKET next Sunday at Sell-Your-Soul-Town. Want to have a stall with me?” Doom-doom.

You recognise this fertile hunger. The anticipation and mystified optimism of an enriching ‘community’ experience, extra cash for an extended weekend soiree and the reminiscent endless sugar rush of floss. Fairy. You will not be encouraged.

“It’s only $25 for a site and a trestle. I have a swag of last season clothes we could sell. Let us make a day of it!”

And off ‘said friend’ skips into the wholehearted optimistic land of scurrying through misshapen and broken belongings with rainbow-dollar-sign-eyes. Much like the twinkle of the secret bell at the local seedy pawn brokers that announces your arrival to the hungered beast…you are perfectly owned. Or sold. Which ever way, limbo’d.

Despite a few casual twitches, your next week passes smoothly. No more talk of market. The word catches in your throat at times like Nanna’s lose knitting, but you click your heels at this idea being lost in the land of ‘twas brilliant’. Your Sunday morning sleep-in-poached egg-coffee-magazine-high- ritual remains gleefully intact. Safely pocketed and singing in your conscience.

By Saturday you are confident. You even indulge in picking through other people’s worn wares at the local market on the corner. You purchase a beaker clearly lost from year 10 science class, and a brown knitted cardigan you plan to patch and re-button with green. Your boyfriend casually plucks through records in the hope that no-one before him has found the Ice T “Gotta Lotta Love” LP that he regrets leaving behind the week prior.

Your tongue dances with lemon sorbet shock and you leave with spent boyfriend, new-old details and caramel roasted peanuts that promise to make you sick with sweet. Weekend contentment. Tick!

And Sunday morning. Knock. Tap. Bash. Knock. Fark!

Will be continued...