Your sadness drips onto the floor, to pool in shadows and soak into the fabric of the building.
Once there, it sits unable to dissipate until others’ happiness does the same.
How odd that you reside in a building unable to balance emotions.
Emmentaler Love
Emmentaler left on the board.
Crackers are few and people many.
Savour a piece to celebrate love.
Sea Plug
in the bathtub
a view of the world
green trees dance
the world is alive
then the world spins
out of time again
images of you and me
the moments of us
lapping sea
within I sit
until I find
the plug
pull it loose
the sea moves away
I sit here
There’s nothing to say
A Sausage of Feelings
I bought a sausage maker. It sat in the cupboard for a decade. Then, one day, I decided to make sausages.
I remember how young you and I were when you bought the machine; we were in our late 20’s? Yes, I think so.
Waists were smaller then, minds were less clouded, hearts less broken, and hope brighter.
I stood before the sausage maker and thought that if I could make the perfect sausage for you, it would contain the following ingredients:
one part happiness
one part hope
one part kindness
one part worth
one part 1000 echo’s from the sea
one part the essence of 100 sunsets and sunrises
one part 1000 snowflake feels
one part essence of 100 people laughing loud
Then I would present it to you, ask you to eat it, and then ask you to look at yourself in the mirror. I would ask you, “What do you see?” I hope you can see the person you are to me, my sweet bear.
Kettle Calling
From the day you were born, that kettle boiled water. The kettle boiled water for tea leaves, tea bags, herbal infusions, night toddies, water for cooking, and water for baking.
That kettle with the white handle and the sky blue frame was always on the bench in the kitchen. The kettle was used by Mum, and Dad would use the kettle when he was desperate.
Then, one day as you sat alone in the kitchen, the kettle started to move. Unable to establish if you are dreaming, you sit up straight, wondering if gumption is the key here?
Instead of silence, the kettle starts to rattle ever so softly. “Can Mum hear this?” you wonder, “Perhaps not, considering I’m all alone and everyone else seems to have vanished for a moment“.
Not sure if you should caress the kettle lovingly or throw it out the window, you move towards the kettle. Suddenly, the bloody thing stops and out pops a teabag. Not the usual brew, you are sure, but perhaps something more exotic.
The kettle moves, then the teabag ends up in your left hand. “What the actual…“
Then the kettle starts to boil, and you get the impression that the kettle wants you to steep this teabag of magic into a brew. What can you do? Mum loves tea, and who would care if you drank a magical tea brew?
You place your favourite cup onto the bench and proceed with the tea making process. Once strong and to your liking, you sit with the cup in front of you. Hesitation grips you. “What if I turn into a dolphin? How will I swim? There is no water? What if… fuck it!“
Sipping on the magic tea, you start to space out for a moment. There is a bit of disorientation in your mind; then you see other lands. There is another world inside your cup; there is a world quite different from our world. One where trees grow black and green, technology is far more advanced, and there is a clean order to things. “Well, I must be dreaming because this shit cannot be real…” Yet, you cannot shake the images produced from your magical teabag.
After finishing the brew, you take the teabag to your room and sit thinking about what you just saw within your mind. You feel your mind expanding at the thoughts, sounds, and world of magic.
No wonder Mum loves the kettle so much.
The Caravan Park
He’s a retired surgeon with a taste for woodwork. He lives with his wife in a lovely house with good security and a vegetable patch. There’s a park down past his rear fence, which is pretty and quiet. However, to the right of his house, just a few blocks away, is a caravan park.
No one knows how the caravan park came to be at this location. Some say it was a stroke of genius on the developer’s part, while others say that the developer bribed the Council. There is a reason why the caravan park now sits on that land, but let us not get carried away.
He loves the quiet. It’s a joy for reading, woodwork, painting, and more. Sometimes he likes to give the stereo a blast to remind him of the ’70s. It’s never before 9 am and always before 10 pm. He respects his neighbours. He thinks he’s sweet.
He remembers his first Saturday once the caravan park was up and running. There was never a Saturday like this one before, but there will probably be many in the future. That Saturday changed him forever.
Now Saturday has arrived again. It is the night. There is a wild party, and the caravan park is alive. What is this hell he must endure? Why is there so much noise? He finds relief with earplugs to grab a few hours of sleep.
Then, Sunday descended. Saturday was trying, yet Sunday is so much worse. Sunday consists of many fights from hell. Beer bottles fly about, kitchen utensils and tools go everywhere, shouting and banging lingers, and there’s an awful lot of barbecues.
There is a lull at 3 am, which turns into quiet. The weekend is over for another week. There is so much relief.
Your World of Bling
You live in a world of bling. Kitsch Swarovski bracelets line your arms, new wave necklaces and earrings from markets and independent sellers line your walls and the Duchess in your bedroom. More beautiful pieces lay locked in your safe, but they are large and gaudy.
Fashionista, you walk down the halls of fashion magazine offices, take to the seats before runways so modern, and mingle with the fashion elite at shallow parties with dim lights, awful music, and terrible cocktails. You are living and loving in the scene of chic cool and unencumbered soulless troglodytes. Never a moment to stop and think about where your life is going or what you will do when those looks fade or your world crumbles.
You invited a new crowd to your home for a party. They’re a dull bunch, but you think they may be of some use to you. You’ve become so used to equating commodities with people that you forgot what it means to be human.
He walks in and makes your heart do a saucepan dance. So loud is your heart, you can barely hear him speak. This is not who you’re usually like, or is it how you usually act. He smiles at you and you go a bit limp and loose; melting all over the floor. As you start to talk, it becomes clear he is a particularly sexy chap with elegant attire and a haughty way. You simply cannot understand yourself. Why is he doing all of these things to me?
The party goes well, you see most of those boring gue
sts to the door, but he lingers.
He says to you with a sarcastic smile, “Bangle girl, you are so weird…what are they anyway?”
You’re about to give him the flick but unintentionally say, “They’re kitsch Swarovski. It’s not to everyone’s taste, but I like them…”
Eyeing more than just your bangles, he says, “I don’t mind them. They suit you…we can’t all be alike…”
You eye each other for a bit, it becomes slightly awkward, and then you both launch into a session of wild pashing, together with a bit of touch and tingle. The floor becomes your bed. You’re both rolling around like 20-year-olds. Turns out those bracelets, or bangles as he calls them, has multiple uses.
The bird of my Happiness
Concrete, steel, and plastic pile up around us as we try to find some clean air.
I don’t know where I belong anymore, but neither do you.
Why is it when we have time to think we have no money?
The birds don’t give a fuck if you’re rich or you’re poor; they’ll shit on you either way.
Is that what’s going on in heaven? Are you shitting on us from up high?
Glass Heart
The glass of your heart falls to the floor.
There are pieces of your heart all about you.
The glass cuts deep into my fingers and feet.
Boxes
I am packing the boxes to find old treasures that I thought didn’t exist, for I forgot about them.
I find that old black and white picture, a vase from Mum’s place with purple orchards, a trinket with sentimental value from school, and the plaster from my broken arm.
I’m thinking about the awakened memories as feelings start to rush and mess with my heartstrings.
Sniffing the items a little, I’m sneezing and crying.
C & K 