"an early night" part 8

Gen had a new boyfriend every month or two since she was sixteen, and the occasional girlfriend. They never lasted very long but Gen would always act besotted until she actually started to fall in love, then she would get scared and run away. She was a self-proclaimed commitment-phobe.
'So what are we doing tonight, anyway?' I asked, to break the topic off Adam.
'Well, there's not much to do on a Thursday night except put your feet up and watch telly. We could get Ally over, maybe. I don't think she has work in the morning.' So we called Ally and arranged for her to drive over.
Allison Viktor was our closest friend. It had always just been Edith and Genevieve, the two weird girls who did stupid things and kept to themselves, but then we met Ally at a party and kind of adopted her. She was tiny - skinny and a petite height of just four foot five - with long black hair and olive skin. She'd been with her boyfriend, Isaac, for two and a half years now. They lived together in a tiny house with some of Isaac's friends and Ally liked to escape whenever she could.
She'd finished high school at seventeen, excelling at most subjects, and was at university now where she found the work 'too easy'. Of course Ally was smart. She was quite and peaceful, she listened and picked up more than she let on. Sometimes she was so quiet that it seemed as though she didn't care what you were saying. People often thought that she was unfeeling. But that was just Ally, when you got to know her she would open up to you.



photo credit - caroline bonarde ucci

on the sly

"I guess it is just love"

I can't stand the way he treats her. He can be so good to her, treat her so well, until she starts to feel safe and comfortable again and then he turns it all off and leaves her in the dark. I don't want her to be used to disappointment. I want her to be happy. I want her. I want her to come over so that we can eat croissants and drink black coffee and smoke cigarettes on my little front porch.



photo credit - unknown

"drink before disaster"

I have no pretty way to put it:
School starts on the third of next month.

I have to admit that I'm actually looking forward to it. Last years crop of fresh faces was the most irritating, worse than the year before and even worse than my year. You're not an Unlimited student if you haven't affronted the new kids simply for being new kids. This year the outlook is grim, girls with large posteriors and even larger egos will be gracing the stairwells and trying too hard to be something they are not - grown up.

It's hard to say whether or not I had a nice day. It started nice, I mooched around in a comfortable over sized grey tee-shirt that swallows me whole and was visited by my best friend, Alexandra. She only came for a moment to collect her things but she gave me a cigarette and after she left I sat on the back porch, absorbing the sun and filling my lungs with both the sweet air of summer and the poison from my cigarette. I didn't expect to see Alex again but after I had gone back inside and settled in my favourite chair she came to the door, holding French fries. I dressed and we went to town.
This is where it started to go wrong. I was in pain from the moment we got on the bus and it got steadily worse. I asked Alex to take me to the food court because I started to feel sick, she got me a glass of water from a cafe and was told by a woman that I looked 'several shades of white'. The woman was right, I saw myself in a reflection - paper white, face shiny with cold sweat.
I started to feel a tingling in the tips of my fingers. It spread all through me, getting more intense until it was like my blood was vibrating. Not just in my fingers but in my toes and my arms and legs and even my tongue and face. I was stiff like a corpse, too. Alex tried to bend my fingers but they stuck straight out.
Alex talked to my dad on the phone for me and he came and picked me up. I was carried out of the food court by him and taken to hospital.

Other than that, my day was nice. I'm glad I have Alex, I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have her.



photo credit - bruno maric

the difficult part

Has anybody else noticed that if you stand back and let the world go by that nothing particularly interesting ever happens to you? If you don't know how to step forward it's almost impossible to fix. It's different for everybody. Step one for me is don't run away.



photo credit - moominsean

"an early night" part 7

I looked around the flat.
'Adam's not staying tonight?' I asked. Gen shook her head.
'No, he said he had to go home or his flatmates would drink his soy milk,' she explained. 'But he is coming over on Saturday, he's going to take me out to dinner to celebrate our first month of being together!' She grinned, proudly. I laughed.
'Cute.' Gen had acted this way about boys before, it was hard to tell when she was really serious about a person. The only time I knew for certain how she felt about somebody was when we were still and school and she dated a boy named Jorge. She loved him so much that I rarely got to see her, she was always with him and he hated me so she could never be with both of us at one time.
Even when she wasn't with Jorge she was thinking about him, or talking about him, or on the phone to him. I didn't say anything, of course. Jorge made Gennie happy, and that made me happy.
I remember when she had been dating him for five months and I was upset about something so I called her up, hoping she would understand and give me her shoulder to cry on, and she promised me that I could see her that day. But she never called me back. She and Jorge spent the day together that day.
I couldn't count the amount of times I cried myself blind while they were going out. I was secretly happy when they broke up, I went straight to her bedroom with bottles of wine and she blotted out her misery while I celebrated - on the sly.
I know that sounds horrible and selfish. Quite frankly I wanted Gennie all to myself. I was miserable without her, and it was inevitable that she and Jorge would split. Even she knew it.



photo credit - gelchy

"an early night" part 6

When I got home I found Gen sitting cross-legged on the floor, she had a cigarette in one hand a glass of wine in the other.
'Gennie! You know you're not meant to smoke inside, balcony please!' I said, in my best scolding tone. I could never, never be angry at Gen but the landlady complained about the smell. She drained her wine, flicked her cigarette over the balcony and disappeared into the kitchen.
'How was work?' she asked.
'It was okay. Guess who I saw just before?' I called back to her. She emerged from the kitchen with two glasses of white wine.
'Who?' she asked, passing me a glass.
'Tommy Piercy.' Gen rolled her eyes at his name.
'What did he want?'
'Long macchiato, I believe,' I told her, she rolled her eyes again. 'And to show off to his hipster friends that he's tight with the staff.'
'He's such an arse,' she said, dryly. She would have said that, no matter what Tommy had wanted.
'Ugh, I know. It's so ridiculous. We're not in school anymore, being 'cool' isn't important in the real world,' I said, pausing to take a sip of wine. 'Mandy's studying in France.'
'Oh, really? I bet she's still perfect. Bitch.'
'Probably. I don't know what she's studying though, I'd say something artistic - unless she's had her soul sucked out and she's now into accounting.'
'Hmm, no, even without a soul she'd probably do something alternative. Like owning a vintage store or something,' Gen suggested. I laughed.
'Remember that time she bought a skirt from Cotton On and tried to tell everybody it was from an op shop?'
'Yes!' said Gen, waving her hands around. Gen talked with her hands all the time. Nobody knew why, it was just something she always did. 'Of course, I mean Amanda could never hurt her poor image by shopping at-' she gasped '-a chain store...' Gen was right. People like Tommy and Mandy didn't shop at chain stores, or grow up to be accountants.



photo credit - fabian

"an early night" part 3

I work from nine to three-thirty. Gennie doesn't start her shift at the video store until four, so she usually mooches around in her underwear at home, drinking coffee and writing. She had another job with an art magazine that went around monthly, it didn't earn much but writing was Gen's passion. During my lunch break I would come upstairs to find music blasting from the stereo and Gen either writing furiously or staring at a page full of doodles. We'd share a cigarette, eat half a bagel each and then I'd go back downstairs to work.
I have to say, it's convenient beyond convenient to live above the cafe. Not to mention this had been my dream job since I was 16. Before that I'd wanted to be a musician. But it was just a crazy dream. Most Saturdays Gen and I went down to The Cement Lounge (which was neither made of cement nor an actual lounge, it was an old brick building with wooden floors and a big stage against the far wall) because it was all ages and our younger friends, like Ally, could come with is. Sometimes big names played there, it filled up pretty quickly so that you could barely move without bumping into somebody. We knew some of the people in the bands and sometimes I'd write songs for them and play with them, but lately I'd been stuck in a rut. Writing music wasn't coming to me like it used to. Everything I wrote was tired and dull, or worse - generic. I guess it was just writers block but it felt more like a writers black-out.
Sometimes Gennie would help, by dropping one of her poems into my lap (she loved writing poetry but never knew what to do with the poems, she considered them a waste of paper) and I'd put music to them.



photo credit - mluotio

"an early night" part 5

Speaking of Tommy Piercy, he came into Intes sometimes (it was one of the "trendiest" cafes in the inner city) and ordered a big mug of pretentious. I mean, a long macchatio. The last time he came in it was almost closing time, I was working late to cover for Chelsie who was in hospital getting an abortion. He sat at my favourite table with his loud group of friends and when I brought over their drinks they actually spoke to me.
'Hey, Edith!' he half shouted.
'Hi, Tommy,' I said, politely. 'It's Edie, by the way,' I reminded him. I hadn't been called Edith since I was fifteen. He smiled, flashing his white-as-white rich-boy teeth at me.
'Sorry, Edie. So how have you been?' I thought about apologising, going back to the espresso machine and ignoring him, but the cafe was empty except for Tommy and his friends. I leaned against the wall.
'Oh, you know,' I waved my hand at him. 'Good, how about you?'
'Good! Man, I haven't spoken to you since last November!' he said. I could tell he wasn't that interested in speaking to me again, either. Tommy would talk to you, but I was just a girl in a coffee shop. I didn't twinkle enough to pass as friend material.
'Yeah, I know. That was at Mandy's party, right?' Mandy was yet another oh-so-cool person. She was ridiculously gorgeous, with white pale skin and long dark hair, just a bit shorter than me but with a much bigger bum. Tommy laughed.
'Oh, Mandy's party! That was such a good night! She's in Paris right now,' he told me. I almost couldn't stop myself from scoffing, I managed to turn it into a cough. Luckily one of Tommy's friends, a cute blond girl in a knitted jersey, said exactly what I was thinking.
'Of course Mandy's in France. That's where all the hipsters are going to study.' Tommy roared with laughter. It was then that I politely excused myself and went back to the counter.



photo credit - kevin mccauley

"an early night" part 4

Gen was my best friend. She'd been my best friend since the middle of high school, when we bonded over a love of chai tea and cheap chardonnay. We'd had other friends over the years, which came and went, but Gen was the one constant thing that I could be sure of. We loved all the same music, all the same food, all the same books and - very important - we had the same shoe size so we could wear each others two and a half inch heeled brogues. We'd always predicted that when we lived together our flat would be full of shoes. We were right. Most of them were impulse buys but we loved them all dearly. Such as my black court shoes, with the patent toe. I'd worn them twice but if somebody threatened to take them away I'd be upset.
I'm a nice five foot four, and Gen is just a fraction taller, so we treasure high heels as a defense against short comments. People found them funny. We didn't. All through high school people had made fun of me for my height. Or for pretty much anything, like Tommy Piercy who liked to make fun of my teeth (I didn't get braces until I was seventeen). Tommy was interested in one thing and one thing alone: social status. In high school we'd hung out a bit, we both went to different schools - mine was a state funded public school, his was an expensive and exclusive private school - but he hung out in the city centre often and we had mutual friends. Gen and I were never cool, not cool enough for Tommy anyway, but at one point he'd deemed us socially accepted and we used to sort of be friends.



photo credit - magicwandcd

"an early night" part 2

I looked up when I heard Adam put his cup in the sink. Gennie was standing with him, wearing nothing but his white shirt, with only two of the buttons done up. She kissed Adam on the lips and he stroked her hair with one hand, before he shrugged on his black coat and disappeared through the door. Gennie poured herself a cup of coffee and joined me by the balcony.
It was then that I realised I had been staring at an empty mug for quite a while, so I pulled myself up and tiptoed into the kitchen. There was a dull thunk as I set my mug down in the sink, and then silence, or as silent as it gets in the city. Even if you stopped breathing and were as still as a statue you could hear the white noise of the cars below, a world waking up, that that filled the flat so comfortably.
My jacket was hanging over the back of a chair so I leaned over the table and felt in the pocket for the slim, silver cigarette case I got for my eighteenth birthday. I pulled out two Benson & Hedges and handed one to Gennie. We both leaned out over the balcony and stared at the city. It wasn't a blanket of grey, or a colourless maze. The flat was in the old part of town, above Intes (the coffee shop I worked at), where all the shops were in restored historical buildings. Like the flat, it used to be a city council office block. It wasn't a bad flat, although sometimes the other tenants made a bit too much noice. It was mostly penniless students living up there since the university was only a block away. At one point there had been seven people living in the two-bedroom flat next door, and from the constant arguments you could hear through the thin walls you could tell it wasn't comfortable in there. That was the smallest out of the twelve flats that had been squished into the old council office block, our flat had three bedrooms even though there was only the two of us living there full time, occasionally - if money was tight - we'd board some desperate person in the spare room, but mostly we used it as a studio.

photo credit - chrissie white

"an early night" part 1

"Oh my god!" she shouted, for the fifteenth time that morning. I rolled over in my bed, glancing up at the alarm clock - the bright green digits informed me that it was 6:13 - before pushing the covers away and dragging myself out of bed. I could still hear Gennie and Adam in the room next door, but I'd learned to ignore it. It was the fourth night in a row that Adam had stayed over and I was almost getting used to their morning routine. Adam was a chef, he worked long hours from seven until closing at a diner a few blocks away so Gennie cherished their mornings as Adam rarely had the energy at night.
I flicked on the kettle and listened to the rush of the heating water. The louder the kettle got, the louder and faster Gen and Adam got. Until... click! the water was boiled and all that I could hear from Gen's room was an exhausted gasp. Not long after, as the coffee brewed, Adam stumbled out into the kitchen wearing nothing but the black silk boxer shorts I'd seen far too many times.
His dark hair was tousled, the front almost sticking straight up, and his cheeks were flushed. He was a very attractive man, I could see why Gennie was so fond of him. She had a thing for skinny men - especially men with prominent collarbones and well defined ribs. He stood there in the kitchen as I plunged the press filter down through the French press. Without a word I poured a cup of coffee and passed it to him.
'Thanks, Edith...' he mumbled, returning to Gen's room with a pack of cigarettes in his hand.
I settled myself into my favourite chair, the one that faced the balcony, and sipped my coffee in an unthinking stupor. It was far too early.



photo credit - kelsey reckling

what is this?

I tried again to see her today. You can guess how it ended.

It's so difficult when family stops being family. And I don't mean close friends, I mean actual family. My brother and I used to be quite close and then all of a sudden he changed, I guess I don't really know who he is anymore. It gets so he would physically hurt me to get what he wants. Everything is falling to pieces at home, my dad gets angry at my brother and takes it out on me. The worst part is that I have nowhere to run, and nobody to run to.

Home is where the heart is, right?



photo credit - parpadeo

another sunrise

It's been another day of hiding from the rain, listening to City and Colour and reading obsessively. I finished Snow Island, it was beautiful. I was sad to turn the last page.
Being lonely isn't as uncomfortable as it used to be. I don't like it, but it feels familiar. I feel different to how I did before, and it's strange to think that four months ago I had nothing.
Still, it'd be nice if you wanted to see me. Or at least acknowledged my attempts to see you.

I know it must be horrible to be torn between the two people you love the most. I won't make a fuss.



photo credit - myself

little bones

Part one:
I guess you could say we all make mistakes. I guess you could say she was one of them. It didn't make me sad to say goodbye to her, she was poisonous.
I definitely do not miss her, and I definitely don't give a shit that she "misses" me.

Part two:
I worry. I panic. I don't want him to take you away from me. I love you and I'm scared.



photo credit - antonio civita (i think)

distance

I'm going to go for a long, long walk. I'm going to clear my head. I'm going to write some things down. And maybe then I'll let you know.



photo credit - myself

human

I am not indifferent,
and I am not unfeeling.
I am not thick-skinned
or cold-blooded
or callous.
I am pseudo-psychosis,
I am untouched,
unloved,
unwrapped.
I am unfinished and raw.
I am starved for affection,
blind to what lies ahead,
and deaf to a soft voice.
I am nothing more,
and I am nothing less.
I am human.



photo credit - myself

how can i not lie to you

I seem to have a problem with the truth, either saying too much or too little. There doesn't seem to be a comfortable middle spot.
I could split myself open right now, and bleed the truth uncontrollably. Or I could prick my finger and spill just a drop.

I think, this time, I need to hold my tongue. You've got some idea. And that's way too much for my comfort.



photo credit - aimee brodeur

cemetery symmetry

"What are you going to do about it?"
"Do I have to do anything? I think I'm happy to just exist. I'm on the planet, is that not enough?"
"Well, yeah, but what are you going to do about that?"
"I'll figure it out."



photo credit - silja magg

there will be no miracles here

There are no miracles. There is only life. When life is beautiful, or creates beauty, that is the closest you will get to a miracle.

And you are beautiful.



photo credit - unknown

acid tongue

Here is my situation: and here is me being honest about it:

You, yes you, are like the warmth of fire and the light of the sun, you are like that feeling you get when you stand up after sitting down for too long, you are like the tickle of a stray hair on my shoulder. If I was a city, you'd be my earthquake. One minute I am still, solid, sound and silent, the next you've torn through me and I'm collapsing all around myself. You are a thousand and one cliches and metaphors. You are the ocean. You are the sky. You are the road that leads home. You are silence. You are music.
And I just can't get my head around it.



photo credit - sssseahorse

numb

It was cold today. But not as cold as I pretended, every time I shivered you'd put your arms around me and that was nice.



photo credit - *nishe

well i, i have my doubts

The sky is grey today, but my eyes are still green.
I cross to the window and stare out at the sky, a thick blanket of dirty white covering my world. It's like the clouds you get with snow but without the snow. It's not much warmer, either. Everything outside seems to be waving at me, the limbs of trees reaching out like arms beckoning me towards them, yet somehow pushing me away at the same time. It's summer, but I can see bare branches.
I wish my eyes were blue.



photo credit - myseld

constant state of panic

photo credit - myself

perfectly honest

I think I loved you at some point. But, if we're being perfectly honest here, I've caught myself wondering if I ever really did or is it something my memory created for me. I can't remember how loving you felt.
I can remember sitting on the old white school chair, the one with the little picture of the cartoon girl on it that I've had for as long as I can remember, and you'd say things to me that my insides twist up and I'd collapse against the back of the chair. That memory is the only proof I have that we were actually in love.
But do you remember how I told you that you were the only person who has made me feel like that?

Well, I lied.



photo credit - unsure, found on audrey hepburn complex

avon

I went for a long walk today. I've gone for walks along the river many times but I've never gone past the cluster of willow trees at the corner before. I walked and walked, following the twists and turns of the river and missing out the cracks in the footpath. I walked until the sun set and the cold wind started to give me that dull familiar headache, then turned around and walked home.
Then I had a nice, long bubble bath and listened to City and Colour.



photo credit - tiger's touch

how does it feel

When I moved to the city I took nothing with me but a lungful of dreams and my battered old suitcase. I found a place to live, a job, friends. There were new things to think about. It didn't take long for those dreams to go to the back of my mind.



photo credit - unknown! D:

sentiment

You could see it in her eyes, the way she stared at you and the way she watched you walk away. Looking back at her friends she'd laugh and pretend that she'd been looking at something else. You know why, of course she couldn't come clean. Nobody ever does.




photo credit - kennedy holmes

kill me

Holding the gun to your head, I leaned forward - just close enough that I could smell your aftershave and hear your slow, deliberate breathing. My finger tightened around the trigger and I whispered: "This is for all the times that I tried to tell you. This is for when you broke my heart. Drive faster."

You drove faster.

When the sun began to rise and the stars began to fade I made you pull over. Keeping the gun pressed firmly to your temple, I kissed you one last time. I could taste the fear on your tongue. "This is for when you broke my heart."



photo credit - christophe kutner

synthetic

I know what I want to say but I can't say it because then you'll know how I feel.



photo credit - myself

I know time's gonna take it's toll

Maybe I made a mistake. I should have known when to walk away, when to stop and think. I know there's no point trying to take it all back, because I can't.
Last night I poisoned myself, and then I poisoned you too. You're brilliant. But there's somebody else on my mind.



photo credit - myself

I don't know what I'm saying

I was never good at words. I never had the talent, my words turning into mumbling, stumbling, bumbling babble, perched in the discomfort between fiction and reality. I was never good at articulating what I wanted to say, with my narrow vocabulary and lack of knowledge.
I was good at pictures. They say pictures are worth a thousand words, but mine aren't. Mine aren't worth anything. Because even though I was good at seeing - I was never good at believing.
The only thing I'm really good at is going out at night and getting lost.



photo credit - myself

I guess what I'm trying to say is...

Aching for simplicity, I turned to you. Burning for those comfortable conversations about taking the coaches and sewing dresses, I turned to you. Gasping for the familiar, same old monotony, I turned to you. I turned to you, only to find you were more complicated than a riddle. Those thoughts in your head went deeper than your seamstress pins and you were sharper than any needle I'd ever pricked myself with.
Maybe we're not meant to be comfortable.



photo credit - myself

how I loved every street light, and I wanted you to kiss me

It used to make me sad when I thought of how fast time was passing. It used to turn my blood cold to think of what tomorrow was going to mean. But now I'm eager, almost anxious, to start the next chapter in this story. I still have a problem with letting go of yesterday but I don't let it bother me as much these days.

I will write to you again soon, after tomorrow night.




photo credit - vera

get me out of here.

you were thinking of me, weren't you?



photo credit - cristophe kutner

everybody, everybody just wants to fall in love

mistakes will be made
to the death we dance
fallen
forgotten
forgiven
until the last bell chimes
and the last tick tocks
and run,
run for your life
tiny troubles
mistakes have been made
and the last dance is over



photo credit - viktor vauthier

reset rested

I can't decide whether I feel okay or not.
Maybe I do feel okay, because everything is going wrong. Maybe I don't feel okay, because everything is actually alright.
Maybe I don't know how to feel because last night the strawberry wine fizzed uncomfortably on my tongue and I lost control, the way I don't like to lose control. I couldn't help my friends because I couldn't even help myself. It didn't stop me from trying. But I wasn't good enough - I wasn't strong enough.
The next morning, between tears and picking up the shattered fragments of the night before, I vowed to never taste that poison again.

But maybe I don't feel okay because you haven't left my thoughts in a while.




photo credit - camilla akrans

camera

I feel stuck. I've been planning to do something for a while but I've never had the motivation to do it. I kid myself that there are things in the way of it, like I don't have enough film in my camera (although I don't have any film at all now) or I don't have enough time, but the truth - pure and simple - is that I'm lazy and lack motivation.
But this time, when I say I'm going to do it, I'm really going to do it.

Alex and I are starting a new blog project: to make a map of Christchurch. Bit by bit, blog by blog, roll of film by roll of film.




photo credit - zanzi