you might aswell smile

strange fanfairs and the gazes of strangers seemed to push the very boundaries of the air, like curved bubbles were pressing into me from all sides, sometimes everything just seems to push and squeeze and i've already been filled up and i can't take any more in without overflowing. but i suppose theres something glorious about the way the world seems to be so busy and full and exciting that you can drift through it without any identity at all. like bernard who's engaged to be married. only... sort of the opposite feeling.

things have become familiar enough now to be able to catagorise them. i can organise them into groups: fire, stone, air. no wait, thats not right. brick and lead, which both behave like fire. and the small green flash of repulsion and clarity which i can only call emerald for want of a better word. i can think about them now, like a scientist with his samples laid out on the wooden desk in front of him, i can pick each one up and magnify it and lable it, and put it where it should go. i can't destroy them, but i can draw graphs on them.

I just couldn't say it.

sometimes i think my life would make a good film. sometimes i think my life is a film. at least so far it is the beginning of some obscure alternative film, hidden away in a dusty corner of the video shop. the first 17 years of my life could be condensed into a pretty good 10 minute start to a film. a few arty shots of reflections, a few humorous moments involving pigeons, ending up with a slightly-melancholy teenager gazing out of the bus window or perhaps sitting on a cliff looking out to sea. the only thing is, i'm unsure of the plot from here. i assume some of the details from my childhood will be instrumental later on in the plot, as they so often are. but of the supporting cast so far, who is going to be there at the ending? have i even met them yet?

it's amazing what a difference 4 lines can make.

you can't shame us now

i'm sitting here slowly watching the world grey into dusk before my eyes. and i thought i was feeling better, the music shivering through my body and laughing at idiotic romantic comedies (who can help being swept up by love stories?). but people keep leaving and there were only 3 places set at dinner tonight. i don't want people to leave, because instead of getting on with my life i end up just waiting, constantly waiting for contact from them, checking my emails at ridiculous times of the day and waiting for the postman.
the blackbird that has been calling outside the window all day long just flew off, with a rustle of feathers and leaves and almost disguised by nights deepening cloak it emerged from the tree and disappeared. another person has left. and who's left now except the flashing blue instant messenger window at the bottom of the screen - the disembodied type of someone i'm only talking to because they'll talk to me about him.
tomboyish cloaks, the first brown leaves in the gutter, forms, lists and don't forget to write it in pencil first. plait your hair and give yourself a sword, pretend you're thinking about something else and not just hopelessly bathing in your memories.
things have turned from grey to blue outside.

rescue me

autumn is here because i can smell the strange scent of smoke in the air, even when there doesn't seem to be a fire any where close. the air is cooling noticably, and whilst i still go out of just a t-shirt, the air feels refreshing against my skin rather than stifling. blackberries are falling out of the hedges, and everything around is producing fruit. i'm taking in my last glimpses of the swallows and housemartins because i know it won't be long before they leave here, and i'll have to wait all winter, until next summer when i will look up in the sky one day and smile as i see they have returned. the swifts left weeks ago, and i miss their calls.

since he left, the trees have started to turn. they stayed green for him, while he was here, but they won't stay green for me, they know me too well. autumn always creeps up on me and surprises me.

freedom. beauty. truth. love. (?)

i don't understand what is going on. it's not like anything happened. it's not like it's the end of a routine of years. it's not like i didn't know what was coming and it's not like i even got deep enough into it to reasonably feel anything. perhaps he was wrong though, he said he trusted me not to be so far gone as i thought i was. misplaced trust perhaps, because i think i am farther gone than even i thought i was. during the day, there are moments of clarity when i realise that what just happened was a small hill in a flat landscape; it was interesting, difficult, exciting and different while it lasted, but now i'm back on the flat ground. surely theres something nice about flat plains? ok, so they lack the amazing views and the wind in your hair, but they also don't have the climbing up and down steep slopes either, which is a bonus. and theres a certain ease of step and freedom to be had on the plains. at least, there would be, and there always was before, but now it's overpowered by my sense of disappointment that i had to come down off the hilltop before i was ready, and i'm saddened that i can see no other mountains on the horizon in any direction.

and if anyone can follow that extended metaphor then i'm impressed.

a few tears, and some hot bright sunlight warming my neck through the window, songs embellished with meanings from my own mind, and the armour still pressing against my chest. its the weekend, i should be glad.

i got confused and i thought your eyes were mine

yes, this blog has been neglected for a few weeks. things have been... happening.
i'm never quite sure how much to write in this blog, i'm not entirely sure i want to give every last detail of my life out to anyone who cares to see. and also, how can i ever write honestly about people and situations, knowing theres a chance they could read it? i think perhaps names and details will have to remain confined to real-life-paper-journals, but i'll do my best here to explain.
what do you do when you have to say goodbye to someone who you won't see again for years and probably never again? and what do you do when you were just getting dangerously fond of them? and when for several months you won't know where they are in the world and you won't even have the pitiful comfort of emails or letters? and you don't even think that they think of you in the same way anyway? and they can't possibly be finding it as hard as you are?
nevermind trees growing out of churches, what about trees growing out of people? i don't suppose anyone would understand if i tried to explain the dappled green light that seems to muddle around my head constantly, or the weight of carrying branches on my shoulders. i ran my hand down the iron handrail, covered in peeling white paint, just to hear the soft sound it made, and to feel the reassuring extension of the real world, just to give myself some sensation that came from outside myself. i seem to have unintentionally donned an invisible suit of armour. my reasons being that something is weighing me down terribly, why do i just sit for hours finding it hard to move? also, there is something cold and hard pressing against my torso at all times. or perhaps i have just swallowed a brick. fountains run hot and cold in my throat. i thought at the very least i would tell him that i would miss him, but how can you talk when your throat is stuffed full of cotton wool? so i just turned around and walked away. and i hate myself for it.

still, i suppose it'll only take a few days for these feelings to fade. i'll get caught up in the world and normality, daily routine and all that, and only a fragment of the feelings now will return when he drops me a line. i'll stop thinking about never seeing him again, and i'll stop associating songs and places with him, and i'll stop thinking of things to say to him........ and everything will fade back into normality.

i left my window open all day and now find that my bed is covered in tiny orange seeds from trees which have floated in through the window.

the sky was blue today. blue all over, without one single cloud. days like this are rare it seems, even in summer. on the weather forcast there were big yellow suns covering our part of the country... again, it's been a long time since i've seen that. i thought by 4pm it would be cool enough to go for a walk, but i still overheated. perhaps it's because i insist on wearing trousers in all weathers... so i sat under a tree and thought long and hard about nothing. i tried to focus my thoughts, but it didn't work. there is something about being out under the sky and walking which does ease the mind, i may not properly think anything through, but it does stop my thoughts from mugging me.

on the way back i found a very very tiny caterpillar which was bright red climbing very determinedly up my shirt.