Just Enough..

Every breath was a kiss, every glance a whisper. I loved him just the same.

They stood next to each other like two parts of a dream, never knowing they would only make sense as one.

The feeling of the words made her warm on the inside, even as grey dust wrapped the window sill in a thick blanket. He could hear his heart-beat echoing in his ears, if not for that he would never know he was alive. Her belief in their story was strong, the faith that he would eventually find her was carried to his world, a present at a door he would never answer, a letter delivered but forever unopened.

He kissed her in his dreams but awaking had no memory of her lips.

She was only there when it mattered, he was only hers when it rained. They stepped by eachother only seconds apart.

On that morning when their world crumbled they lived their last moments in gaps in-between the fallen rubble. She tried to scream help, it only came out as a whisper. He heard her voice and remembered it from a dream, he reached towards the sound. They couldn't see each other, but they tried to move closer and as their fingertips brushed together in the last breath of the night, they left this world holding hands.

Glass Warriors..

Sometimes I'm cold for no reason.

I can't hold my breath for very long, but I've been practicing. People probably think it makes you feel heavy, but I always feel light, like my life is in my mind, not in my body. I can feel my heart beat, I know you're waiting. I'm at peace here inside myself, but I have to be on the outside too, because that's where you are. You understand me like words understand the pages of a book, they're happy there, it's their home. 

I couldn't see for two days because my window wasn't open. My eyes are just like glass, fragile glass warriors trying to find the perfect feeling in a world of chaos. Taking the picture when it doesn't feel right is difficult and you always know when you look back. Even if it's not right for you though, it sometimes is for others. It always catches emotion, each take is like a breath.

He thought it was strange that I was just going to be taking pictures for eight months. They looked at me funny, because they don't know the feeling. I walked out happy that I was different, all filled up.

Everything Means Something..

We are a part of the world, we're linked to everything.

The setting sun wrote me a letter in the clouds, they dived into the ocean to send me a message.

A silver line across the horizon reminded me of her tears.

I missed you every day.

You're not saying anything. "Read it again"..

In a whisper he was gone, the night told her a happy ending, but her tears were real. He left without saying goodbye. She sat up, opened the window, just a crack and lit a cigarette. The warm smoke filled her lungs as she counted stars, then breathed out giving the smoke life as it flew away to find a lost lover.

She licked her lips, remembering how he tasted.

The fire approaching the filter warmed the tip of her nose as she took her last breath, flicking the butt into the night sky. She watched as the light left its home, flying its own way. It looked like a lost star in that moment as it streaked a light across the sky, then it fell, its life burning away.

To her everything was alive, everything had a heart beat and all of this stopped her from moving on.

Every night she crossed that bridge, then burnt it when she reached the other side, but it was always there.
The lingering smell of smoke and the knowledge that her eyes once watered stopped her from resting. That night she stepped off the stage of life, as planes fell in the background and Autumn leaves gathered in her hair.

(I love this print, thank you Alex Gross you made me feel for this, what I wrote above)

Pieces..

"Does it just come to you"?
"In pieces, yes".
It's like running, how it makes me feel so free. The pages are my friends, the finished book a perfect lover. I don't sleep much. My mind, it's another person who works on a different time line. He lays next to me, pen in hand, then shakes me awake and hands me the paper. In the morning I read what came to me in sleep. I flick through the pages, like I'm walking through a dream, but it's more a part of me than what I see in the mirror. My soul in a visual form, the words like a child. I love each one the same, even those who are stained with tears.
Today we can't go out to play.

Tell Me a Story with a Different Ending..

It was effortless, a deep breath in winter that you could feel in your chest as a moment ended and a new one began. I stepped across, seeing the details in everything.

A single raindrop crawled to the end of your nose and jumped to the ground below, it joined the puddles around your feet, waiting for the game. I stepped close dropping my hand near to yours, just in-case you wanted to hold it. Her face was pale, but from a distance the blood on her cheeks made them look rosy, but only from a distance. Leaves brushed along the ground, watering the grass with the rain they had carried. Some blew across the field and stopped as they hit her body, accumulating next to her like a blanket that had fallen to her side during the night. The trees whispered, telling me you didn't want me to speak, not yet. I waited.

I wasn't actually there, my baby was at home tucked under her covers, safe. I walked to the edge, the tip of my shoes touching the grass that met the side of the path. Someone's hand was on my back, I didn't notice whose, maybe it was God. The night calmed me, the day was almost over, everything will be sorted out tomorrow. Nothing was real, this didn't even look like my town. My heart beat slowly as if I was ready to die. The clouds rolled in over the hill. Shadows came to take me away.

I saw my mum in the field. I wondered why she was out so late. I wasn't in my pajamas anymore. Someone was holding my hand. Everything was warm, even though I could see their breath. I was laid down in the wet grass, but now I was dry. I can remember my eyes closing, someone wrapped me in a blanket, I didn't notice who, maybe it was God. I could taste a sweetness at the back of my throat, like when you're drifting off to sleep. Someone tell me a story with a different ending.

My Boyfriends Name is Joe..

I never left you, we were always just a moment away.

All the emotions of life live here, they play out in every second. You can see it, standing on the corner of a strangers world, asking someone to take your picture. She's my best friend.

I fell into you at an airport and I haven't stopped falling since.

"Pardon Madame"

"Il est bien"

You caught my hand as I knelt down to pick up my purse. We looked at each other. We sat close together in the same terminal, waiting for the same plane. You asked me to take your picture and we never left each others side. It was like a dream but the colours were brighter.

It was a minute-by-minute thing between you and I, all the excitement of the world wrapped up in a conversation. I was a writer, you were a photographer, we didn't know each others name.

Sometimes when my heart is on the edge of a feeling and I don't quite know how to write it I'll close my eyes and put my hands on the pages. When I first told you that, you closed your eyes and put your hands on me. I was quiet. You said you knew exactly what you were feeling but didn't know how to tell me. We were young but we knew that we loved each other.

You tasted like a cigarette with the end dipped in chocolate. I didn't just want the memories, I wanted all of you forever.

She was a bird on the edge of a cliff that I fell in love with just before she flew away. I didn't want to put her in a cage, I just wanted to hold her for the rest of my life.

You once told me, if you can't see in the dark, close your eyes for a few moments, then open them and everything will seem brighter. All of my days were spent walking around with my eyes closed and the world was never brighter when I awoke, until that day.

In between, my time was spent hoping you would keep showing up. We both had our own lives but each year in October we would meet by the same fountain on the Shanzelize and spend two weeks expressing the love we felt for each other every day of the year.
We were perfect together in an imperfect world that had no space for us.

I knew you from another life where we spent all our time together. When that life was over the God's never imagined we loved enough to find each other in the next world.
You looked different but you smelt the same, like cigars and espresso. We must have passed each other by a thousand times before we tripped in the same place. 

Every time we parted, it was like an airport goodbye and when I saw you again amongst the faces in the crowd my heart still skipped. Each year you looked a little older, young with lines of age, aged with mannerisms of the young.
We always fell right back into step with one another. You would touch the back of my arm, as I turned to face you I always paused, content in the knowledge that you were right behind me. You walked in step with me effortlessly and I didn't even have to pause.
I never thought of the time we had left until our last few hours together. I never wanted to sleep. We stumbled through our dreams, real life never intervened and time was endless.

The sun would break into our lovers lair every morning just to take our picture. I would shy away from the flash, burying my face into your chest.
We woke late cuddling, then made coffee in our underwear. We walked through the streets hand in hand and danced in the lane ways. After a late lunch and an afternoon pastry we would race back to our apartment for some delightful love making and sleep away the rest of the day. I never imagined I could be so happy.

(More to come ^.^)  

When we're done..

Time isn't my friend. It's a shadow that never wants to get a drink but follows me around always expecting an invitation. Always on my mind, it's a weight I was born with and have to carry step by step until I reach the end of the Earth.

Time is the worst thing humans ever created, to measure a day, a week, a year and fasten it to the belt of life, with no room for the moments that fall in-between. A measure of success, a measure of wisdom, a measure of age, but we all use a different metric. 

A measure of love?

I loved you in a moment, we were married with a kiss and died holding hands.

                                                                                                  Dali (of course)

Find me a Laneway and I'll give you my heart..

Well, I've just returned from a week long stay in Melbourne, the city of secrets....

                                           A Love heart shaped leaf ^.^

                                           Aww, Teahouse I miss you.

                                          A day at the football.

Dear Melbourne, 

              I very much enjoyed our time together, might you have me permanently?

Watch and wait..

An inconspicuous whisper skipping through the trees, the scent of a flower blooming on the first day of spring. All the happiness of the world in a single moment.

A beautiful book with some missing pages..

When I lived in New York I used to walk past the same woman everyday. She would sit on the stoop outside Strand Books on 828 Broadway, always holding the same book, reading it again and again. I never knew her name, but she was a part of my life as much as those that I had loved intimately. A fixture that was familiar, that I would be lost without. 

She cried twice a day around the same time. I wondered if it was because of the book, if she reached the same part of the story each day at about the time I was walking by. I wondered about the book, I never knew what it was, but I desired to, to know what moved her to tears and if it might move me too. I wondered if she had been given the book by someone who had exited the store in years gone by and if that moment of kindness had fixed her to that position for eternity. Perhaps by a tourist, who had gone home soon after never realising how that moment had shaped her, or another, or me.

I wished sometimes that I had been the one to give her that book, a point of conversation, that I might know her name. I was painfully shy and she looked as though she liked to be alone. But know one really likes to be alone.

I had drinks with my friends one evening after work and we had taken a different route home. I missed her. The next day my lady was gone. There was a smooth patch on the stoop where she had sat for years. She was the first person I knew when I moved to New York, but I didn't really know her. 

I looked for her for months afterward, in homeless shelters and outside bookshops. I looked for her for the rest of my life in the faces of those I passed, never knowing if she had thought of me, if she had ever even noticed me. Never knowing that someone was looking for her.

I wondered if she had died, who had moved the body, if anyone had claimed her?

Maybe she had decided to go home, perhaps another stranger had placed a new book in her hand, finally releasing her from her world on the stoop.

I asked the workers in Strand, the Falafel guy on the corner and the Halal girl across the street, know one had noticed her. I hoped everyday that I would find her again to tell her that I had noticed her.

 

15 minutes dreaming..

I liked it here because it was quiet. The sky moved quickly as though it had somewhere to be, but it was always beautiful, throwing a shooting star every now and then. Planes carved through its soft skin, making deep scars of silk across its back, with a roar that was always somewhat comforting. I closed my eyes so I could listen better, to touch better and taste what it felt like, but I was always on the edge of falling into a dream.
The light broke through my frosted window and I knew you were near by. You kissed my lips, I opened for you like a flower blooming in spring. My eyes fluttered as I walked out of my fantasy and into a reality that matched. We stayed in bed all day.

(This is a little somethin' about that delightful feeling of drifting in and out of sleep ^.^)

I counted stars..

We lay beside each other, as still as a pond, no breeze in sight. His arms a comforting weight around me, his hot breath stroking the back of my neck.
I touched his baby finger.
"When we're married, we'll be just like this" he said.
I smiled, "Well, I guess we're married then".
We lived a whole lifetime in that moment, we were born, we loved and we died. It was perfect.
And the sun rose later in the morning, not wanting to wake us from our world.

Moments of life..

When you laughed your eyes closed slightly, like you lived in the moment longer than those who saw it. I closed my eyes as well, hoping we could finish off each others thought. The world waited for me when we were together, I used to never be able to keep up.
We met in a library, "You're not supposed to talk in this section" were the first words you said to me.
"Can I read this chapter to you" were mine.
Luckily I was sitting down when I first saw you, walking up and down the isles, touching the edges of all the books you passed as if you were hoping your heart would lead you to the right selection. Your summer dress flowing behind you, an invitation for me to follow.
I never planned what to say, like I had with others, that's what made it perfect, innocence.
"If there is such a thing.."
"Shh"
"If there is such a thing as marriage.."
"Shhh ... and come on" you chuckled grabbing my hand and pulling me away from the readers who had been disturbed.
I wondered why they were agitated, if they wanted to read, the book I was holding was the best read in the world. I didn't quite finish my thought because I knew you had hold of my hand. I breathed in.
"Why did you do that? That's the silent section" you said stepping down the stairs.
You weren't holding my hand anymore, but it was still warm from your touch. I followed.
"It would be the noisy section to a mind reader" I mused.
"And is that what you are?" you stared at me seriously.
"No" I smiled "I'm sorry, I just wanted to read to you".
"Well I can read to myself thank you".  You started walking away.
"I'm sure you can, but the words I'll read to you will sound different coming from my lips than they do from yours" I said.
You stopped. I walked up behind you, your back still turned.

"If there is such a thing as marriage, it takes place long before the ceremony, in a car on the way to the airport, or as a gray bedroom churns with the sound of morning, one lover watching the other, or as two strangers stand together in the rain, no bus in sight, arms weighed down with shopping bags. You don't know then, but later you realise, that was the moment"...

Your back was still turned and you were doing something with your hand, near your face, wiping away a tear perhaps? You stepped around to face me, putting the top on your lipstick and placing it back into your bag. You pressed your lips together, now cherry with colour. Stepping closer again, you took the book out of my hand, cleared your throat and began.

..."And always without words. Language is like looking at a map of somewhere, love is living there and surviving on the land.
You get to a stage where stories don't matter anymore and the stories once told so passionately become a tide that never quite reaches the point of being said. And there is no such thing as fate, but there are no accidents either.
I didn't fall in love with Bruno then, I had always loved him and we were always together. Love is like life, but starts before and continues after, we arrive and depart in the middle".

Silence, even in the noisy section, it seemed.
"And that is what the words sound like coming from my lips" You whispered.
The most intimate moment I had ever shared with anyone and we barely touched.
I'm out of breath.

(Another part of one of my short stories) ^.^

“Dreamers conquered the world long ago” ~ Simon Van Booy

A great little form of street art....

...the shoe one is my fav.
P.s So what if I'm buying miniature figurines and creating my own lil people art ^.^

I miss Brooklyn ...

Stalker...

She’s a girl that wears flowers in her hair when it rains and scarves draped over her shoulders in summer. She would lay down on the ground to relax and say it made her feel closer to the Earth.I watched her from my car, leaning out her bedroom window to see the night time stars and drinking the rain as it fell from the sky in winter. We are perfect together, but she doesn't know me. We think the same thoughts and walk the same steps, but we've never met.

I know her routine and how she runs in the mornings. I know her eyes don't fully open until she sips her coffee, blindly reaching for the cup. I know her heart beats faster when she's waiting outside his office. I know he loves her too. He's looked in her eyes and seen the world, he's put his hands at the base of her back and smelt her hair as they hugged. He can hold her hand without asking and when he goes home, he remembers her touch. His dreams are informed by small realities that I will never know. He knows what it is to hold her.

She visits a bar in the city on Wednesdays and huddles under strangers umbrellas when it pours. I've thought of standing behind her in line, with an umbrella in hand awaiting the heavens kindness, but me, I wouldn't know what to say, if she turned around.

I've made a space for her in my life that will be forever vacant, if we never love. I carry the weight of my feelings with ever step I take, hoping each day that she might notice I'm struggling and lend me her hand, just for the rest of our lives.

But for now, I wait in the shadows thankful for every glimpse I get of her breath falling around the room as she rests and the movement of her chest, up and down, when her heart feels someone is watching.

(This is part of one of my short stories, and a lil pic of myself at my fav Wednesday night bar :)

My Love Affair

I didn't want it to be over, but like the sun hiding behind a cloud, with each turn of the pages I knew I was closer to being in the shadows once more. I drew it out for as long as I could and although I didn't want to finish it, I wanted to get to the end. Walking down a garden path is always somehow better than the secret at the end. Knowing this I took my time to hold the pages the way they wanted to be held, to caress their edges and gaze longingly into the eyes of their words. Each chapter was like a date, a wine and dine with the characters of the story and I always enjoyed the dinner. A slow dance was often included and sometimes they would repeat the song. As the night closed the hours before we would see each other again were painful to consider. So as I drifted off into my night time world, with the book still next to me, all I could hope for was that my dreams would kindly take me down that garden path once more.

It Only Takes Pennies..

She won my heart with a glance. I waited to see if the feeling would depart, like her shadow, but it never did. Every time I create a memory with someone I love, I wonder how long it will play in my mind with the others, before fracturing and hiding behind things that are less important. This carousel of thought is rather endless, it provokes anxiety because as it runs, continuously fueled by pennies of doubt, it occupies space in the loft of my mind, that is already cluttered with too much unnecessary furniture. The summer dress, was it blue? What shoes was she wearing the day that we met? The details of life's precious moments are difficult to hold, they break easily into a million little pieces and cannot be put back together. Anything that can be preserved, the gestures she would make when she was expressing an opinion that she was particularly passionate about, or the perfume she used to wear, are all that we have to cling to when a person leaves, or a moment ends. The fortunate memories that survive the hurricane of our minds are tied to branches with soft silk ribbon, that can be loosened by the wind. When they do slip free, they fall from the tree to the soft grass below and are only tended to when a stranger walks by with the same perfume, triggering us to pick up the memory and secure it to the tree once more. This uncertainty is a difficult hill to climb, the pointless prioritising of our memories is a lottery that is not controlled by us, but don't say that it is random, please don't say that.  
I have a few I would like to keep.