Evacuate

I'll attach sailcloth to my life,
With fair winds at our backs.
I'll put away my knife,
There's nothing to attack.
I'll take your hand in love,
The hand you raised in hate.
The world split from above,
Our lives are bound by fate.
But I'm not giving in.
You turned away from me.
For all my people's sin,
But I have made us free.
The skies await our hand,
The sun is on our face.
We've made our final stand,
Let's leave this awful place.
We'll find a distant shore,
And make our dreams come true.
There's nothing wrong or poor,
When I'm right here with you.

Come on Zulf. We're going home.

What is done is done,

what is gone is gone.

We can't go back anymore,

but we can go... wherever we please.

And though that might not sound too great for you right now,

after all of this...

I cannot leave you behind.

I won't say please. And you won't thank me. Because this is what friends are for.

Of Confusion, Odds, and Ends.

Oh, hello. It's a double bill tonight. That means real-life stuff. Let me just trawl through the old posts and see my last real-life wankery.

Oh dear, it was such a long time ago. But hey! The last one had little italic interludes, and looking back over them, I'm appreciating them quite a bit. So I might write some more of them. Hey, me in a few months. Take note of these - they take a bit of effort and you nod and smile when you see them, don't you? So when you sit down to do this again, chuck them in.

And you're alone in here, except for the shades of everybody else who's been in the room, and the musk of the sex in the bed, and the hum of the machines around you and the memories of everybody who's impacted you and the several thousand people claiming residence inside your mind, spilling out of you all at once. So very alone.

For once I'll begin with romance, instead of pushing it to the back of the post like a pet that's made a mess on the rug. Pat and I have broken up at this point. Only...we haven't stopped sharing a bed. Or having sex. Or telling one another that we love one another. Or looking after one another. Or leaning on one another emotionally...in fact, the only thing we've stopped doing is guilting one another and being passive aggressive and resentful. I'm now in the perfect relationship, and all it took was for me to get out of the relationship.
I cannot express how conflictingly elating and depressing that realization is.
So it was his birthday just finished a few hours ago and he's in the country with his god-awful family and I'm alone here thinking about how important and essential and splendid he is and then feeling a mixture of hatred and happiness for those feelings. It's becoming clear that I need to see a shrink. I've started to go into hysterics with alarming regularity. Hysterics. With alarming regularity. Like I'm some sort of highly strung 1800s woman who can't get through the day without a good bout of fainting.

You're scrabbling at whatever bits are left within reach, floating in the sea around you. They turn out to be sharp - very sharp. They cut your hands to the bone and you're forced to drop them, and instead of holding you afloat, they've attracted sharks. Blood in the water and sharks all around. What else can you do but panic?

I am finding it exceptionally hard to feel confident about my mental state. I can't bring myself to eat. I want to smoke at all hours. I drink too quickly and too much. I crave harder stuff like you wouldn't believe. Sleep doesn't come easily, if at all. Crying comes and goes. Love comes and goes. Wanting to be touched wars with a desperate need to be seperated. Friends are drawn close and shoved aside. Strangers are appreciated and despised. Parents are scorned, then required. I suppose I've done most of these things all my life, but they're so heightened. I wanted dizzying highs and terrifying lows - I've wanted those things all my life - but not in the space of a day, an hour, a minute.

I hate my work. I have never hated my work. I despite it at the moment.
I can't look myself in the eye in the mirror.
I refuse to allow myself to be weak, because when I'm weak I fall apart.
When I'm strong, I'm barely holding myself together.
And so on. An endless litany of depresssive cliches stitched together by nice words. Enough of this.

Put the curtain down and spout some facts, you fool. You want to deal in mundane things, not in this high emotion. You won't relate or care in a year's time.

• I'm glad I'm blogging. People around me keep diaries, or say they do. I don't think I could ever do that. A few days ago I rode on a train and saw a man with a beard that went down to his navel. That's fun in isolation, but surround that with a thousand days, filled with millions of meaningless observations, and it loses punch. In fifty years I'd like to turn this into a book and leave it lying around. That's the dream.
• I haven't seen nearly enough theatre. Rigor Mortis was hilarious and fun, The Economist was the complete opposite. I am a pirate named Cutthroat Jack in the O'Show this year. I sing in five songs and have a few lines. It's quite enjoyable so far, though it lacks the Much Ado feel (despite the fact that most of the Much Ado cast in in it)
• I am running a DnD game at the moment which is a lot of fun. We have a wizard with no name, a Shadar-Kai named Eleanor, an orcish cleric whose name escapes me (who Ollie will probably name in the comments if he reads this), a fey warlock named Garath, and a pirate called Five.
  
• I am getting a blister on my index finger from typing. This has never happened before.
• I had my sisters down from Canberra for the first time. They seemed to love Melbourne. I seem to love them.
• I have to be up at 9am tomorrow, and it is nearly 2am.
• Tintin was a wonderful film.

Now get out.

Exactly the Same

We'll get out, you and I.
Frightful, felonious farces.
Play out under hideous concrete skies.
Big fish, small pond.
Big dick!
That was quick.
You're an animal in a concrete jungle.
But the ceiling's the same.
Forest canopy, sunroof,
Cigarettes or banana leaves
Rape, business, mudhut, highrise.
Get out tomorrow.
Get out tomorrow.
Go to work, go to bed, drive a car,
fuck the wife.
Fucked your life.

We'll get out, you and I.
Hop a train that leads somewhere
exactly the same
but you'll be able to let down your hair,
and reinvent yourself
and keep your head out of the oven
and your life out of the drain.
I'll avoid that tie
that horrible, simple tie
that could have been a noose
now we've been cut loose
with strangers in their ruts
instead of family
who've gone nuts.

Reckless. We're so reckless.
There are cities with graveyards
and graveyards with cities.
Parasitic, symbiotic?
Pass the joint and hope it's chronic,
don't think too much and sleep all night
and it might just turn out
alright.
We'll get out.
We'll get out.
We're on a train.
Going somewhere exactly the same.

A Handful of Dust

I will show you fear in a handful of dust - T.S Eliot.

Is that all?
You think yourself powerful,
All-seeing, eyes of mortality
The dirt-caked fist of God himself
and think yourself unique?
A handful of dust to inspire terror?
The fear of ages passing
in the debris of ages past.
You summon up old demons
made of wire and twigs and flesh and bone
faded, distant and forlorn
they play upon the mind.
A handful of dust is fear itself.

I can do so much more.
I can bring fear in your reflection.
Fear in the touch of a lover,
Fear in a hairbrush,
a loose tooth,
a stain on the floor.
I can bring tears in an embrace.
Panic in a note of music.
Sorrow in the embers of a fire.
I can summon hate
and shame
in a piece of paper.
Pestilence in pencils and pens,
desecration in a home-cooked meal,
madness in a concrete spire.
I can do so much more.

Can you, you bloody-faced creator?
Can you conjure love and hope and joy?
Where are your silver-faced angels,
made of light and sound and warmth
to seep into us and sweep us away?
Where are they?
Are they in your handfuls of dust?
Did they die with ages past?
Their corpses leave nothing for us,
your hateful masses.
Let their shades walk the world.
Show me hope in a handful of dust.
That's real power.

Maestro

Come in, come in - kill the lights and settle down.
I'm preparing something magical in here.
It turns happiness to anger and smiles into frowns,
And you're primed for quite the sample, oh my dear.

Give in, give in - there's no reason for this din.
For you'll see that I agree with all you say.
There's no reason for this conflict, this chaos over sin
I've decided not to fight you, not today.

I win, I win - you've forgotten why you care.
And the jealousy and fugue are all you are.
I can will away our wonders with a glassy, silent stare.
I may not love - but hey, I have a car.

Dear god, please don't let this come true.

The Bastion

This is my 250th post. I wish I were writing something that wasn't word vomit. Actually, no I don't.

Someday I'll build a wall of stone,
Build it high with bricks of bone.
You'll dig a hole, I'll build a wall.
Someday this wall is gonna fall.

Bring on the sea from up the hill.
Bring on the tide of men that kill.
Wash away all under the sky,
And I will build wings to fly.

Someday I'll build a wall of ice.
Hundred foot high, won't that be nice?
Under the cold we'll find our sleep,
And into dreams we'll softly creep.

I'm on my back, I'm coming home.
Atop the wall of blood and bone.
I am alone, I have attacked.
I'm waiting here, not coming back.

I see the stars that wheel on high,
You stole my wings only to die.
Shed a tear and never fear,
I'm coming home.
Atop the wall.
I'm coming home.
Never fear.

There's a bastion beneath the earth.
It keeps your soul from final death.
I've built a wall to keep it back,
The shadows and the final fall.

Of blood and bone and sacrifice.
Of memories that softly call.
A deep and flooded paradise,
Behind a frozen wall of ice.

I do wish I could finish it, though.

There, once.

There once was a man with a hole in his head.
And he danced in the streets for his daily bread.
And the demons flew out and they left him alone
But he wouldn't stop moving, he wouldn't go home.

There once was a man with his head in a hole.
He was trying to drown out his colourful soul.
But his head popped on out when it started to ache.
Because soul colours give, but they won't let you take.

There was a woman with a thirst for the sea,
She was wild and wilful and wouldn't leave be.
Then one day she found her way down to the shore,
Took off her dress and became something more.

There was a woman with a sea for a thirst.
She slaked it with bottles and thought she was cursed.
Then along came a man with oceans in his throat.
And she threw out her thirst and set off in his boat.

Who's There?

Because stealing and completely warping an original concept is much easier than coming up with something of my own. After this, I swear, something of my own devising.


Hello, who's there?
Just Me. I'm alone.
Well, let yourself in,
We'll make you at home.
What brings you around,
So lost and alone?
Alone, but not lost,
I assure you, my friend.
But I'll let you play host,
Because I love you the most.
Well, isn't that nice?
We all thank you, for sure.
But we're not sure what vice
Has you knock
knock
knocking at our door.
You can't all thank me,
Because that wasn't extended
To the collective of souls
That you've kept and pretended
That they've made up your mind
And they've sat in your head
And they keep you so warm
In your cold, lonely bed.
I was talking to YOU -
Why, who do you mean?
You can't pick us out,
We all share a skin,
And a backlog of sin,
And we share the same roof
The same shell, the same doubt -
We have what we've been,
And we'll be what we'll be -
So there isn't a you,
Just a we.
There's a flaw here.
So small, yet so clear.
If you'll allow -
Please, go right ahead,
We're frightfully curious
To hear what you say,
Our ears are wide open
No, that's not the way.
You talk as a collective, a group or a pack -
But the souls that comprise you are under attack.
There's a SELF in there, and he's a consumer,
A bastard, a hunger, a violent abuser.
You don't share a past and you don't share a future
The things that lent weight to that have been devoured,
This ravenous beast within you empowered
To eat all you were and the people who made you,
To crunch up experience and gulp down outsiders,
The masses whittled down to one.
This has already begun.
We don't know what you mean, we're sure.
When once we were one, we are certainly more .
We're the one who was born, and the one who was taught,
We're the one who was foolish and the one that was caught,
We're the one who is vicious and the one who's inspired,
We're the one who is loving and the one who is tired.
We're the one who's all-knowing and the one who is silent.
We're the one who is vibrant and the one who is quiet.
We are so many people that we crowd out the room,
While we're in just one body, we number in billions,
No devourer could stop us or even diminish
Our endless providing, our wonderous brilliance.
Fine.
Fine?
You concede? This isn't like you,
Dazzle us with your wit, lone walker.
Fill us with wonder, you're such a great talker.
But we outnumber and overcome,
And you are all alone.
That's as may be,
But I bet you can't bring them forth.

I...I speak for them all.
Oh, there's an 'I' now, is there?
I'll be leaving now.
Don't bother getting out of the way.
There's lots of space.

Oh.

Lose My Body

Lose my body,
Find my mind.
Is that the price?
How ill-defined.

I'll shed my skin,
I'll lose my wings,
They had no use,
Such pointless things.

I'll give control,
For sanity.
Trade intellect,
For vanity.

I'd rather think,
Than have a heart,
Lose my body?
Let us part.