There was once a large country-town, which its locals styled as a city. It dressed itself in winding roads and street malls and on its fingers it wore shining rings of a theatre and museum (on closer inspection, however, one would note that these rings were in fact cheap knock-offs, sold by a shady gentleman on a corner when the city went on holiday). Perhaps the only truly genuine thing about this city was the long, muddy river that wrapped itself around its torso.

In the heart of this river was little rocky island. On this rocky island was a little wooden shack and in this little wooden shack, was a little, skinny boy. He slept in a small bedroom on the East side of the island, so the breeze would carry through his window on restless evenings. Above his bed was a gigantic map, of the city around his river and beyond. He fished in the river for food and spent his spare time reading books and catching pieces of debris that sailed down the river. The most interesting thing he ever fished out of the river was a large map, not only of the city but of the entire world. He placed it above his bed and he would stare at it during those longs nights as he waited for a gentle breeze to carry him to sleep. And with nothing else to dream of, he dreamed of the map and the little dots with little names above them that had hundreds, no thousands, of little boys like him. 

Finally, one day he decided he couldn’t dream anymore. Boldly, he grabbed pieces of people’s lives that had washed ashore on his little island. With determination and all the time in the world, he made a little row boat. He hopped into the boat and sailed against the current, pulling with all his strength across the force of the river.

When he landed in the city, it didn’t take him very long to fall in love with everything. He fell in love with the roads and the buses, the boys he saw, the theatre and the museum. No so long after this, he became very sad. The city was pretty and it was alive and it talked to him like his little shack on his little island never could. But the city was embarrassed by the river, it tried covering it up with bridges and artificial beaches. The boy cried out and hurried home, because he could not imagine his world without it.

Yet as soon as he arrived at his little shack, he missed the city. It talked to him like the river and the island never did. It made him feel valued and liked and kept him happy and doing more things than just reading. But he was so lost without his shack.

So everyday, the boy rowed from the shack and ventured into the city. Whenever he felt like he was losing himself, he hurried home to his little island until he longed for the city again. Every day, he managed to get further and further away. Yet everytime he returned to the shack, the river had swallowed a little bit more of his island. One day, after many hours journeying through the city, he ran to his river and found the entire island swallowed by the water.

And he realized he hadn’t been getting stronger when he left home, he hadn’t been getting stronger. He’d just become more numb to the sense of being lost. And now his home was gone and all he had left was the city and it didn’t seem so bright anymore.

He looked into the dirty muddy river and closed his eyes.

Super fun true college story

I’ve been in college since late July and I’ve only had one bad experience.

I was going to be drinking with a couple of friends at college one night. Most people were out at some college event or another, so I popped down to the local shops to grab dinner and some drinks. I was with a friend and we bumped into a post-grad student from college who remembered my name and I didn’t know his. I felt bad, so I waited with him while he got his food. 

He was Sri-Lankan and he talked about (repeatedly) him getting really drunk at the races. In the morning of the races, they were already so drunk they couldn’t get on the ferry. Then a girl had to be taken to hospital when they got there. Then he passed out in the Casino at 3am the next day. 

This is the sort of person he was. He sounded fun and he asked what we were doing and I told him we were drinking and he was like “great! see you there!”

Late that night, a few people had come in and out of the room where we had been doing our drinking. Most people had gone home, but my friends James and Josh were with us, the post-grad guy and two other guys. Post-Grad guy was making gay jokes directed at the two other guys, one of whom was quite large.

Post-Grad guy knew I, as well as James and Josh, were gay, so I thought this was douchey. So I commented that the guy he was making fun was quite attractive, and the thing that made him so attractive was how comfortable he was with his sexuality. Everyone laughed but Post-Grad guy started quietly fuming.

He started asking me questions, asking in a roundabout way if I found him attractive. This was awkward, so I kept going along and compared to the large guy he had been making fun of, saying “THAT guy is hot.”

I don’t remember what he said, but he was quite insulted. He threw a glass of goon in my face and started yelling at me, advancing quickly. Then he threw another cup of goon in my face. I had to stand up and back away, he was so close.

He loomed over me, with a drunken, stupid expression on his face. At this point I realized he was fucking insane. He was saying things like “your fucking twisted mouth” and saying that he had been treating ‘us’ with respect the entire night and that I was stupid. I think he said faggot? Then he told me I was ‘about to be unconscious, bro’. One of his friends went to touch his shoulder and he pushed him back into the door. I remember thinking about how much  I smelt.

Adrenalin kicked in and I did the only thing I could do; I talked, I kissed ass, I apologised. I said I completely crossed the line and I was sorry, etc, etc. Trying to sound sincere. He left the room.

I sat down. His friends stepped in to make excuses, saying he had never been like that. I forget what we said. Maybe it was me or James who said “he can’t fucking say things like that”.

Then he came back in, cigarette in hand that he put out on the table. I made an apology, he said “thanks bro, that’s all I wanted”, we shook hands, then he invited me to drink. Then I made an excuse and Josh, James and I hightailed it out of there.

I made it a bit back to my tower before the adrenalin left and my emotions came pouring in. It was not my proudest moment. Then I went to James’ place and slept on his floor, because I just could not stay at college that night.

His friends met up with me over the next few days and said, while they wouldn’t go to the Director by themselves, they’d support me if I did. I just wanted it all to go away, so I told them so long as he never talked to me, looked at me, or in anyway interacted with me,  or did anything like that again, I wouldn’t say anything.

I still see him around college and uni but we avoid each other. It’s terrifying and infuriating and I just want to punch his fucking face in because he made me feel so powerless. But I dealt with it, when I was confronted with it, and I’m better for it, because now I know that there actually people like that. I’ll be safer, more reserved in public places, or with people I don’t know well. 

Which is a fucking infuriating lesson. Why should I be afraid because some people are stupid, bogan motherfucks? Why do they have a right to be use violent language and act inappropriately, and I don’t have the right to have a limp wrist while I’m talking? 

In showers, when I am upset and want long ones, I will often sit down

I will sit in the corner and pull my knees up, burrowing my face to them, letting the water wash away everything. I feel that coldness, blackness that curls up inside me begin to drain away.

Then I will imagine a person in the corner opposite me. It’s someone I’ve been intimate with, shared things with emotionally and they’re in the same position. There is nothing even vaguely sexual about it. It’s just shared vulnerability. 

I look up and gently, casually, just say, “Hey.” I look back down. Then he looks up, in the same manner.

“Hey.”

Then we return to our very vulnerable, lonely curled positions. Then he is gone but so is that blackness inside me. 

The Girl Who Dressed Up For Storms

The days were long. and warm, but he would feel so cold. The coldness that would freeze him in his bones and clench his heart and make him want to curl up. He sat quietly in school, sweating and freezing, and would walk home as quickly as he could, head down, obediently looking at his shoes.

Gate. Red door. Home. Hi Mum. No, Mum. Yes, Mum. Just my room. I’m fine, thanks Mum. Turn. Stairs. Bedroom. Close the door. Lie down.

The window.

He would stare out of that window for hours, at the house across the street. He could see directly into a girl’s bedroom, some brown-eyed, pencil-chewing, absently-scribbling music girl. She got home much later than him. He never really saw her though, she kept her blinds close. A cheap, polka-dot thing he imagined she got on some adventure. He wasted so many afternoons, just watching those curtains, caught in their detail. Sometimes something on the street would catch his eye, or maybe he’d tell himself he was being weird and he should look at something else. But he moved back to those ugly curtains eventually, drawn by some unexplainable power one can only understand when one has fallen in love with a complete stranger through a window.

He’d watch the weather forecast every evening. When he discovered it was going to rain, he’d wait patiently by the window. The dark storm clouds would roll overhead. Rain would gently patter onto the street below. Then the curtains would part and he’d see those piercing brown eyes and that curly brown hair. She’d open the window and push out her head and let the rain soak down her face. She’d laugh and retreat back to her room.

He used to worry that she would see him, staring directly at her, during this ritual but she was as captivated by the rain as he was by her.

The next part was the most interesting. She would immediately move to the closet. With great deliberation, she would withdraw some fine, expensive dress, all silk and showy. He watched her go through the ritual of putting it on, her stockings and her shoes. Then she’d carefully sit down at her table and put on her make-up. Some bright red lipstick. Blush. Mascara. The things girls wear and boys have no real knowledge of. To him, it was so mysterious and glamorous. To him, she felt like a princess doing something terribly secret and romantic and not at all mundane.

Her hair came next. Slow, delicate, elegant. Through rain pattered glass, he watched her perform the art of beauty, long practised, not oft-spoken of. Then she’d leave the room and come out the front door of her house. For a brief moment, she was perfect. All make-up and hair and dress.

Then she’d take a deep breath, and a curious smile would arise. The rain would destroy her. Mascara running, hair wet, dress ruined. She’d laugh then, and he could never tell if it was bitter or sweet. Then she’d turn into the street and keep walking into the rain. Watching her through the foggy glass, and the tracks left by raindrops, he didn’t feel so cold.

The bus stopped outside the graveyard tonight, like it always does

A lot of the graves, which were usually neglected, were bristling with flowers. My first reaction was a smile, wasn’t it grand people were remembering them? Then, as I thought about it more, I realized it was Mother’s Day. It was so much sadder than I ever imagine I could be. The emotions that must of welled in the people who placed those flowers over their Mum’s graves.

She’s forty-three and has children of her own. She sits down next to her Mother, placing the flowers where she thinks her breast might be, kissing the gravestone like it was her cheek. 

“I’m sorry I don’t visit much, Mother,” she apologises. “Between work and the kids and their schools, I never have much time.” Even now her watch is ticking. She needs to be in bed soon, she has to be up early tomorrow because its another Monday and James and Samantha need to be dropped off at school and she needs to go to work.

“They tried to make me breakfast this morning. Nearly burned the whole kitchen down. But, you know, those charred pieces of egg…I’ve never tasted anything more wonderful in my life.”

She kisses the gravestone again. “I’m nothing like you.”

*******************

It was night, deathly silent and unbearably cold. A cold he’d never felt before, that chilled him to his bones. But that wasn’t his biggest fear, the scariest thing was the silence.

Usually, he found silence comforting. His foster-brothers were loud and numerous, brief escapes were cherished and remebered. He loved the quiet and the solitude.

But here?

It was overwhelming. The quiet of the dead and those who were struggling to remember, to recall their features, was oppressive and disconcerting. And his nine-year old body looked so small next to the gravestones.

He stood over Her, breathing quite fast now, shivering. Her. He had heard so much about Her, so many horrible things. 

Lazy.

Reckless.

Irresponsible.

Drug addict.

Whore.

The boy reached out with his hand, numb from the cold, and traced the carvings on the gravestone.

Sarah Torlen

4th March, 1985- 24th December, 2003

Daughter. Sister. Taken From Us Too Soon.

They didn’t put “Mother” in that last line, that didn’t escape him. They didn’t put irresponsible, lazy, drug-addict whore either. She embarrassed them. She was an outcast.

But he loved her. He traced the dash between 1985 and 2003 and thought how absurd it was that your entire existence would end up being condensed into a single ‘-’ between two dates.

He wanted to know that dash, he wanted to be a part of it and be able to say his own things about his Mum. He wanted to be able to defend her to the relatives who sometimes visited his foster-house and told him not to end up like her. He wanted to be able to recall all of his Mum’s good qualities.

But all he knew for sure was that she embarrassed her family and that she was born on the 4th of March and she died on Christmas Eve. He wondered if she died feeling as cold as did at that moment?

“Mum…” he began, weakly. “Mum, I don’t know you and I miss you. Does that make sense? I don’t care what they say about you. I don’t. Because you’re more than just a dash in a stone, you’re my mum. I want to make you pancakes and cards and tell my class what my Mum does.”

His hands weren’t staying still, his teeth were chattering. Why was it so cold?

“I guess…I guess what I’m trying to say is that I love you, I love you like they don’t understand and I don’t understand,” he continued haltingly. “It’s such a mess. You’re dead. You’re bones in the ground and I don’t know who you are and I don’t remember you, but…when I see that dash…”

He was shivering violently now, his body shaking.

“I don’t see a whore or a drug-addict or a loser. I see everything we could of been. I would’ve been a good son and you would of been a great Mum and today I’d make you breakfast in bed and you’d laugh and we’d spend the day watching your shows on telly, then some of mine because we’d have all day and it’d just be the two of us. And I’d fall asleep with you and then wake up in my own bed and feel all this love towards you…that’s the love I feel now. It’s silly but it’s love.”

He lied down on top of the grave, imaging her arms wrapping around him, imaging they’d be warm. He closes his eyes, wondering if he was going to wake up in his own bed.

Hey there!

This is my writing blog! My casual, reblogging, joke-making tumblr was filling up with too many creative writing pieces. They spammed followers who just didn’t care and then disappeared into my archives, never to be seen again.

So I made this one! I’ve already put my favourite two pieces of writing that was on the old blog on this one. It’ll update sporadically, as I write and won’t follow a theme. Sometimes it’ll just be about me and my day, put into prettier words. Other times it’ll be a narrative, or poetry, or something else. Who knows! It exists on my whim.

So if you like what I write, follow and have fun! And if you want to reblog it, feel free to! Just please, oh please, don’t steal my work because then I would cry and be sad for the rest of my days.

Much love,

-Jon

I am on several illegal substances, please do not judge me

He wasn’t sure when he came into the maze, he wasn’t sure when he was going to leave it. All he know was that is existed. Featureless grey walls that stretched into oblivion. Sometimes it grew so dark he had to navigate his way by holding his hand out to the surface next to him. It was cold and blank and it felt wonderful to touch something.

At every corner, his heart fluttered and a surge of warmth overtook him. Every time, without fail, he would run. He was at the end. He was at the end and he’d feel the sun and wind and taste the waves and the sky and everything was okay, because the maze was over.

And then he’d see that strange grey injustice stretch into the horizon and that feeling would flee him. He’d try to cling to it, as hard as he could, but it was gone and he was alone with the cold steel.

He was lost and the feeling seeped through his bones and his heart.

Then he met her.

They stumbled into each other at a crossroads. They stared blankly at one-another for a moment.

Impossible.

Someone else in this maze. Were there millions of us, stalking alone trying to find a way out? And a horrible thought overcame him. The feeling that the grey walls truly stretched forever, and he’d never taste the sea or feel the sun and he’d sleep every night against the cold walls for the rest of his life.

She took his hand.

Words softly spoken in bedrooms, alcohol-fuelled poetry. Philosophy under clouds of smoke and being young forever. Kisses and hugs and guns and beauty unimaginable. A soul that can’t be expressed through anything except your eyes meeting. Moments that challenged eternity.

They turned and they faced the crossroads that stretched on forever. Coldness and pain and horrible thoughts that could very well last for the rest of their lives. They were lost, in a labyrinth of twisted pasts and promises we never could keep.

But they were lost together

I have a bad habit

I’ll be sitting on the bus, drinking coffee at a cafe’ or just walking around campus or the city. And then one person walks past, a person so staggeringly beautiful I feel my heart clench and I glance away, feeling my cheeks flush. But my eyes tear me back to them, and they leave.

It’s the strangest things I find beautiful. Her hair is perfect, I love what he’s wearing, she’s holding a book and looking flustered and hurried and how does she still look so interesting?

I make emotional connections, with all of these people. I feel like they’ve reached through life and, quite accidentally, touched my soul. This can happen multiple times a day and I forget them almost as soon as they leave my sight. But they leave me blushing, my heart racing, a smile plastered on my face and the sun can’t match how bright I feel.

The adrenalin rush of love at first sight makes me feel more alive than any drug or sport. I’ve been making myself do it. Walking through hallways, finding things to love people for and I leave buildings giddy with emotions. 

I think I’m an addict but I love it.