this night is full of rogue stars and wicked surprises.
she met him at the entrance
of the wilderness
invested him
with memories
and ghosts,
thought she knew the ropes
but missed the
blatantly obvious.
he found her by the forest,
wild and feral
invested her
with red cordial
and earthy expectations
but didn’t look close
enough to read
between the lines.
their similarities drew
them together
and their differences,
their differences
ripped strips
off both their egos.
he was another planet
and she was too grounded
to follow her there
any this night may be full
of rogue stars and wicked surprises
but somewhere they were lost
behind the black clouds
and predictions of thunder.
awake at 3 a.m.
awake at 3 a.m.
mainlining the soft
porn content of the
ab swing commercial.
awake at 3 a.m.
crawling into the refuge
of the the unholy trinity,
coffee, cones and codeine.
awake at 3 a.m.
there are dangers
in this forest.
reaching down the throat
of my dreams i find that
patience is not a virtue
but a psychotic vortex
where there is no satisfaction.
i sift through the details
of previous conversations
looking for clues,
but the words fall too quickly
and the meaning is lost.
so all i’m left with
is this gritty feeling.
awake at 3 a.m.
no drunken upside.
unsympathetic to death even when he’s shivering in my bed i now suffer the complex web of guilt and longing that drape like glue through my chest cavity, not in a good way.
then telling the coroner she was dealing with a charismatic corpse seems to relax the situation and build a rapport.
but it’s too early to remember you fondly.
i view your shell still as a person because that’s the way i have to deal with it until the tattoo on your chest confirms the worst with his stillness.
i suffer a series of flashbacks that don’t so much remind me of you as take me away to a desolate neverland, a dark cave of dank maybes.
and if i have to write another shitty love pome to tell you how i really feel, don’t expect a happy ending when the best sex we had was the night heath ledger died.
so no matter how much i drink there is no drunken upside and i want to remember you fondly because you had so much potential, but that was yesterday, that was before the longest night, before you delivered the final sucker punch.
surrender.
the boys who know i’m touched already don’t touch me and the others bombard with an irrelevant litany that only goes to reinforcing my low self esteem.
but this is not a conversation with myself.
it is an invitation to elsewhere, an unsteady stumble of hyperbole before we call in the editors. it is a fight for art and freedom, a saying no to the ordinary to find the voice that is truly unique.
there may be a superhero
there could be some rain,
there will be a battle
so there’s gunna be some pain.
the world is darker than any of us can imagine and brighter than i give it credit for so surely there must be some middle ground. leonard cohen says you find it 1000 kisses deep, but i say anticipation’s a bitch and i just cant do it anymore.
look for the ideas that are edgy, frenetic, keen to be born. feel as they churn and kick in your head and your gut then take it to the mat as you wrestle with the pedestrian to wrangle your thoughts to the page.
don’t throw down words like talking, speak a deeper meaning. discover the subtext in a personal moment exposed, a dry creek bed or something taken. embrace the bastard child inside to tell a second story that comes from a place that’s forceful, not forced, felt and not found.
then your words will demand a performance that is more than a carefully done flower arrangement or a mediocre montage in a midday movie. they will be a showcase of triumph over adversity, a fierce unfolding with the pride of a quiet roar. this is not an occasion for self congratulation.
i know i need some outside help but writing’s an internal struggle that you win when you surrender, surrender to the coffee splats and tear stains on the page, surrender to the adrenalin that gives your words their power, surrender to the moment when time stops –
and the pen keeps moving.
so fly, soar, less is more but travel it all. step sideways to be the seconds before the parachute opens, the spark that connects the synapses, the wave that washes us all away.
the boys who know i’m touched already don’t touch me, but this is not a conversation with myself.
compliments.
his compliments were addictive.
she tried to pack them into boxes
with her other emotional baggage
but they came too fast,
too thick.
they began to wash up her body,
to lap at places forgotten
or undiscovered,
turning the tide on the fear
that held her tight
to make it exciting.
and when she tried to fight it,
to hold her ghosts close
(and her mind closer)
he pulled her into the open,
out of the tower and into the light
and he may not be the right knight
but at least for one night
she could see herself
though his eyes.
"Kerryn Tredrea is based in adelaide, australia, writing pomes, running gigs, touring towns & making culture in her own sweet way since 1999. she is very proud to be co editor at Paroxysm Press, one of australia's foremost independent publishers..."
No comments:
Post a Comment