things i loved, but did not love enough

"from the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. one fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was ee gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was europe and africa and south america, and another fig was constantin and socrates and attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs i couldn't quite make out.

i saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because i couldn't make up my mind which of the figs i would choose. i wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and as i sat there unable to decide the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

- the bell jar, sylvia plath

the valley of the shadow of death

the concept that most terrifies me is that one can never fall out of love - we will always feel that twinge of emotion sometimes, no matter how deep we bury it inside ourselves so that we don't have to think about it anymore. because right now all i think about is you, and every time i see you (which is almost every day) makes everything a little bit worse when you leave. i just want my life back. i have idealised you so much in my mind that you are no longer human, but a symbol of everything i could ever want.

i want you to notice when i'm not around

devastating

the sky too is folding under you

someone telling you that they don't love you any more is the worst feeling in the world
but i'll be fine, i think

lost in space

“everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night’s sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. the best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too.” - daniel handler

"choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, i remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when i felt i had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, i was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which i knew i could transform myself and everything around me." - stephen fry

"i'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. just like the cheshire cat, someday i will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. i am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. when you look at the picture again, i want to assure you, i will no longer be there. i will be erased from history, like a traitor in the soviet union. because with every day that goes by, i feel myself becoming more and more invisible." - elizabeth wurtzel

blank

fitter, happier, more productive, comfortable, not drinking too much, regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week), getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries, at ease, eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats), a patient better driver, a safer car (baby smiling in back seat), sleeping well (no bad dreams), no paranoia, careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole), keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then), will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in the wall), favors for favors, fond but not in love, charity standing orders, on sundays ring road supermarket (no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants), car wash (also on Sundays), no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows, nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate, nothing so childish - at a better pace, slower and more calculated, no chance of escape, now self-employed, concerned (but powerless), an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism), will not cry in public, less chance of illness, tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat), a good memory, still cries at a good film, still kisses with saliva, no longer empty and frantic like a cat tied to a stick, that's driven into frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness), calm, fitter, healthier and more productive, a pig in a cage on antibiotics.

- fitter, happier by radiohead

kids are cruel

i used to bully a kid on the bus when i was about 8 or 9. i had been mercilessly bullied by a couple of year 10 students for the better part of a year, often being reduced to tears, until a kid called patrick who was in the year below me started riding the bus. he was sort of weedy and freckly, and a little shy. i tried to make friends with him at first but i quickly cottoned onto the fact that the older kids had turned their attention to him instead of me. partially to stop them from harrassing me and partially out of my own sick enjoyment, i picked on this kid constantly for the rest of the year until i moved back to melbourne. sometimes he burst into tears with all the kids on the bus being horrible to him, just like i had. i have felt awful about it ever since. i wish i could find him now and say sorry.
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death and disaster

a poem for laika

first the dog

by zbigniew herbert

to Laika

so first the faithful dog will go
and after it a pig or ass
through the black grass will beat a track
along it will the first man steal
who with iron hand will smother
on his glass brow a drop of fear

so first the dog honest mongrel
which has never abandoned us
dreaming of earthly lamps and bones
will fall asleep in its whirling kennel
its warm blood boiling drying away

but we behind the dog and second
dog which guides us on a leash
we with the astronauts’ white cane
awkwardly we bump into stars
we see nothing we hear nothing
we beat with our fists on the dark ether
on all the wavelengths is a whining

everything we can carry on board
through the cinders of dark worlds
name of man scent of apple
acorn of sound quarter of colour
should all be saved for our return
so we can find the route in an instant
when the blind dog leading us
barks at the earth as at the moon

goddess

'when i just wrote "this is the end of norma jean", i blushed as if i had been caught out in a lie. because this sad, bitter child who grew up too fast is hardly ever out of my heart. with success all around me, i can still feel her frightened eyes looking out of mine. she keeps saying, "i never lived, i was never loved," and often i get confused and think it's i who am saying it.'
- marilyn monroe

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crying

this song breaks my heart:

roy orbison + springsteen + tom waits + elvis costello = greatest television special EVER

it ain't gonna save me

it's almost eerie to listen to this song now. R.I.P.

"to descend into hell is easy. but to return - what work, what labour it is!" - virgil

in dreams

the most vivid dream i have had in my life is one i experienced when i was quite young, maybe 4 or 5.

i was walking down the hawthorn end of glenferrie road, a few metres behind my dad. i shouted out repeatedly, "dad, wait for me!" "please wait!" but he couldn't hear me and he didn't turn around. i kept chasing after him but i could never catch up, he would always remain a couple of metres beyond my reach.

finally, he turned and crossed to the other side of the road. because i was too young to be able to cross the road by myself, i was left stranded on the other side, still calling after him.

my love for edie sedgwick will never die

pale blue eyes

sometimes i feel so happy

sometimes i feel so sad

sometimes i feel so happy

but mostly you just make me mad

baby you just make me mad

linger on, your pale blue eyes

linger on, your pale blue eyes

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an old man awake in his own death

this is the place that was promised
when i went to sleep,
taken from me when i woke.

this is the place unknown to anyone,
where names of ships and stars
drift out of reach.

the mountains are not mountains anymore;
the sun is not the sun.
one tends to forget how it was.

i see myself, i see
the shine of darkness on my brow.
once i was whole, once i was young...

as if it mattered now
and you could hear me
and the weather of this place would ever cease.

~ mark strand

you're a big girl now

every time i listen to this song i want to burst into tears

night comes on

i'm so tired of my moods being so up and down.

i'm so sick of feeling worthless.

more than anything, i wish tomorrow morning i could wake up and be someone else.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

rave on

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i feel like i am drowning.

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currently listening to:

how to disappear completely ~ radiohead

let's dance ~ david bowie

sunny afternoon ~ the kinks

what do i get? ~ the buzzcocks