time stands still

I don't want mr right I want mr right now.

2009-11-25T21:14:17Z

I can't remember the last time I had a proper conversation with someone not in my head. I keep waiting for my life to start, for that someone to come and turn my world upside down. It ain't happening, I have to start my own life and turn my own world upside down. God knows I'm good at that. I'm sick of waiting - nothing ever happens.
My days are filled with paint and paper and general confusion. Deadline is friday and I'm shitting it; there's too many options and too many little boxes! What keeps me smiling is this time next year all I'll be doing is artartart. A new chapter of paint and paper and weird vegetables.

When do we stop living and start dying?

2009-11-10T21:47:00Z

I love this time of year. Autumnal shades crunching and crisp sunlight illuminating.
Summer is dying, but in these beautiful last few moments we see the hope that will get us through.
Time...such a strange thing, but it's the only constant, reliable thing in this world. What a strange thought.
As my mind stretches out and wraps itself around the in-graspable concept of the future, I have hope. And I promise myself that whatever comes, I will try and hold on to this hope. It will be my sunlight at midday.

18 years baby. And I think I'm finally starting to understand myself. Introvert. Head full of people and places and fantasy and reality. I occasionally explode. Sometimes it's fun, other times not so much.

those luminous, terrible sequins stitched suddenly on the black thickets...

2009-09-24T19:31:26Z

'The smile broke across his face the way the sunrise set the clouds on fire, and I wanted to cut my tongue out'

Time passes steadily and here we are again. Exams have come and gone, as has the summer, Japan and Venice and Reading. I feel like I'm blocked up everywhere, the ink won't flow.
And we're right back here again.

Life is life. It goes on, buses need catching and work needs doing. ~~I don't catch and i don't work.~~ Nothing's really changed, so please move along. If you asked me to talk about Cathy and Heathcliff, or Angela Carter's writing, or, even the symbolism in Neighbours, I could. But i can't talk about myself, not properly (as you can probably see...mumbo jumbo alie?!)
I think some serious hibernation is needed. i've always been an introvert, and autumn is the perfect month for that. Walks through the wood, new towns and sites. God knows I need some inspiration...abandoned objects then vegetables...what on earth next?
For the first time in a really long time, I don't know.

London, help me.

drinkupthe_sky @ 2009-06-03T20:38:00

2009-06-03T19:52:21Z

secretly people love the shit. trapped in monotonous lives, it's all they know, it's familiar and comforting. because to step out is to step out of your comfort zone, into treacherous waters. eveline believed she would drown in them, that frank would drown her, but it was quite the opposite, he would set her free from her mundane life. she would drown herself. i guess we're all dubliners at heart, we just have to learn to overcome the fear of the unknown. you should do one thing that scares the shit out of you every day.
I'm still waiting for you, and I always will. but there's only so long 70s soul can occupy me for.

I didn't mean it...please look for me, I don't really want to be alone.

meaty appendage

2009-05-07T20:08:43Z

Dear 5am, we have to stop meeting like this! I'd much rather sleep with you...I'm the first one in college and the last to leave every day. I guess it's my own fault for taking art and music, but i don't care. there is something about the quietness of the college at those times, something eerie, yet comforting.

your words don't sting anymore, we're past that. but joyce has got me analysing every twitch of your hand. i breathe bricks next to you, but you don't notice. it's over, but it's just beginning. as we run down roads, hearts in our mouths, the sunset catches up.
release me.

i wish i had more to say.

'...Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.'

Tennyson will get us through.

and hopeful street art.

Soar like an eagle and attract a hunter

2009-04-22T21:56:58Z

restless. wells up in buses. wants to jump across the atlantic. life is on pause. but for what?
another obstacle and i don't show my frustration because if i did i wouldn't get out of bed in the morning, so instead it's bottled up.
my priorities are fucked up, right now i need a fish tank and a shitload of exotic vegetables.
right now i want to run away.

Kingsbury, high heels and vomit.

2009-04-12T12:15:29Z

Inspiration is on the way, in the form of foreign vegetables. They'll break out of the mould of mundane concrete and bleed, but they'll grow so large they take up the room. This ain't no beanstalk, it's reality, and it's next door.

drinkupthe_sky @ 2009-03-29T19:12:00

2009-03-29T18:13:12Z

I could drink a case of you.

We read each other like books and shit at the same time.

2009-03-27T21:12:53Z

I want to get lost in a supermarket amongst mutlipack crisps and litres of lemonade. I was so much higher in Harlesden, or Aplerton, I forget. One amongst the mob roaming down blackened alleys screaming our blackened lungs out. We walked for hours over the suburban hills of Kilburn, that time in between orange tinted streets and bruised indigo skies. Keep on dancing, sweat and cider and dubstep.

You don't know who you are. You really don't But I want to find out with you.

drinkupthe_sky @ 2009-03-13T11:30:00

2009-03-13T11:34:45Z

The bus came but I didn't get on, I walked in the opposite direction and smoked tea.

drinkupthe_sky @ 2009-03-09T19:55:00

2009-03-09T20:34:20Z

Harlesden, 3am and cigarettes.
Dog's piss gave way to Spice Girls and hours of drunken dancing, which led to wine and broken glasses and finally to the outside hallway and a guitar. In her tiny flat words flew until daybreak: OCD, rainbow kisses, death, drugs... The world is so still at night.
Sunrise came and changed everything.

Far away from this place. Things are the same.
Everyone is slowly dying, yet living. It could all end right here, right now. But we hold on, because secretly people love it. And we have to, because this is all we've got.

------------------

drinkupthe_sky @ 2009-02-11T23:08:00

2009-02-11T23:21:56Z

I sleepwalk through life because if I lived truly without some sort of medication, I wouldn't be able to cope. I'm over-whelmed by streetlights for fuck's sake. If I clench my teeth and hold the tears in, along with the urge to scream and run until I can't feel my legs, well, then I'm alright. Browning's words might be a blur but that's alright, because I don't want to shed myself anymore.
Fuck this.
Indifference is where it's at. It's been 4 months since I lost my ipod on an Indian sleeper train, and I've learned to be silent on buses and stare straight ahead. That may be the cause of my peculiar state, but it's always more complicated. Anyhow, I've got a replacement and it's familiar feel has restored something in me. Because suspensions mean something, right? Every face in the rush hour holds their own soap opera, stop, stop. No, stop. Guatemalan rugs wont affect you and neither will choking.
I lost my soul somewhere along the line.
I need help but it's much too late. I don't want to be found.

drinkupthe_sky @ 2009-01-26T21:11:00

2009-01-26T21:24:49Z

It's never too late to be a hero

Life's worth living for, because in the end there's nothing more
Run down streets, lose your feet in heavy beats
And breathe out long summer days, today is today...

I cry every time I read Plath. 'I have lost myself in the atrocity of sunsets', but I found myself in the sunrise...

I'll live on the right side and sleep on the left

2009-01-20T21:31:33Z

'...The moonlight licked the face of danger
Innocence made us like soldiers

Untouchable and golden

The quilt of darkness dotted with our teardrops'

Your hot breath on my hair, eyes in the crowd. My hands are shaking.

Optimism is here, although dogs lurk beneath the surface. So keep on laughing girl, it's better than floating beyond the asteroid belt...

In the words of Cioran, 'everything is unique - and insignificant'.

Laowai, laowai!!

2009-01-08T17:45:46Z

The air immediately smelt Chinese, and a million faces confirmed this was indeed China. I fell in love with this country and how expansive it was - from the bustle of Hong Kong to the little town of Zhongwei to the sand dunes of the Tengger desert. So much in one country.

'I swear I was clean shaven when I got on that flight!' I heard a man remark after we arrived in Beijing. Everything looked beautiful in this land of no letters, even the garish adverts seemed photographic. I loved everything about this strange and beautiful country, right down to the little things, like how hairdryers were used to cook food in the markets, middle aged men went around with their tops rolled up to indicate their wealth, babies exposed bottoms, calligraphy painting on the pavement, strings of kites fluttering in the night sky, people banging their backs on trees, and walking backwards swinging their arms or patting their tummies, and of course the little red riding hoods on their bikes in the rain. Out of everywhere I've ever been this was the country where I felt I was truly experiencing a different culture, a different way of life.

I loved the language, although I found it hard to tell who was actually having an argument. And how in taxis when you were trying to drift off, it took a while to work out if it was an English or Mandarin speaking radio station you were listening to. Our state of insomnia due to rock hard beds in rank hostels where there was no soap, just a load of condoms, led to mishearing words. So 'waiters' sounded like 'witches' and 'children' 'chicken'. Pong insisted that 'candyfloss is from animal', while Guo asked if I was a 'vegetable'. He kept on asking us to 'poo' the water as well, not 'pour'. And his greatest piece of advice was to take a polythene bag to the desert to put over our heads, You know, so the sand doesn't get in your orifices if there's a storm at night!

Now I love Chinese food, but eating it 3 times a day got a bit too much for my stomach, resulting in the runs. Noodles are all very well for dinner, but at breakfast all I could manage was coffee, as the bread was too sweet and powdery. Blueberry ice lollies were divine.

My favourite places in Beijing were the art district, 798, which was a group of abandoned warehouses, and a massive lake reflecting all the neon lights from restaurants and bars huddled around it. I loved walking around it, because as you passed each restaurant you heard completely different types of music, and each was decorated completely differentely. Round that off with small boutiques and illegal stalls and it was perfect. The hairdressers there were actually brothels. I loved the desert because it was so unexpected. And vast, All the dunes made it easy to get lost. Pathetic egotistical machines ate away at them, desperate to conquer the vast beasts that stood strong in defiance. They looked like child toys, those tractors on the horizon, child play. How naive to take on nature. I could see how if you were lost in the desert it's only a matter of time before you lose your mind. It was excruciatingly hot, and what seems like a mile takes hours to walk. The corners of my mind started to merge.

I love sleeper trains. And the weird things yous see on them. A cleaner took of this child's pants, and his parents didn't seem to mind. Then they gave the child a bottle to pee in, and seconds later they were making him drink out of it. In Luoyang people sit on the green bits of traffic island playing cards. Hundreds of them. Descending in the plane to Guilin was like descending into an alien landscape. The sun drenched lush carpet of rugged triangular peaks was other-worldly. Clouds like ballet scenery. The witch-hat hills jutted up from planes of patchwork paddies, casting irregular shadows. It was so breathtakingly beautiful because it was so different to anything I've ever seen.

Driving through Yangshou, it could've been any country in the world. Headlights and winding roads. The community in that town was a real community. At night they all gathered in the town square, old ladies sang and danced while men played strange instruments, couples ballroom danced, teenagers sat by fountains or played badminton, people watched a movie on a massive screen, and kids played on the bouncy castle. Every night.

Hong Kong breathed possibilities. The city was full of opportunities and felt so vividly alive. I love China and all that it is.

I love toilets in train stations.

2008-12-30T19:55:18Z

You were smeared all over my dreams last night like margerine on burnt toast in some crusty East End caff. Your scent still smothers me making my eyes water with its familiarity. What did I do to deserve this purgatory? How many people live in this city? As many as there are lights twinkling at night? Possibilities are as endless as Canary Wharf skyscrapers. There's so much to be discovered, yet we stick to regular patterns and worn out hang outs. New perspectives can change you for the better. I wouldn't change a thing about you. You make my throat palpitate because of your imperfect perfection. Imagine how fucking big a blue whale is, and how many there are in the world, now imagine the sqaured area of all the world's oceans. Inifinte. As infinite as the words that spew from your mouth. Don't ever shut up, you brush your teeth, I'm sure. Your words wont hang stale in the air like those of a damp tramp on the top deck of a bus. Higgeldy-piggeldy. Kerfuffle. Fisticuffs. Vessel after vessel of expressionless bodies being carted to a destination, their only free will being which stop they get off at. Imagine the masses of stories locked behind thousands of steely eyes, the millions of words we could fill vessels with. War, betrayal, love, migration...coming to a cinema near you. I don't know what happened to this year, but it's gone. I don't want to do any of that 'what I learnt from this year' shit, I just want to keep going. Keep living, keep making mistakes, because that's what makes me realise I'm alive, not drifting beyond the astroid belt.

Raw. Carrot..

2008-12-22T17:48:03Z

Do you ever wonder if there's more to life than this?

I'm trapped in between windows and the slanted refelctions make me dizzy. There's more than this, of that I'm sure. I havne't got any proof and self doubt runs around me in circles. Exist. That's what we do. We came in to this world with nothing, and that's what we'll leave with. The more I think of it the more I question it. The words that fall from your lips are nothing but sweet sickly lies, and you know it. The words are drenched in honey and catch in my throat, lingering for days. Eyes flicker in the dark, and I wonder, what do they see? What's it like to look at me? That's the one perspective we'll never have for real, because mirrors do no justice to what's underneath. Glass. I'm trapped in between windows of faint memories, but they're more than that. Scents and words come with lifetimes attached, so the present isn't present at all. It's merged, and I can touch the past. That scares me, and if I drift too long I lose all sense of who I am. Jupiter and Saturn seem much closer, and this tiny existence meaningless. What's beyond this we'll never truly understand, but maybe there's a reason for us to be left in the dark, literally. There's a montage in my head and the pins pierce my skull. I can't sleep, no, I don't need to sleep. Because to sleep is to dream and I'm scared of what those have become. Blinding migraines come with the territory of this insanity, this insight.
They're not just little black dots in boxes, no. They hold so much more, they hold the universe, existence.

So carry on drooling honey, I'm not getting caught up in it again.

All shook up, buttercup

2008-12-14T22:48:14Z

Traffic slugs along like blood in clogged up arteries
Red lights persistent, mocking my uncontrollable attempts to get home
Every ounce of my being wants myself to be someone else
The city looks so darn pretty at night - amber streetlights tinge the indigo sky and give everything a glow
Car headlights dotted as far as the eye can see sparkle like fairylights
Yellow lines run beside me, asphalt and gravel
Persepective, that's what we need
We question everything, but in the end there's a point, and there's always a point, where you just have to put it down to being a human and exisitng a little meaningless something called life.
Don't aim for the horizon, it doesn't exist.

I'm not trying to fight it anymore. It comes in waves, and they're natural, trapped in chords and words.
Life is so fucking fragile, but not fragile at all.

Black Dog

2008-12-03T20:16:13Z

He can sink his fangs into me sometimes, but he's only a dog. When he's around he clouds everything. And when he's gone, the smell of wet dog still lingers.
How much easier it would be if I could sink down into darkness, and go to sleep. But he crouches in the corner, waiting, he lies at the foot of the bed, waiting.
The little things overwhelm me, and they all build up until I can take no more. I can’t find the mate to my sock. I break the yolk of the egg. The doorbell rings while I’m on the phone. How someone says something, their naivety. The bigger things too, family problems, fate and destiny, life in general. Anything and everything, the dog stands in the way. The simplest decisions are overwhelming and reduce me to tears, to more than that, to a complete breakdown.
Other days, you would never guess.

This is just the way it is.

drinkupthe_sky @ 2008-11-29T18:54:00

2008-11-29T18:56:52Z

Loud pumping cars and heels, nicotine in my hair. Bumbling stomachs and gibberish. It's fading. Stop it from fading, please.
As I sit here shivering, I wonder, did you ever feel like this? How come it doesn't show?
Day turns into night and the night seeps into day. Tears dry and stomachs settle. Everything has to change in the end.
It's gone.

drinkupthe_sky @ 2008-11-29T18:49:00

2008-11-29T18:53:37Z

Fake trees and floodlights.
Solemn surroundings. Buildings whisper requiems.
A car in the park.
The purple sky dotted with acrid amber.
A few bright lights pierce it.
Hole punched.

Another 'Midsomer Murders' Night

2008-11-29T18:46:51Z

In Sleep's Holy Theatre
Broad forests of red leaves unfurl
You walk its path every night
To your moist tryst with first love

To when he bestode your emotions
With giants gait, forboding trees
Scorching a path ablaze
A route, journey by candlelight

As you fuck strangers
i draw like purse strings
Our bodies did not sing tonight
My heart's dark emotion seep onto my face

I am a dry corpse
Dancing to another's beat
Our union binds our solitary rituals
Checkmate to his nocturnal existence

As guils drips 'pon envy
I am there with daylight
But he is the blazing lord of your dreams
I listen to your moaning pant

You are all theory
Grey compromise that I am
Yearning for perfect completion
Weeping petty monopoly

- Andrew Backhouse

A lot of the time I don't want company, and am happy to be by myself for hours on a train or in a field. So the other times, I need to surround myself with people to counteract that. I'm sorry if I'm too hopeful, but if I wasn't I don't know what I would be. I'm sick of getting up for the let down. It's not the letting down part that bothers me, I'm used to that, it's how I have to find out for myself I'm going to be let down.
But I don't mind being alone, right?
I've been an erratic sewing machine with a clogged up bobbin thread, and now I'm a clogged up drain. Constantly urgling, but I don't think I can take anymore. I told her about it a few years ago, and that hurt, being truthful. But what hurt even more was that she didn't understand, and has now completely forgotten. That is what makes me feel alone.
It's gone, I told myself. But it will never go, not completely.
I remember when I was a little girl in first school, I used to break away from my friends at break and just walk around talking to myself in my head, or out loud, imagining. At the dead of night my past present and future seem so close, they merge. I can taste memories. They're locked in hotel rooms and trapped in friend's smiles.
Routine supresses me. As we focus on things like coats, tickets and buses there's no time to think, to wonder.
I want to be part of it all, I really do. But I know I'll always be an outsider on the inside. I'm not going to say 'people think they know me, but they don't' because that's just the way it fucking goes. This is life. And we're all alone at the end of it. Mask it however you fucking want, but the more you do, the more obvious it is you're doing it.

'I haven't got long' she says. But who does?
Like a beggar, I'll take however much you can give.

This is the age of constipation.

2008-11-19T20:35:45Z

pick me up, put me down. you only want to hear what you want to hear, and see what you want to see. true, i may be living in my own little world, but can you blame me? please don't burst my bubble, its rarely intact for so long. its either in here or down there.
and no, i don't want to explain why or how, because that would only make it real.
this is where I belong, away from reality...

in that house riddled with broken floorboards, gaping holes in the ceiling, scattered beer cans and sleeping bags, I felt instantly at home. talking to the artists about how and why they ended up there was laid-back and insightful. their art was as innovative as they were, none of that contemporary bullshit.
we went to the very top, on the tiny, awkward roof. satellites and rooftops as far as the eye could see. is that all there is?

drinkupthe_sky @ 2008-11-07T22:52:00

2008-11-07T23:04:17Z

She knows exactly what she wants, down to a t. Her heart is firmly set on Oxford, and I know she'll get in, because if she doesn't nobody else will. She's the kind of person who's already planned out the next 10 years of her life. It's quite unnerving talking to her. I told her I was considering art or music collge, and she immediately pounced on me and interrogated me as to why I didn't want to go to uni and do something more solid. I didn't dare tell her that I fancied squatting in a building with a group of artists, creating installations out of stuff in bins and skips, getting surplus snacks after hours from covent garden market, installing pianos and having poerty readings and jam sessions. Or how me and ml plan to make ourselves homeless for a while, purposefully, just to live, and see what a desperate existence is life. To reaffirm our faith in life, and to find out what's most important. Or how busking my way around the world sounds appealing. Even being an ironic street artist, sneaking around in the wee hours and climbing up impossible buildings.
No, one thing's for sure, it's not that I can't decide on a 'solid' degree or career, it's because I don't want one.

drinkupthe_sky @ 2008-10-22T22:25:00

2008-10-22T21:32:15Z

Here we go again, East, East.
Everything feels within my grasp, yet so out of reach
And my perspective on reality is frightfully fucked up
Up into the sky once again...
To land on soil I've never tredden before