a buzzing of my own

I've been so terrible...

2009-07-21T01:31:00.000Z

I've not written in you for months! How can you for give me? Oh you're inanimate? something of a cyber-conscience? Right you are then. All's forgiven.

I know I've neglected my writing, I'm back in the saddle and settling to a nice gallop with my poetry, but I'm afraid my novel, or rather it's voice, Jess's voice, has bolted out the stable door. I can't see to place her anymore. I am unable to describe the world she lives in as if it were my own, I can't even make her meet the love of her life without it sounding trite and like it came from the mouth of a 16 year old. Yes is 27, she's a strong confident woman, I'm meant to be something like her and yet I find the world without her.

I need her fire back, her scolding looks to her brother, the longing for the past, a father that understands more than sudoku and Matey bubble bath.

Where, oh, where to find her?

Days

2008-04-07T09:21:00.002Z

Larkin once said Days are where we live, but to me it's never been that simple. It's who I'm living with be that physically or in my mind. It's who I want to be with. I guess, and who I am. I've been thinking a lot about Blake's clod and pebble over the past year, I think finally I understand it, and how I never want to be a pebble. But anyway.

Days

I guess the Jack days lasted longer than they should have; lasted longer than Jack, that’s for sure. They ran into the John days, right past the Kris days, the day of Kev and Shaun and they ended here at the Olivia days. Which have also become the Brunette days. The year of Blonde is over, indelibly blotted out by two bottles of rich velvet brown.

Running Away.

2007-11-02T04:01:00.000Z

In my poetry class on Wednesday, after discussing my poem, which has since become two poems about my father and the man who raised him, I've thought a lot about running away.

On Wednesday we mentioned suitcases, only two came to mind. My sister's suitcase that graces our hallway once in a while and the suitcase that belongs to my mother, battered and broken in the attic. Our Dressing up box of sorts that if I ever wanted to run away with, I wanted to have that by my side, not practicle, I could fit in it, it's that large. But beautiful and poetic none the less.

On Tuesday I ran away from a conflict, just thought it easier to not be involved. Selfish, I know. But after Kris, and after John, I just don't have the energy. Tell me where I stand andI'll most probably stand there but in the in between, I'm going to be somewhere else. I've taken to just walking away when life throws a curve ball and it frightens me. I used to fight. Guess I'm growing up?

And tonight, Thursday, or is it Friday? I'm running away from a funeral. It's gone 4am, I have to leave for Bradford in less than five hours. My alarm will go off in just over three. But Just Like Christmas happens faster if you go to bed early, it can't be the ay of his funeral if I don't go to sleep.

One of these days, I'll remember how to turn around and fight.

One of these days, I'll feel like myself.

One of these days, I'll feel like he made me, all on my own.

The words I didn't show you.

2007-10-28T16:58:00.000Z

It was just my luck, just my style, to find comfort, distraction in a man. My usual kind, an impossible man. A man with which there is no future, no past just a path of pineneedles to a cliffedge of disapointment.

It's never a man with no strings. Always a boy trying to breakfree from his puppet strings. I do not wish to spend my life being someone else's knife. I was told I was worth more than that.

On days like this, it's hard to believe. Maybe when fairytales have lost their appeal, maybe when this hopeless romantic poet packs up her pens and her books, will a prince on a noble steed find her, and make her believe again.

Back from the dead, via death...

2007-10-28T16:50:00.000Z

My grandfather, who is not my grandfather died on friday. I said goodbye to him on Wednesday, I cried and tried to not be afraid for him and of him. I cried then, I spent the next days awaiting the call, the conversation where my parents wouldn't tell me xplicitly but I would know. That conversation didn't come. On saturday when I came home from my trip to Wales with uni, the fateful words. "Have you spoken to your father?" No came the reply and I knew. "I take it Harry passed away." My mother confirmed my fear and I went to the petshop. I felt heartbroken, but carried on.

The world didn't stop. Why the fuck didn't the world stop? I man I loved died. I'll never see him again, he'll never see the world I'm gorwing up into. His world should have stopped with him.

The first death in a long time and I have no anger towards God, I understand, but I hate the world for not crying with me on Wednesday, for not walking with me to the petshop to keep a hamster a live so much longer than it should ever have while a man with a life force that kept my entire family alive is gone.

dreaming myself insane...

2007-02-02T17:49:00.001Z

What truth is there in dreams?
If I dream of an ex, a man I devoted a large potion of my young life to, what does it mean? Am I missing my youthful frivolity, a time before grief, or him? What about my current lover, if my subconscious creates the end, is it soon to come? Are my dreams a warning to get out before emotions get involved and I get hurt?
A thousand and one books are out there to decipher my psyche, but none for my heart. None to explicitly tell me where to find the comfort, love and care I so need. I've been alone so long I've forgotten how to find a lover, a friend. What happened in the past three years? What do men see that they didn't when I was seventeen?

I'm unapproachable now, even in dreams.

Library flirtations 2

2007-01-26T18:27:00.000Z

I'm not sure how I got here, I was crying and by the time I'd stopped I was here, in your arms in this house we used to share. So many times on the way home I'd thought about returning here to you, to our home and all our belongings, but I never let myself slip. Tonight I got to thinking when I was playing Cinderella under the sink, about you and I and "the good old days" that never really existed. When I would revise in the library and you would pretend to help me find reference books. I remember fondly the time you kissed me in my favourite place, my back against the wall, legs apart slightly, at your mercy. You planted a deep, soft kiss on my lips between Chaucer and Dickens. We were so happen then, you and I.

binding

2007-01-26T12:12:00.000Z

Bind us together Lord,
Bind us together with cords
that cannot be broken.

Bind us together Lord,
Bind us together
Bind us together with Love.

Goats Vs Sheep

2007-01-20T23:43:00.000Z

For the most part sheep follow blindly. They’re notorious for it. This is how the world sees sheep; it is also how the world sees Christians. I have never thought I followed anything without question, especially not something as important as religion. It’s not my nature, or so I thought. From the very first point I realised I had a connection with the Father and Son it has never wavered. I’ve had frustrations and arguments with Christ but my love has never been in question. Think of the person you have loved most in your life, mine is painfully obvious, and he will always be second to God, but never the less I’ll continue. As much as I loved him, as much as I still do, I fought with him and at times I hated him. I hated myself for loving him for not being able to break away but ultimately I always came back to him, I always fell back into his love. Now to me, the fact we fought and returned to each other, although now broken up, meant our love was all the stronger. We had to battle to be together, against parents, society and we but we won so many more times than we lost; the same is true of my relationship with Christ. I may not be the ideal Christian, but my heart is there, when faced with adversity my first thought it of the church; of that warmth in the House of God, the basking glow of his glory. A very dear friend of mine died nearly a week ago; he was a beautiful man who led an extraordinary life. He gave and gave and took none for himself. His darling children were a pleasure to entertain and his wife a lasting companion. But now we are all without him, and before it had even sunk in, I was reaching for my rosary. (I’m Church of England not Roman Catholic, but I’ll explain my Rosary another time) I had not really broken down until I went to the Anglican Cathedral, a place of so much solace for me. I wept, sobs uncontrolled and echoing, how could Christ who I loved so dearly have taken someone so precious from me, and all others I hold close to me? It took a while to understand once again that God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform and it is not my place to question them, but I still loved him, despite it all. I loved God that’s why it hurt to so much.

So back to the original point, I believe I’m a black sheep.

phantom...?

2007-01-13T14:30:00.000Z

hast thou forsaken me?

Snow white and the five dwarves...

2007-01-11T00:45:00.000Z

I lie, snow white can't be with us tonight. But I do have five dwarves to show you. A dwarf is a complete story, or complete enough, written using only 101 words, including the title. Gridlock is the first and best, I think, but I love the others all the same so here they are. Some may need a little explaining, being from a British and slightly crazy writer.

Gridlock

It had been years since it started. A man lost within his own mind. Trapped quite literally in a prison he created for himself. Forced to switch lights on and off in even numbers, to touch door handles in an attempt to keep whatever it was that couldn’t be shared at bay. I watched this man as he deteriorated from a confused husband and father of three to a lonely drinker, sad and pitied by barmaids and drinkers alike. Now he’s that crazy man in the street; terrified, because his family will die if he doesn’t step on every grid.

Mid-Atlantic

She’s biting her lip, getting nervous now. Her whole life hinges upon these moments, getting the results back. The envelope is going to be near impossible to open. If that rubber hadn’t have broken she’d never have been sitting here, in a clean and clinical hallway, waiting to be asked into that office. She should never have gone home with him that night, it ruined all her chances. Deep breath now, the door is opening. He looks serious, this isn’t good. Somewhere across the Atlantic this tale changed meaning, one girl is pregnant and the other, well she failed maths.

Plays on the changingof meaning over the atlantic of rubber. Can mean condom or eraser...

I don’t see many people here, Ma’am doesn’t like it, says it distracts me from my health. I’ve got to be good or I don’t get to go outside today. Soon I won’t need supervision; I can get back to Emily then. Nurse will be doing her rounds soon, check I’m taking the pills. I’m sure that’s the problem but no one listens. They don’t check on me in the night anymore, no matter how much I scream. Anything could happen. They won’t let me go back, they keep sending me home, but I’ll get back, back to the asylum.

Broken.

When my sister and I were just little girls, she used to tell me a story, not about mermaids and dragons. It was just her and I, sat upon the top shelf. We were beautiful porcelain dolls, so fragile no one was allowed to play with us. We sat patiently, holding hands, smiling and unblinking. The dust built up over our faces and my sister was lost to me. Then one day we were brought down and cleaned, they broke my sister and I, we were returned to the top shelf. We’re still broken, Glue doesn’t work on these cracks.

Addiction.

I’m having problems. It’s January, time for new starts, to give up bad habits. I’ve only just started mine, how dare it be taken from me so soon. But it’s not good for my health, I know that. But oh, that slender figure, to slide it from the pack of its brethren, to hold it between two fingers, the way I saw my friends do before me. Its exquisite, leaves me unsatisfied every time. The taste lingers upon my lips. I should stop, before people start throwing that taboo C word at me again. Fuck it, I’m addicted to matchmakers.

library flirtations

2007-01-10T21:57:00.000Z

Thank you for your sideways glances, the quick flashes over your notebook. I appreciate that you played my game, returned my smiles and advances. It was obvious I knew perfectly well how to use my computer, but cheers all the same for not letting on, for “fixing” it for me, so I could pretend to be impressed. To let you know, my computer illiteracy was a lie, but I honestly don’t have a clue about poetry and your email may come in handy, should I choose to take this to round two. Your manners were impeccable, a true gentleman who held the door open for what would be considered to be less than a lady. But my heart was being stolen as we spoke, my desire tugged away from your reaches, he has a greater hold on me that you ever could. Thank you for playing me game, it was cruel I know. You lost, but fought bravely, with courage of conviction and strength where I had none.

Written when I first started uni and was forcing poetry into form... now, I know better.

Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree.

2007-01-08T12:49:00.000Z

Written on the 17th December 2006

I've never hated a tree before, not even the one Ricky Jenkins hung himself from. A tree I never saw but was burned into my mind by the gift, or is a a curse, of my imagination. But this Christmas tree that stands before me represents all I've feared for so long. They just don't think of me as much as I think of them. We arranged to get the tree together, decorate it together, like a family, instead I return and it's already there. I'll pretend I'm happy but my eyes hurting will only be an excuse for so long. At least last night I could hide my pain easily, the one person I didn't want to see it refused to open his eyes...

Thoughts from a bar room... [White Hat 3]

2007-01-01T22:38:00.000Z

First things first, I need a more summery hat, holy crap does this one heat you up.. Great for outdoors, not so great in warm places.

No one in the bar seems to be another hatter, although right now I don't have mine on so maybe they're hiding, or cooling down with a beer as well. No one else is even alone, all but one group which is a thressome are couples. Actually make that two groups of three. Luckily I'm feeling secure about singlehood and WHP or I would most likely be bricking it right now.

It's quite interesting to see the dynamics of people when you're alone. For instance, how, when I am okay with being completely alone, not being spoken to, barely looked at, can two young men look so out of place? Maybe they're uncomfortable with their skin not the bar, maybe the it is the bar after all and I should rename them very young men.

Some people here are so laid back, and then there are others that are so far up their own arse I'm surprised they're not inside out. But I won't sully my world with them.

Although one of the inside out people did have this to offer.

On Catch22, by whom I will now refer to as dumb blonde.

Why would you ever want to read something that hard, or long?

I'm holding out hope for the quality of her genes, that's for sure.

white hat people two.

2006-12-29T02:11:00.000Z

It's strange the effect we have on others, and how their expression of that in turn affects us. A long time ago I sent an email to the Black Spot Sneaker people, run by AdBusters, I never expected anything in return, but they replied and added it to their website, happy that they made a difference to someones life.
Now on a much small scale, although it feels bigger it's happened again. I emailed Becky, who started the White Hat People Blog, this is actually one of a few emails I've sent to her, but this one she chose to put up and hopefully the idea will rest with people and something can be done from my one small idea.

Incidently I shall be at Fact, 9pm watching Flags of our Fathers, wearing my white hat. feel free to join me and say hi.

What does happiness mean to you?

2006-12-20T00:01:00.000Z

Happiness is being with you, but so much more than that. It's how you linger in my thoughts for days at a time without so much as a phone call. I simply have to roll over in bed and let the smile creep upon me like your fingers in the night. There is delight in how my fantasies are taken over by you; in dreams a man proposes and you take my hand to dance the first of many nights away. The darkness stalks us and you wake yourself to reassure me I’ll sleep soundly, and in the mean time you pass the time for me so my hours feel like minutes and the days are never long enough. And finally how you make me see green time after time, after time.

Rather annoyingly inspired by Vanilla Sky. Basically the question is asked and this is my answer. Creative enough phantom?

five of five...

2006-12-19T19:35:00.000Z

If you like slightly quirky and sexy poetry, bizarre little gifts and such then I may have the site for you in the new year. I've been thinking about putting together a site for all the ideas I've been having for a while now, I think January just might get me going.

I already have the idea for my "writer's blocks", I have a few poems to go on postcards/cards with a few photo's.. and well I'm sure my imagination will come up with more. I've always got my paintings to keep me going.

Anyhow, nothing creative is happening right now... so you can just have a picture I've recently fallen in love with.

enjoy.. honestly I'll try and think of something later...

white hat stories

2006-12-10T23:38:00.000Z

http://thewhitehatpeople.blogspot.com/

go, find out you're not alone... visit post secret too..

the world is not a lonely place. I will endevour to go to the cinema more often, to eat in reastaurants alone... all with a white hat. :)

cattle market

2006-12-07T13:46:00.000Z

13:18 today, I returned to the cattle market.

I picked up a number and I'm waiting for the perfect specimen.

of fears and dreams.

2006-11-17T14:39:00.000Z

I guess since no one really reads this, which is good and bad, I can say what I really think about certain things. This morning I woke up with a pain in my right eye, my eyelid is slightly swollen so it hurts when I blink. After lying in bed for a bit longer, contemplating this and that I came to a realisation; I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I don’t know if I want to be a full time writer, or even if I could, I don’t know if I want to be an editor and I don’t even know if I want to lay my dreams to rest, use my degree to get me a sensible job and have a normal life. I honestly have no idea what I’m doing. I’m primarily a writer, a poet, and from what I’ve heard and learnt of the latter I’m pretty damn good at it. But where is that going to take me? Is editing InTheRed the next step for me? Is it the right step for me? Will I be sacrificing too much?

I’m terrified I’m making the most influential mistake of my life, all I do know about this right now is I want to make it the best mistake I’ve ever made, if indeed it ends up that way. Trouble is which is the best route? Will being an editor lead me where I want to go or will it just make the rest of my world fall down around me?

The ghost of four men.

2006-11-14T00:16:00.000Z

Today I watched my son and daughter die and my marriage fall apart, though they were never born or existed. I think that’s what hurt the most. They never existed. I had seen my stomach swell with their unborn bodies, their father cry at their births and watched them grow and skin their knees. I loved them more than the life I had been given. They were all I wanted and they were stolen from me by my own heart.

Written with the above in mind.

It is strange to think, that only a year ago my family died. I had not once thought about moving on, my world had crumbled and though I picked up the larger pieces and brushed away the ash, I only moved what was necessary to continue with my skeletal life. Of late I have been haunted by the spectres of my past; previously my world had been littered with reminders and whispers but now the voices were screaming louder than ever before. Once or twice I saw my husband, a year after he left this mortal plain and in recent days I have talked with him, about his future with his new bride, about the past he hasn’t shared with me. But now my husband has left me, again and this time like the last, he was never here to depart, though his ghost still lingers at my heels. He was a part of me and present in all men, all men but you. You are not what I expected, nor are you what I wanted, but here you are all the same; next to me as I write. You love without reason and travelled for miles, to lie here, beside me for a few brief hours. My phantoms have been banished by the smile that lit my night, even now as darkness encroaches upon our ground again, they do not return. Banished are those creatures of darkness, and warm now is my bed, the ghosts of men do not linger here.

March 26th

2006-11-06T22:13:00.000Z

Written 2Oth March 2006

March 26th, mother’s day; this will be the first in over two decades that she will feel like she failed at motherhood. It’s hard to tell if he’s gone or not. The room in which he resided has been empty for months now, but the dust settles in places it never used to. The wall of cinematic literature becomes slowly depleted, as siblings enter and take that which they always wanted. The laughter stays much the same, just one less voice among many. One less place at the dinner table, though only once a year. It would be hard at first, to not mention the name, not ask where he was. Most days upon returning to my parents’ home it would feel like he was just at a friend’s house, or out on the lash, not the furthest he could possibly be from us. Did we not love him enough? Jesus, was it our fault? Five of five feels wrong now, more like five of four. An impossible situation with impossible emotions. Not even two weeks left now, till that limbo begins, the transition between here and not here. He knew it was coming, with all the goodbyes said and tears left cascading down faces, if only we had listened, took the plea seriously; but we didn’t, and now he’s half here... half gone. We joked, oh yeah we joked; it was what we were good at. We never took anything in the correct manner in this family, not if the news was broken by number three. He always had that “middle child” complex; never first, never last, in everyone’s eyes but his. Father may have thought differently, he’d never say though, dear God you can’t say that out loud. That’s how our family was, till the first was lost. Never say a word, not if it involved an emotion, not if there was a problem. We just weren’t like that. We never will be, when finally I’m five of one, I still won’t say. When mother’s day is mine to feel with the cruel sting of never being good enough; I’ll think of number three, and all he never did for us.

Reading old journals...

2006-11-06T22:04:00.001Z

Written on 27th August 2006.

Reading old journals is a painful process. The jokes you old so many moons ago seem fresh and the love you shared is vibrant and alive, but when you close the pages; nothing. The dreams fall apart, married in four years, I laughed thinking, “Darlin’, more like seven.” Married at twenty-five, it sounded like heaven, children by thirty; one maybe, the second on its way. We couldn’t wait but thank God that we did, because true to our nature and certified instability the world came crashing down. We face our futures alone now, but side by side as always. Our frequent conversations that are never face to face don’t sting quite like they used to, until you open the book that has not been read since written. The jokes about the sleepless nights seem bitter and twisted somehow, they hurt and you wince. Blood weeps from your finger in a slow and perfect line, reading old journals is a painful process.

daddy

2006-11-06T22:03:00.000Z

Written 1st August 2006.

Tentatively she opened the door. It had been 4 weeks since she was last standing in this hallway, four weeks and 3 years. The same pictures still lined the walls; hundreds of photographs cut out of newspapers covered the stairwell, all the way up to the second floor. The soft sultry vocals of Bob Dylan filled the hallways, in an instant she was transported back to being a child; back to when she danced in the hall to her daddy’s music. His office was too cluttered to spin around in her nice dresses; mummy didn’t have the time to patch her skirts anymore. Her father’s office was now a bedroom, little girls grow up but they didn’t all move out, not straight away. The doors were shut, dust lay in fine sheets over the handles, and she made patterns in the powder on the banister on her way up to the first floor. The track changed, she could hear the click on the record player as it found its place. For the first time she cared not about the footprints she left on the carpet, and Dylan’s voice grew louder. A window was open on the second floor, the draft increased and several pictures fluttered to the floor, some still hung on, held in place by dried out blue tack. Father never did like drawing-pins. Not that it mattered now, the pictures were faded and the wall paper shone like it had all those years before when they moved in.

“Daddy? Daddy it’s me; five of five!”

No answer came but the breeze. Her pace quickened and she bounded up the last few steps careful to avoid the fragile photographs. Rounding the corner she paused at her own door. Too long had it been since she called it her own.

“Daddy!”

“H?” finally an answer. The young woman raced down the hallway to the bathroom door and sat down, leaning against the door frame. Silence consumed the house as Dylan’s record ended with the same familiar click it started with. Occasionally she could hear the water in the bath splash, and he father sigh, till eventually the quiet nature of the house was broken.

“H? Put on Johnny Cash” he paused, words lingered in his breath. “It’s good to have you home.”

“Yes Daddy.”

She stared up at us...

2006-11-06T21:58:00.000Z

Written on 5th May 2006.

She sat and stared up at us, smiling as she twirled the hair from her devilishly cute pigtails we all loved so much. She giggled and bit her lip, still staring up, still applying pressure to her lip with those pointed little teeth. She uncrossed her legs and spread them out in front of her. If we'd been at her level we'd have seen straight up that little white dress, up her prepubescent thighs to that pale pink opening, untouched, not yet blemished by age. She span around on the ground, like the child trapped inside of her, head rolled back, eyes closed but ours remained unblinking, judging in a circle around her.

Then she stopped and slowly rose, stood perfectly still with her hands over her face and continued to laugh. Our eyes flickered between her and each other, nervous and uncomfortable until the blood began to trickle down her fore arms, black in the moonlight. She out stretched her hands, towards me, but looked all around with eyes that seemed detached from the sockets. We all remained stern of face, despite it being evident what she had done. Gnawed flesh, dripping life force from split veins and ripped tendons. The pleasure on her face became apparent as she spread her arms like Christ and spun around and around in front of us. Laughing all the more when the blood splashed our faces. None wiped the splashes from their face, our laws prevented us from doing so, we all stood still and cried our crimson tears, tasted her blood on our lips as she had done.

She danced and laughed and danced and spun and laughed, then stopped. She stared at me, at the hands at my side. She watched me with relentless eyes, she fixed her gaze upon me, as a blade came from behind her, slicing her in two. She stared and I swear I heard her laugh.

I didn't go...

2006-11-06T21:55:00.000Z

Written on 4th May 2006

I didn’t go. Today of all days, I did not go to see you. I could have gone, it would have been so easy, but I didn’t go.

I sat and I drank beer with new friends while the old rotted away in my mind. I didn’t go to you when you called out for me, I didn’t go today. She remembered, oh yes, she always remembers; but I forgot. The memory of you scorches me, chars my fingers and turns my finger nails black, but still I reach for you. To remember the “good old days”, when we were young, happy and had nothing in our way. Nothing could have conquered you, she or I back then, not even death.

I walk the same streets, visit the same places, light candles in the same places, yet I do not see you anymore. A mutual friend stole you away from me. Strange, how that friend and I got closer, I still don’t see you. I missed you terribly though. I wrote poems late a night about seeing you again; dark, gothic, all that I am no longer. I don’t write those sonnets anymore. I grew up and over them, but not you.

You've been watching me for an hour now...

2006-11-06T21:49:00.000Z

written on 30th April 2006

You've been watching me for an hour now, I've been glancing at you. How can you be so selfish? Sitting there with your cafe grande while beneath my tangled, hastily tied locks there's a novel searing my soul, yet here you are with your sexy little smile ruining it all as I waste my talent, draw lines with my heart strings about you and your coffee.

I bet you'll talk about me later to your friends, or at least you'll want to, tell them how eccentric I looked, but you'd do me in a heartbeat. Then you'll move on, tell them how you always wanted to be a writer but never had the courage. How you admire people like me and our reckless abandon. I know there's not many who'd admit this but I admire your pay check, your steady life. Oh to know I'll eat tomorrow!

I love my life, truly I do! but to eat well, love with money as well as passion, treat her to the finer things, treat myself. My tattered clothes compliment my looks; the fact I seem to be dressed in the last clothes on earth, but that's all I have now. All that is lft of the little blonde girl so full of life and potential is rips and tears, folded pages of an ink stained book documenting someone else's life.

So smile for me once more, my story's all but told, I'll pay for my coffee with only coins and leave the best tip I know how; my joy on a page, just for you.

The Endless.

2006-11-06T20:38:00.000Z

Written on 27th April 2006.

I once read about this family; The Endless. I guess between them all they were meant to represent to whole of us, humans, nature, I see myself in all of them, and I see all of them in my family.

Destiny, my father; always the firm hand, always right. You couldn’t really argue with him. Not with that book of his in his hand. The ancient tome he carried with him day after day. I remember Destruction the least, number three of my generation. He left us long ago, we still see him from time to time I suppose but just like the comic books don’t recite his name; neither do we. Desire, they always made me laugh, so metro-sexual, so perfect, so alluring, but unobtainable. Just like number four, everyone wanted a piece of him. I pray he never gave, for my sake more than his. Mother took the place of Despair, she was the bearer of bad news, she was the one that told us when life went wrong, and she was the one who brought pain into our home. She had better aspects of course, but for the sake of this, she was Despair, and Despair alone. Then of course there is Dream, dream the leader of the family, at least number one was the leader of us, everything our parents ever dreamed of, ever hoped for, embodied in one; Dream. We’ve all looked up to her, wished we could be her, I guess it’s only right she plays this part. Delirium has forever been my favourite; speaking in rainbows and constantly making me laugh. Number two never quite caught hold of reality, it was what made her shine so much brighter than the rest of us; we stood in the shadows bathed in the low flicker of her colours. Then there would be me; Death, number five of five. That happy-go-lucky no-so-goth girl in the corner that isn’t all that happy and just likes the fact that black goes with black.

So there’s my family and his, the endless, the eternity.