Time Teller

Movements made and songs replayed the moments that will last 

The ticking, turning, boiling heart a kiss he stole too fast

The side glance seen by no one else a breath that catches fire

I'm at the point in my life where I am taking what I like to call 'Inventory".

Inventory in my relationships, in my emotions, in my likes, dislikes, hobbies and motivations.

Did i entertain the idea of hat career because it kept up appearances with another of the greats? Or did it really pull on my heart strings and tug me into the direction of self professed success. Of course, i want to master it all.. and there will be a day when I do just that. But the rush.. did it come from myself or did it come from the rat race of wines undrunk and the suits unworn.  Was that the house I really wanted to live in? and did I choose it for the love of the feel and architecture? or did I choose it because of the place it fell onto in the map of my social circle. The ease it allowed me to be present at occasions where the invite was lost in the post. The arms reach it gave me to feel rejected at a stones through away. 

The men in my life that came and went and came back again even stronger and volatile. Did i endure those relationships for so long because i felt that the sense of worth they gave me was the ceiling which I could only reach with them? My Husband proved them wrong. Proved them all wrong, and continues to amaze me. 

The last few years has been a whirlwind. I've felt more loved, more lost and found and more rejected than at any other point in my life... and  I could not be luckier that all these intense emotions happened to me at the time in which they did. The silver lining is that, i have been exposed to the harshest of the elements and survived with the most important traits and people intact. 

All of a sudden, when the proverbial rug is pulled out from your feet... you have the chance to stumble and stand or to fall and lay defeated.  My future is right there in front of me... and though it's not what I pictured, it has so much potential that my eyes are hurt from staring so intently into the beams of possibility. 

Scared, I am plenty. 

Poor, I define. 

The word you should never start a sentence with, and the person with whom you should never have danced. 

The smooth sailing was out of our reach before we had even begun the dark dance of the night we first met, and we wrestled and lingered and swayed with the movements of the energy between us.  One touch too many, and like a scar that burns we knew; neither one of us would ever be the same again.

Years have gone by now, and I still remember the twitch of your upper lip as the beads of sweat glided faithfully onto the dashboard of your words. "I love you" hung in the air like the smell of sin and secrets, while your eyes fixated on mine to wait for the 11.56pm response that never came. 

But still i led you down the path and you willingly fell along into powerful my stride. I built mountains and castles and paintings for us to live in, and with each one you convinced yourself that we could be so alive together than reality was a false truth. I too convinced myself that if i painted with conviction, i could maybe paint a heart within. 

I travelled to Melbourne, and you closed the book on me. 

It wasn't to be, and i scarred your core so many times that on our last goodbye, i could smell the embers coming from your wounds still burning and still so very raw. 

So now, you pop up, back on into my life, where i can ask for reprieve of my actions and a friendship that once was could still be.. but there are still scars, and there are still stenches of betrayal and misuse of each others toys and hearts.  I looked beautiful on my wedding say, you said,. 

I hope he makes you happy, you said, 

She wouldn't want me talking to you, you said.

The wall which is painted by people, to hold up their anonymity of another kind.

They have businesses, money, careers, and lovers to protect.

Your mind wanders off onto the script of a wall street movie; the kind where Michael Douglas is trying to save the millions of dollars he has invested whilst tryig to maintain his everyday 2.4 children life.

I’m talking about the world around you though. That you live and breathe through your many faces.

The friends you hold in your circle, the people who move through your lives like ghosts who leave the silver trail of hope and regret in their path.

The Boy who has three children, a wife and a mortgage and pretends to everyone that he is a man.  I have debt, don’t you see, and commitment right here- so there’s nothing to be hidden and no more I could fear.  But your capability isn’t within the hook of your wage or the stores in which you spend money that belongs to the bank instead of you.

The Girl who sits at home and wonders why her friends haven’t called, posting photos aimlessly into the void of the social media world to try and see who is still on her list of allies, or rather, ‘likers’. But to all who encounter her, she needs no one else, I’m and strong complex woman and I fend for myself. I need not the scars from a friendship that gives nothing back, I have enough of my own that you’ve never asked to see, because they can’t help you gain anything- and that’s exactly the point.

  My own Pseudonym. The tall, dark, confrontational woman.  Sharp with her words but humorous and comforting. Really?

The person built on the remains of other’s words. The validation given by others to form my strengths and weaknesses, depending on what I have had heard in relation to myself that week.  The girl who picks up the phone from her friends at least 3 times a day to hear them crying ad who feels helpless at the thought of worlds around her crumbling when she has no trade to fix them. The girl who got married to the man of her dreams,  and stills feels like she falls short of what he deserves.  

And it is this disappointment of the truth from ourselves that makes us the saddest. But if we are disappointed with the pressure and regret we i've ourselves... then who are we really covering up for? 

I just want to get better... i really do.

Sometimes i see the way he looks at me with hopelessness. I can see that i am talking and that everyone is bored and they don't understand the way my skin is burning, itching and i want to rip it off and cast it aside. I need a brand new one. I have hated this skin for so long, why am i supposed to sit there and suffer in silence with it?

 I know how ungrateful and self deprecating i sound.. but it's gone so far in my life now that i think there is no way out of it for me and my shadow. They are there for the long haul, and i worry that people won't be.

There are other moments where he looks at me as he can see me thrashing and pushing away, and he stares back knowingly. I might thrash and i might cry and tear my clothes apart in a fit of self hateful rage. But he won't leave. He'll never leave. Even though he could be with someone who loves herself and shines brightly onto his confidence.. he would rather stay in the dark shadow skulking with me and helping the sun peek in every now and then, with the wolf in the corner shying away from it all.

then i feel it again. That wave of selfishness. which bring more self hatred and fear... of what?

The fear that this might be it. The whole life long. The waking moment of my lifetime. The constant cycle of weight and mood and happiness and failure. These thoughts swell like a tidal wave inside my heart and i start to itch again. Scratch myself so that i can't think about it anymore.

distract people with enough anecdotes that they might just miss that rip and curl through my skin.

Agreeing to allow someone to shoot you from the lens of their eye and their perspective. They don't know you, they just capture your moments in the way that they can feel them resounding from you.  Staring hard at the camera and you try to push all of the self doubt away, ironically creating the most vulnerable position you have been in to date- giving room for self doubt to appear once more to you. 

This is the second draft of this that i have vented, the first was shut down by my computer in the middle of a typing flow. It is almost as though my thoughts were cut short when i got too self deprecating and too self analytical. But try as i might i will get these words onto this screen so that they can't float around my minuscule apartment any more.  Can someone actually see your nerves through the lens? and what are these nerves representing? are you tensing ever muscle in your body to control the emotion and stop your fears convulsing? or are you simply trying to achieve the edgy look they are after. 

Either way, i guess you failed. Once again, nothing ever seems to translate from what you wish to see to what others will ever see. 

'm not reading this back for punctuation or touching up, the imperfections i suppose will reflect those in real life. 

There is a Yoga teacher at my studio - she looks just like my mother.

Or, what I imagine my mother to look like these days. She has a soft face and her features are feline. She dances her mystical eyes across the new bodies in the room, smiling with her eyes and exuding radiance of peace. Smouldering with passion for her art.

She guides us through our practice and looks over at me knowingly more than a few times – I am not sure whether this is part of her teaching technique or whether this is directly for me, because it enables me to feel grounded within this room where I am supposed to free my soul.

I feel safe inside her warm lit eyes and I finally let myself go. It’s then I notice the girl at the front of the class – who’s stare could bore a whole into your head. she is balancing on one leg and holding her arms as high as they can possibly be and, whilst this is a very impressive stance – it is not necessary nor is it related to the yoga pose the class is holding…

She is there to show the class how good she can be,  how high her kick can go and how long her hamstring can withstand the weight of the hatred that is clearly beating from within her.

She is a shell, and I see it now – demonstrating her flexibility and knowledge of the art form whilst losing the essence and beauty of it by doing exactly that.

I tilt my head at her for a moment and she catches my eye.. when I give her a knowing yet pitying smile. It is such a shame that we can lose sight of the one place where we are to be ourselves by adhering to the pressure and status that people feel compelled to create within a peaceful environment.

This is not a football game, this is not an Olympic gymnastic squad and it is not a team sport. You should have nothing to receive from the person next to you but their energy, which dances about the room as it exudes from their exhale- willing another to take it in and use it in a better way.

I wake, i rise, sleep meets demise the dawn is bright and bleak. In echoes i can hear the songs of lovers as they greet.

The mist is thick on dewy bricks that build your brand new day. For now it's time, to sing your chime Your love song, some might say.

You show me new worlds every day I didn’t know yours looked this way But now I’ve peeked in, gazed inside There is no part of you to hide.