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! Caution ! Disturbing Content !
Skip this section if you’re uncomfortable with ideas involving self harm (not me).
A close friend texted me after a few weeks of no contact, like she usually does back from business trips. It reads, ‘hospitalised, tried to throw myself over the building, police got me in time, on meds, taped up my window. How you?’
She didn't even tell me not to worry, she didn’t assure me she’s ok. Is it because she knew words are but words ? I told her about all the disturbances at my flat, I told her I made curries she loves, if only either of us could fly to each other.
Days later, I asked, How are the covid numbers there? do people still eat out? what were you thinking? She replied, spiking, no one dares, I just wanted to start again.
Is it a video game? Plunge into a villain’s sword, miss the moving cloud, or use too much ammo too soon, invoking the ‘game over’ screen so she can click ‘play again’?
What an elaborate way to reset. I told her a hobby is easier. She agrees and then went searching.
Try it on
What am I but a vessel of thoughts and feelings. I try on a mighty girl—today ‘believe’, tomorrow ‘fight’—a variety of cat stripes, or carry a tortoise shell so I can dump it. I try on new attitudes, one by one or all at once.
Make or Break
I stretch them, knead them, compress them. Mould fabric bits into a lump, a lump into a beakie, a beakie into me. Sometimes, I don’t make things, I break things down. I cut up old clothes, I cut beakies’ heads off, I cut useless details loose of memories.
Beakies
His lint covered fabric was washed thin. I gave him black patches, not to hide the secret bumps inside, but because everyone could do with some protection. He is available for adoption in the online shop.
A yellow blob growing into its own…
Eat
Pumpkin Soup
Brown onions, garlic, pumpkin, when soft, add soaked red lentils, cooked chickpeas, dried himeimatsutake mushroom, nutritional yeast, soy milk. Boil, blend, boil again. Eat with bread (I made rosemary focaccia) slouched on the sofa watching forgettable TV.
To do what I do I need your support. You can do so by sharing my work, adopting a beakie, and clicking the little here on this page.
Another Sunday night. The same but different from the last, and will be the same but different from the next. See you then, marn