IF YOU HOLD THE BIRD TOO TIGHTLY, YOU’LL KILL IT.

- a collection of moments where the body and mind, sync.

EYE on the driveway, looking at the stars.

On the driveway, he said “It’s funny to kiss you”, she looked at him and a tear left her eye and took with it its blue colour. The blue ran down her face, thick syrup goo that dripped into a blob on the pavement. Then, with nothing left to keep it there, her eyeball popped out. Stark white and hollow like a ping pong ball it bounced down the driveway and onto the road. He watched on in amazement, waiting for her to respond, to say something, to be horrified. But instead, in the silence of his astonishment there came a rustling from the hollow of her eye. Out pushed a bird, perched on the bridge of her nose it shook dry its wet feathers and flew away.

From her.

From him.

The 24th year is a struggle. They say, and I suppose I say so too.

The clay hardens. Change is no longer slow and easy to ignore. It is abrupt, alarming and can make you late for work.
It happened at a party. I was chatting, standing in the round, laughing. Then, through my wine soaked vision, I saw him kiss another.

I said, ‘My face is caving in’ and those around me looked and quickly caught the falling pieces of my cheek in their palms. It was winter and everyone was covered in wool. My face was the crumbs on their sleeves.

They all peered at me.

“Where do you want me to put your...face?.... Harriet?” one said, holding the largest part of me.

“Maybe you shouldn’t say anything. You look very loose. How are we going to hold you together?”

“Does she need to sit down?”

“Is he still kissing her?” I said.

“Oh, Harriet! Is this what’s going to happen every time? Yes. Just let him go!”

Restless viewing.

It used to only happen occasionally and then it became more frequent. She would lie awake and check her phone and read and put the book down and toss and turn and do this over and over again.
While lying wide awake, staring at the ceiling, two fine rods attached to the end of each eyebrow would move up and down and up and down at a furious pace. The speed created a television snow that hovered over her brow and kept her awake all night long.

September thus far

Cinema evacuation

Football injury

Relocation

West side

A dip in a soup of old people

I heart GPS

1 dread

Borrowed outfit

‘This tastes like nerds’

Going organic

Prams

Babies

Dogs

Frisky Agnes

Online shopping

Walking

The transport saving of a lifetime!

Bushfire Shakespeare

Locked in a foyer

Wardrobe cull

Fugazi

Master do-to list gets done

In progress.

24 Years Old.

The clay is hardening. I check for change most mornings and I shift carefully, so it doesn’t set. The others around me; their foreheads are shiny and their bodies are greasy, new and indent with ease. They change slowly and find life less tiring.

It happened at a party. I had been talking, I was standing in the round, laughing. Then, I saw him kiss another.

I said, ‘My face is caving in’ and those around me looked and quickly caught the falling pieces of my cheek in their palms. It was winter and everyone was covered in wool. My bone, crumbs on their sleeves.

They all peered at me.

“Where do you want me to put your...face?.... Harriet?” one said, holding the largest part of me.

“Maybe you shouldn’t say anything. You look very loose. How are we going to hold you together?”

“Does she need to sit down?”

“Is he still kissing her?” I said.

“Oh, Harriet! Is this what’s going to happen every time? Yes. Just let him go!”

I can tell you I am...

- Rather compulsive by nature.
- Going to show the organism whose the boss. Apparently I’ll be very good at it.
- Fond of lap swimming.
- Deeply rooted in my earth, others have been known to call this loner syndrome.
- Subconsciously disturbed and it is all David Cronemberg’s fault.
- Very insistent on beauty.

Life Altering Quotations

"Kraft was a skinny, harmless kid from Pennsylvania who wanted to be liked, and was destined to be disappointed in even so humble and degrading an ambition” pg 62 - from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Response to Little One, PS it's Ok and Erise

NOVEMBER

Skipping Lord Brunchington’s for a fight
The Convent
Finding The Vorticist
Saturday Afternoon Heartbreak
Good sex
Bad party
Talk of rape in Collingwood
Tears on my nokia
Housecleaning with the Go-Between’s
Watching amazing Street Cricket whist making the bed
Pending house inspection
Performing with half a heart
Laughter with Zoe Rotthier
Cocktails and Hungry Jacks
Hugs from Steve
6am cab ride to work
New arrangement isn’t working
Glen reunion
Cara reunion
Peter Stuyvesant Blue in a pouch
First time at 1000£Bend
Free Slurpie Day
Park after dark
Fitzroy Pash
Gentleman walks me home, you don’t come home.
A German visitor sleeps on the couch
EnRoute through Melbourne with $2, an iPod, Chalk and Rilke
Getting Stoned
You come home for a shower and stay
My appointment with Jason
Admitting a little bit of me has died
His amazing smile
ROYAL BLUE FOREVER!
Piking on a date
Organic white wine, one whole bottle and no hangover
Threatening to walk in front of a truck
Comedy in Northcote with psychic children
BootCamp
Seeing my Grandmother for the first time in 13 years
Dark chocolate ice cream sandwiches
Summer Challenges
The Date
Lots of love left for my friends
Hot Bitches with full tummies embrace at the Grace
Cut lunches
Betrayal and more heartache
Unrequited love
Not believing a thing Bob Dylan says and moving on....to Billy Bragg
Day drunk
Cut and Dry
The apocalypse starts on my first coffee date with BHC
Getting refused service at Ding Dong
Sharing the Beyonce love
Outfit suggestions via text message
Moonbeam and I walking on the same wire
I WANT TO CUT HIS COCK OFF!

SUMMER PROJECTS!

Thanks to Elise, I am inspired. This summer will be PACKED!
I shall wreck of buzz words such as: PROMISE, PRODUCTION and PRO-ACTIVITY.
So, everyone out there: Send me a SUMMER PROJECT!

So far:
Write a sonnet by my birthday (31st of January)

Write a series of poems set to a theme: Summer of course!

NEW ADDITION, to read "Infinite Jest"

MY LIST FOR IMPROVEMENT

- Regular exercise
My disposition should not be ignored.

- Stridency
Be hard or go home.

- Drive myself insane
In order to attain a certain level of self gratification; I have not successfully achieved with hair cuts, expensive clothing purchases and the like. It is time to get results.

- Be consumed
My preference will be with the self and not the other, as the latter is proving to only result in heart ache.

All Poets are Afraid of Sex

SHE dressed sexy for her first meeting with The Poet.
It was alright, she felt, having been told once by a young man buying Murakami in the Brunswick Street Bookstore that “All poets are afraid of sex”.

Standing in wait for the number 19 tram SHE received a text message from a Philosopher, who was riding past on the tram going in the opposite direction. He said SHE looked like a circus performer. Perfect. SHE thought.

Upon her arrival in Brunswick, which was really Coburg, but SHE decided not to mention this to The Poet as it might hurt his feelings. SHE was greeted by an oversized stuffed bear beached in the driveway of his home. In a fit of violence someone has taken a knife to its belly and its stuffing bled down to the footpath.
What a contradiction to witness the crime scene of an inanimate object. SHE felt it to be a very disconcerting beginning to the relationship with The Poet.

Nevertheless SHE rang the doorbell and The Poet answered the door with toast crumbs covering much of his face. SHE felt he may be quite partial to cream cheese in the morning as apposed to the afternoon, when most people would eat cream cheese. Or was SHE was getting confused with soar cream? Either way it certainly wasn’t shaving cream that glued the crumbs to his face.

The Poet’s house was not what SHE expected. SHE thought he would own a lot wood, that his house would smell of beeswax and he would socialise only with cups of peppermint tea and gum trees. But alas SHE found he much preferred to move in the circles of Milo, racing car bed spreads and carpet stains.

Well, if dreams where reality SHE would spend a lifetime swallowing her yawns.

So SHE stood in the kitchen with the couple. The Poet and the toast crumbs. What riveting conversations awaited her? SHE knew SHE would spend a lot of time scratching her face and talking about people with celiac disease. The distraction would be like quick sand, slowly sucking her ability to converse down the into the lino floor.
SHE felt the need to distract herself from the mess on his face or for him to at lease introduce her to the crumbs. Maybe she should have bought a hula-hoop with her and proceeded to spend the morning performing useless tricks in the hope it would make The Poet laugh heartily enough to shake the crumbs to the kitchen floor.
Instead SHE said, you have something on your face. The Poet replied. Oh…err. Thanks for saying so! It says a lot about the type of person you are.
SCORE, she whispered.

The Poets kitchen was large, one might even say abnormally so. SHE, again, was disappointed by this. How was SHE to have awkward flirtatious conversation with The Poet when they may as well have been standing on opposite sides of a railway line?
The Poet held up a variety of tea bags.
Although SHE had exceptional vision and had on numerous occasions been told by her optometrist SHE could be a fighter pilot, SHE was simply too far away from The Poet to distinguish between the bags draping his fingers.
SHE would have to admit that she couldn’t make out the labels. How mortifying.
The Poet did not seem interested in the tea bags at all and threw them into the sink in exchange for a giant tin of Milo.

The Poet wanted to make his guest a glass of Milo?

Suddenly it all became clear to her. Was The Poet was attempting to make himself unattractive? Did he want to repel her? SHE stood brewing, how could a milk moustache possibly be endearing at this point in the relationship?

Tea would have been preferable. Tea spoons, sugar cubes are visually sensual aids that SHE was convinced would entrance The Poet. For goodness sakes just take a minute to think about a bubbling kettle of steaming water being ever so slowly poured into a shapely teapot. Tea parties the little known aphrodisiac.

SHE kept referring to "The relationship”. SHE kept thinking about what he must think about her? SHE was being a self obsessed nobody. Sure SHE could walk out of the house thinking he was some sort of frigid socially awkward beast. But really SHE was the one wearing hot pants at 10am on a Wednesday morning.

But wasn’t he intrigued? Her interest, her gentle prodding emails to meet The Poet. The numerous evenings she spent at work, well after dark discussing her growing fascination with Kevin the Security guard. Did this not come across?

Are all poets really afraid of sex?

SHE needs to be educated on the stereotype of The Poet.

Please direct your imagination to Exhibit A: The Poet.

You will notice in his natural habitat he permits himself higher doses of stimulants generally in the form of coffee. The highly caffeinated artist feels comfortable amongst the presence of symptoms such as dilated pupils, bad breath and the irregular openings of the sweat glands when no physical exertion has been performed.
Completely reliant upon sensory experience The Poet will rarely be seen in footwear and is of the attitude cold weather is good for the disposition.

Thus it is fair that SHE assumed the want of body heat would be of great importance to The Poet.

The Poet, in his highly creative prime will generally develop colour blindness, thus as you may observe the bright purple pants are a mistake and The Poet actually believes he is melding beautifully with the autumn colours of his neighbourhood, sporting a handsome olive green.

SHE will leave The Poets house in Brunswick which is really Coburg with a heavy heart.
This is due to her failure to understand the page and the person are always vastly different.

Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat) By Bob Dylan

I am so obsessed with this song, I can't stop listening to it and just look at the lyrics!? They are incredible!

There's a long-distance train rolling through the rain, tears on the letter I write.
There's a woman I long to touch and I miss her so much but she's drifting like asatellite.
There's a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze, laughter down onElizabeth StreetAnd a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone where she bathed in a stream of pureheat. Her father would emphasize you got to be more than street-wise but he practicedwhat he preached from the heart.A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted to me the time and the place that the trouble would start.
There's a babe in the arms of a woman in a rageAnd a longtime golden-haired stripper onstageAnd she winds back the clock and she turns back the page of a book that no one can write.
Oh, where are you tonight?

The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure, to live it you have to explode.*
In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed, sacrifice was the code of the road.I left town at dawn, with Marcel and St. John, strong men belittled by doubt.
I couldn't tell her what my private thoughts were but she had some way of finding
them out. He took dead-center aim but he missed just the same, she was waiting,putting flowers on the shelf.
She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair and discovered her invisible self.*
There's a lion in the road, there's a demon escaped,There's a million dreams gone, there's a landscape being raped,As her beauty fades and I watch her undrape,I won't, but then again, maybe I might.
Oh, if I could just find you tonight.
I fought with my twin, that enemy within, 'til both of us fell by the way.Horseplay and disease is killing me by degrees while the law looks the other way.Your partners in crime hit me up for nickels and dimes, the guy you were lovin'couldn't stay clean.It felt outa place, my foot in his face, but he should-a stayed where his money wasgreen.
I bit into the root of forbidden fruit with the juice running down my leg.*
Then I dealt with your boss, who'd never known about loss and who
always wastoo proud to beg.There's a white diamond gloom on the dark side of this room and a pathway that leadsup to the stars.If you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise, remind me to show you thescars.
There's a new day at dawn and I've finally arrived.If I'm there in the morning, baby, you'll know I've survived.I can't believe it, I can't believe I'm alive,But without you it just doesn't seem right.
Oh, where are you tonight?


*AMAZING!