INSTRUCTIONS

The fickle furnace of the heart burns through attraction like match sticks.
Point the flame in the right direction, to keep it alight.
A bad mood makes everything predictable.
Be discerning.
What tastes good?
What “gets” you?

This isn't finished

Slow, it was all very slow and measured and the tones of all their voices were similar.

They’d spent a lot of time together?

The intonation was very pleasing to them, as when people like the same colour. They had chosen a pitch and stuck with it.

It bothered me slightly, in the showers amongst the steam. Were they meant to be uniform?

Bothered you, like the birds that shriek and never chew, just swallow.

Scrunching up her nose They sneaked, as if performing exercises that would better define their shadows. I did not watch, rather I ogled as they rubbed one another’s backs, soap and foam creating marbled ripples on naked bodies. Stands and becomes physically involved in her descriptions
They were proud; proud of themselves and of each other.
It is funny the way they grabbed at their flesh, as if to make sure the brilliance of their composition is real. Not a mirage.

Who is the leader?

Shaking her head They were so slow, so slow I could barely make out their faces.

Are you having a dream?

Batting away the questions with her hands Why can’t I move the bar of soap over my body as they do? I am too fast, too repetitive.
I cannot form ripples.
I cannot form.
I am not part of them.

With this toothbrush I wish I could glide across my crooked dental structure and make the shapes they do, in the showers, amongst the steam….

You already said that!

What?

You already said that, at the beginning. About the shower and the bodies and the steam. We already know.

Who is ‘we’?

Us?

But, who are you?

I am here next to you, listening to you. I have been responding? All this interrogation, this whole conversation is a bit tiresome, don’t you think?

I just want to be like the people in the showers, I want to be able to move and form a whole as they do.
I cannot form.

A whole? If everyone felt whole there would be no yearning, no…effort? Can you think?
I mean, really place a fine tooth comb back over your life to a time when you were really persistent?
You just didn’t give up.
I find that I persisted with people, with friends, lovers. Never say…die.
But they can be so complicated, but somewhat more tangible, attractive a pursuit then, say, the future.
That loams over ones head, heavy and different and angry.
Angry because it thinks you will splinter its smooth surface with mistakes and tangents.

But, for me to persist is just to watch?

Oh, you bore me.
So these people, these figures are they sexy?

They’re beautiful.

Sexy?

Perfect.

What were they doing? What were you doing? Did they notice you watching? Do you like the feeling of being watched?

So... watching them; is that like having a shower and watching television at the same time? Or reading porn on a tightrope?

What?

I am just raising the stakes.

Childish

Neglectful to Decision,
a person; Decision.
Is a male? Late forties? She doesn't know, she ignores.

Instead she paces and retraces her steps.

She expects, to hold your, their attention and to feel it,
grip it,
like a cold metal surface, the monkey bars.
Smooth and firm. Hers.

She expects, everything to be same, you must be able to repeat an experience.
To revisit with the same pleasant pulse as when you left and sink back into the same teeth marks, YOU left.
She thinks…she knows that would be comforting.
If You make a mark, an impression. How can it just brush off or blow away?
She isn’t a flower, an ephemeral figment that you soon come to shrug at. No. She isn’t.

But,
the teeth marks, the footprints are different, the coffee is bitter and everyone is tired.

Her hands are sweating, she can’t grab.
There is nothing to say this time.

Genuinely disappointed, she will laminate her tears. Self indulgent or not. She’ll rip them from the sockets and save them forever. That way at least something stays the same.

What she wants is not the same and if it was, maybe she’d hate it.

The draw backs

I can't sit still.
I can't untangle the day.
I can't sit still.

An old one.

Through the window,
there is not a slender heart.
It is loud, it throbs and strains red.

I would, I could drive you mad with the sounds that play within me.

Or.

Maybe.

They will only torment me.

I only know
that when you look at me
I will ask my heart to hush,
to hush and let you be...

I have sulked into a shape, bulky and cumbersome. There is no where to put me. What a waste of space. I have this reoccurring vision; it generally comes over me when I am cringing about something I've said. It is me smashing something. It is so loud and violent. You can scream much louder in your head then out loud. You can hit much harder too.

I am walking home, 1.30 am. All grey and blue, the sulks coat.
A man across the road yelled out: "You are a very fine young lady. Have a good morning, when you finally wake up, the sun shall shine on you"

A sign.

In addition to Day One

Perhaps people aren't really as curious as I would like to believe?

Elise, you are my inspiration of the morning.

Day One

He holds a stare like a gun. You can tell its heavy, loaded. I bet he likes his own company and forgets people watch him. I like his sense of recognition. Well, what I sense of his sense.
I refuse to believe people have poor memories.
If you don’t remember or worse pretend you don’t remember, you’re dead to me. He remembers, or at least he doesn’t pretend he has never laid eyes on me before. I’d like to know him.

I would like your help

Tell me what you think of "Self Sacrifice"

In all its guises.

I am opening a discussion, please join in.

Thanks,

Harriet

Torch Light

Illuminating within ourselves,
a simultaneous premonition.

We were both wrong,
now our bulbs burn brighter.