Bridges and Ledges

There are flashes, momentary slices of time when I can understand, utterly, the urge to jump into death. If I were somehow standing atop the steely curve of a bridge or on the ledge of a tall building when that quick burn in my core fires up all of my doubts and pains, I’d easily step into the air and drop, float and fall into oblivion. Luckily, those brief moments usually occur, like last night, when I’m curled up in a fetal position in my safe bed. All panda eyed, my red pillow scarred with the day's black lashes wept into them. They are dark, intense, hours when I have only my weak ego to keep me company. She isn’t very helpful.

I’m sat here writing about my own darkness while I watch a small privileged girl play with paper, crayons and Lego bricks. She makes me smile. Surrounded by every expensive toy, gadget and games console available, she consistently chooses instead to draw and build colourful things, spreading her imagination all over the playroom, and, this small girl, lost in wonder, draws my mind away from bridges and ledges. She's very helpful.

-Written Saturday 21st April, 2012

Soul Sleep

Whilst commuting home from work on the bus a song came on in my headphones and brought on the first real, soul-deep, heart-fired, smile in months. I almost cried. I had, perhaps a minute of pure, unadulterated, bliss. Something inside woke up, stretching and yawning, coming out of hibernation.

Since the fire, my life has just been six months of stress, work, hotels, stress, work, couch-surfing, stress, work, home, stress, work. An endless hamster wheel of drudgery. I've become the nightmare I've tried to avoid for most of adult my life... a minimum wage-slave for a soulless mega-corporation. I've forgotten who I am and all the things that make me really happy are so absolutely missing from my daily life that my soul has been asleep... dormant... dying. A simple, beautiful, song distracted me from all the... bullshit... made my spirit stir and made me realise why I've been feeling so cheerless and dejected recently.

I miss mountains, cuddles, sunshine on my face, kisses, wind in my hair, horizon-wide vistas, late night heart-talks, hill-top sunsets, butterflies (both real and stomach-churning), the sound of hiking boots on gravel, friends, impromptu road-trips, drunken conversations, holding hands, trees, pins in maps, cloud and star-gazing, ‘singing’ along in the car, sore thighs from the climb, heart-melting smiles. Freedom. Nature. Love.

My 'life' feels vaccuous, shallow, soulless and empty without those things.

My body is rebelling. Screaming at me to stop giving in to the windowless world where I work with it’s cheap distractions and temptations. It's growing and expanding at an alarming rate, stuffed full of sugary, addictive, poisons. An attempt to pad itself in protection from the unnatural world I've made it inhabit... for money. Artificial light and air, plastic plants, mass produced 'food'. Not a nourishing environment for the mind or the body. We become our mood. I am unhealthy. I want my me back. I miss her. I miss her humour and her gladness and I suspect my friends do too.

Old Pine by Ben Howard

Bensham

My damp footfalls are all that can be heard amidst the low moaning winter wind. Orange street-lights prick the darkness. The pavement is amber-speckled and glowing in the earlier fallen rain. A car whispers past, slow in the narrow street. Though it's late January many of the Orthodox have their windows open and their hospital-bright, plainly-furnished, rooms glare out into the night like stark beacons of righteousness. I couldn't feel further away from home. Even the street-lights seem alien. In my neighbourhood they glow white. Yet, I am only living four miles from home. Just across the River Tyne. Yesterday, I walked a different route and wondered at all the families sat behind the curtained windows around the glow of a 40" TV and all the lovers sat cosied up together on countless couches. I felt like the only solitary soul in the world. All those lives being lived. All the love and cuddles. A violent yell broke the hush. "Fuck off man! Yi neva visit ya fuckin kids an yi think am ganni let yi in tonight coz ya tanked-up an fancy a shag. Fuck off yi daft cunt!" A door was slammed and a thin, track-suited, figure stepped back into the street still staring at the door. Broken. Lost. I was instantly unburdened of any sense of envy or solitude. For now, there's nobody to hurt me. Nobody to slam a door in my face. I smiled and walked on. Soon I will be returned to my home. Soon I will be sat alone on my own couch and I will feel free.