Counting Sheep

I really shouldn't be awake at 3am on a weekday. I'm tossing, I'm turning - my attempts at falling back to sleep are futile.

Counting sheep?
One sheep, two sheep, three sheep...Shaun the Sheep. A heap of sheep. Sheep shit.

My mind wanders. Clearly counting sheep isn't for me.

I'll start again:

One sheep
I need to clean up the room before Sunday. The laundry needs doing and the floor needs hoovering. I don't understand where all this mess is coming from - I really don't.

Two sheep
The plural of sheep is 'sheep'. It isn't 'sheeps'. I remember this because father told me this when I was six. He told me this again when I was ten when I made that mistake in my English test. This time round he gave me a pretty good chastising for forgetting.

Three sheep
I've got a lot of packing to do. I'll need to do this on Saturday. On top of packing the volumionous amounts of chocolates I intend of bringing with me (for family), I want to bring back some of the clothes I (can) no longer wear. They're in a box on top of my cupboards like a corpse in a coffin waiting to be buried.

Four sheep
When I get back I'm going to continue painting the bedroom wall with the acrylic paints I have tucked away under the bed (provided my sisters haven't found them and used them up). The last time I painted the wall, I was working on an image of a leaveless tree. Dried and dead, its branches were like thin cracks which crawled across the wall - thin cracks...like the hands that were painting it...

Shaun the Sheep
My sisters love that show.



...



I turn over and look at the clock - it's 8am. Looks like counting sheep works after all. But fuck, now I'm late...

There's always one

I sat across him at dinner.

I observed his table manners and scruitinised every flick of the fork and jab of the knife - he was trying to make a point (with a mouth full of food) but no one was listening. This was quite a common scene when we went out.

I suppose I should have empathy for him - perhaps he was just socially awkward. However, with one irritating hand gesture after another, my empathy quickly turned to annoyance and I found myself being very cold and unfeeling towards his needs.

He's like an outlier, in a sense that, he wasn't really like the rest of us; socially, he stood outside on a marooned platform designed just for him completely oblivious to social practices.

Opportunity Lost

Drunken nights
counting down. Knowing
this will all soon end
and the nights replaced
by sober ones which force
memories to be made,
and perhaps I will die
remembering.
But for now,
having had whatever,
I will sleep
and forget I ever wrote
this in the first place.

Disagreements

"I've never heard
this song before,"
dad admitted. I smiled
and mum scowled
while sisters laughed
at the elders' ignorance.
"Coldplay," I said
only to hear mum say
"Oh. Are they gay?"
Unimpressed, I huffed
while sisters chuckled
and when the chorus played
the dogs barked
and howled
in unison with "Paradise";
it was like painful cries
of canine futillity
because I remained
unmoved and indifferent
to the signs of dislike.
Sisters were still in a chuckle
when one of them says
"Let's listen
to High School Musical"

Desperation in the Library

Sat in the library,
the day was grey;
in retrospect,
I hold no significance
of that day two years later.
So much has changed,
so much was resolved,
and so much was uncovered.
But music reminds me
of that grey day,
sat in the library
reading up on neuronal synapses
and eating disorders; I gasp
and the breath dies again
in the empty room
of which I know reside,
miles away from that library
in which the past now haunts;
never again to remember
or repeat or relive; but yet,
the emptiness leaves
a void of desperation
which remains unfilled in the heart
and so it stays, exposed
and vulnerable, calling
for love which is
nowhere to be seen.

Worth Nothing

Maria: I missed it all. I never got to see it grow, I never got to see it breathe - it was a stillborn. And I blame myself for its death. I am such a bad person - horrible...evil...


Curtains close. Two men walk onto the stage. One of them is John. He walks with his head down. Next to him is Dave who smokes a cigarette as he walks with John.

John: I don't think she realises how much she's disappointed me. I had so much hope and...maybe I expected too much...

Dave: I don't understand why you keep thinking about it.

John: Because I thought she could...

Dave: Forget her. She clearly isn't capable. There are others out there who can - don't hang around with someone as useless as her.


John looks up at Dave.

John: Light me a fag, mate. I'll come with you. Show me...


Dave lights John a cigarette, pats him on the shoulder and walks off stage. John stands puffing on his cigarette. Maria enters.

Maria: You know I didn't mean to...I mean I didn't know what to do.

John looks down on her and continues to smoke his cigarette.

Maria: I'm sorry - I've been too afraid to say anything to you...until now...but there, I've said it! Please forgive me!

John (as he speaks, smoke comes out of his mouth and nose): There's nothing to forgive.

Maria: Wha-what? What do you mean?

John blows smoke in Maria's face

John: There is nothing to forgive. Because you don't exist.

John walks off stage and Maria stands on stage alone, almost in tears.

Giving Up

I knew I was going to lose you the first time we said "hello". It was a brief introduction, that first day - neither of us expected life to go this far - but yet, it did and this whole time, I was all set to lose you.

The months rumbled on in the deep undercurrent of despair. This was on my part of course - you were no longer here to feel it with me. I suppose that's how life goes. It's so unfair but then again, perhaps it wasn't meant to be. So, why the hell am I complaining?

A rhetorical question that was. It can't be answered and it probably isn't worth asking.

Meaningless Travels

Do you know what it's like
to travel on trains? Buildings
whizzing by when actually
they stand still like head stones.
People outside vanish in the speed
and all that is left to see
are the distant fields
where cattle graze.

And so my trip from Surrey
to London, takes me past
calm fields and quiet villages
but soon I see the countryside
morph into the suburbs.
Fields and small houses
begin to vanish. In their place,
tall, narrow buildings, all
looking-alike. Clapham Junction
never seemed more grey
with their multi-coloured
buildings of similar structure.

That was not my stop
So I travel even further
and I watch Clapham
being replaced by London.
And then we stop.
Passengers spill out
onto platforms
and shoot past the gates
before dispersing into London
and I was left...
...standing on the platform
watching it all
feeling empty because
nothing I had just seen
meant anything to me.

The Trouble with Love

It's almost like a lie, the first few months. Sitting under the school ramps, out of view of roaming teachers, we let our heads float...
...but wait, before we got there, I knew this was all a lie. Affection, at the age of thirteen, would only last so long. If only I had the courage then to say so but I didn't and so I lived the lie quite reluctantly.

Three months on, it died and thank god it did. I walked through the school corridors past my friends who wondered where he was (not with me that's for sure). They whispered and formed rumours of a dramatic ending in our relationship which didn't occur.

More lies...more lies...and more to come, I think...

Here with Me

"I didn't hear you leave
I wonder how am I still here
I don't wanna move the things
it might change my memories
oh, I am what I am
I'll do what I want
but I can't hide
I won't go
I won't sleep
I can't breathe
till you're resting here with me"

- Dido

A Story about Forgetting

I will think about you again in the future, years after you have not crossed my mind.

I will think about you again while I walk down a park in Surrey and think about the words you said to me and the way you comforted me when I felt the world bear down on me. It will all come back to me in an influx of memories; everything which time suppressed will reappear in an instance and I will be able to dwell with it for awhile.

But, two hours later, I will go home, to the town I now live in, and forget you completely and quite reluctantly. And there will be another time void in which my memory of you will not exist.

I will return to the park again at some point and I will remember you. However, while the void stretches on, you will have been forgotten and only when the right time comes will you exist again.

Tragic Findings

Your door was shut
so unlike the days before,
always open and always
welcoming to the younger minds
who loitered in the corridors.
I suppose, there's no reason
to leave it open now,
now that you are gone.
The note your students left you
remained on your door
like a cherished reminder
of your presence and life,
but it was not meant to be -
life I mean, it wasn't meant
to last. And you silently
drifted away under our ignorance
and naivety, thinking life is
forever; oh, the lessons we've learnt
this year: working, learning,
living. And you walked us
through all of it but left
yourself out of the latter.
Forgetting yourself
and remembering others
exempted you from life
and taught us a lesson about
loss and regret; but in your name
we will cherish this lesson so
just as much as we wished
we had cherished you
during those days
when you had left
your door open.

The Door Left Ajar

Did you ever consider
a little "hello"
when that door was left ajar,
or perhaps a "thank you"
on lazy afternoons
between lectures on Biology
and Cognitive?

Perhaps not... but no...
...we must not reflect
on what we could have
but did not. But let's reflect on
the times we laughed
hysterically in the lecture hall
deciding on whether a heater
is more important than water
on the moon. Because in the backdrop
of our snickers and childish jokes
there was another who looked
over us and smiled and guided us
as we laughed, and thought about
studies by Asch and Milgram
and grew from what she taught us.

On a day when disbelief
numbs the senses and drives us to
retreat, we can always wipe away
tears knowing there was some closure
because we had grown
and learnt and matured
in her presence.
And although that door
will not be left ajar anymore,
being more of a person than we were
when we first met her
is good enough proof
that we will always miss her
and will always cherish her so.

Swift Reality

Words on words
they tell lies like birds
stuck on the fence
with their hearts tense
never to be freed
and left with no feed
to live and fly
and so they all die.

Misguided

Toiling in the deep
so troubled and undone
the memories and the weep
under the cold, unfeeling pun
so distraught in the summer
never again to forgive her.

General consensus
about the death by unplugging
the machine that gave her licence
to be submerged amongst the living
but now she dies, this time for real
alone because her kids were afraid to feel.

Long, bending corridors
on a day lit by sunshine
to meet the one who opens doors
and makes sure she doesn't toe the line
so careful and so scared
that the others could only have stared.