a pretty basic thought i wanted to share

I am full of strawberries and milk and all the cushy substances that this place affords me, i am wearing clean clothes, i slept in a bed, in a house, and i am checking my email.

I tend to get culture shock coming back to the city when i have been somewhere different.
because i guess it makes less sense, it seems so false to me, all this advertising, waste and unfamiliarity, all these people crammed into all these boxes surrounded by junk that when you look at it makes no sense, stuff that we don't need.

I feel like it is all shoved in front of our eyes so that we stay floppy and tired, working our arse's off to continue this cycle of wanting more. And all the while hiding from what we are actually doing, what we are complicit in or even actively support, the genocide of "australia's" first peoples, the destruction of old growth forests and a climate in which we can live, the genetic messing of our food supplies which will contaminate crops grown anywhere near those that have been messed with, the corporate power that exists and the way decisions are made by those with no accountability transparency or proximity to whats going on.

i have so much, i have more than i need, and i am trying to figure out how to change this strange and fucked up way of things being. more on this later perhaps...

old

magazines sell us repulsive plastic images of what we could be, something to strive for. how much psychology do they use in convincing us that we aren't good enough i wonder? playing to our insecurities, there are so many things in this perverse system that mean so little in such a huge way, so broken and convincing and overpowering.
i don't understand how i live, what my part is in this mess, i wish to retire, to let go of all the ropes i hold and freefall nude, colourful, & uninhibited, a spectacle for all the groundwellers, a firework, a provocative picture of what could be.
FEAR keeps us in line, fear of what we could be, fear of what were not, fear of where we could be going and the control that we don't have, it is so stifling, crushing. everything back in it's box. i am so controlled, practically a robot. iwant to be colourful and free and not afraid.

lets

lets wear gumboots filled with water, and sit in puddles,
lets stand in the rain at night shaking and watching car lights speed by with rain filling our faces,
lets sit in cold parks at night & eat ice-cream & talk about life,
lets write poetry on the walls and dress like sunflowers,
lets watch the last of the sunset and pretend were not getting cold,
lets do things on a whim,
lets catch a train in circles,
lets hypothesise,
lets think too much and get nervous and laugh, lets share music & films & books & poetry,
lets stay up and fall asleep at school,
lets be idealistic,
lets hope,
lets listen to the bush at night,
lets smile at everyone,
lets dance!

i smell... and i look like an echidna

i am learning to play the guitar, its super-fun. my little bro got a double bass for his birthday, my dad is a guitar teacher and our house is always full of various instruments and noises. My dad and bro are both great at music and very lovely to me, they teach me things and let me play with their instruments and record stuff. i miss them heaps. i am learning a kimya dawson song, she is great, i saw her this year and yea, she's wonderful.

a day i had a while back

Today.

Kayaking, muscles exerting their presence, pitting pride against the elements

And humanity against corporate greed

Sun. Sea. Exercise. Feeling human again.

Police.

Orders.

Confusion. (coal ship approaching.)

amongst police and protesters,

No way out. (internal panic.)

Horn blasts, chants raise, palms resound on plastic, orders fly, propellers& motors scream

Fear (looking to get out)

Blocked by boat, change of orders, muscles jar, stomach twists,

Confusion.

Communication. Connection.

Safety.

Relief.

Now.

Overdosed on radiohead and sent myself into another world,

Pure sound and choreography,

The noise speeds along its intricate pathway, perfectly etched into my mind.

My muscles flexed and extended catching in with the game,

body lets go and the music carries it,

twisting and turning, jump, kick,

I close my eyes, and float away.

This is all there is.

Earlier.

I read your email

As I replied, my eyes, still salty from the sea

Blinked and wet my face with sheets of tears.

I sobbed for an hour writing back.

I tried to give it my honesty.

My perception

My perceived lack of structure in the world

My fear

Will I send it?...

nope.

Soon.

Sunburnt exhausted body curled unconscious on the bed.

Mind far away.

Twitch of hand.

Small noise of sleep.

Oblivion.

imprisoned by your mind

right, so i read my articulate little brothers funny blog and thought i'd better add another embarassing attempt at wit and brilliance to my own... this is a bit of a description of my experience of mental health prac ( i'm a student nurse)

They say not to touch you ‘they are dangerous’ and I think, ‘I’d be violent to if noone ever held me, loved me, talked to me, respected me, if noone ever looked me in the eye’.

It breaks my heart the lack of love in this ward, we are like wardens, we wear duress alarms, carry the keys, control the food and cigarettes, and have an aggression response team on call 24/7. They practice 5 point holds and sedation.

Some of you won’t leave this place, some of you have been bounced in here from gaols, or by police, and now you are left at the mercy of the staff, social workers, nurses, psychiatrists, they have an order on you, the mental health act, you are confined, condemned, concealed from the public.

I wonder how it feels for you because I know that I am relieved to leave.

I am breezing into your life for two weeks, yet another peering student in a long line of sightsee’ers, achieving set objectives, psychopathologising you as you speak, do you know? you still talk to me, still allow me to listen to your tales, (those of you who still speak) You boast or mumble or grunt, some of you from a reality quite different from mine, but one I am willing to contemplate, and to discuss. I feel like a traitor listening to you and chatting and then going off to pathologise the things you tell me with such pride.

My heart hurts when I see you smile, when we can laugh at something, when you seem ok.

My heart hurts because I cannot hug you and yet I will run off to my friends to debrief and be held.

I hurt because I don’t know if I could be a nurse here, because I don’t know if I’d still feel this in five years.

one ending is skimping

So I keep falling out of the world of clocks… and into this other place, which is timeless and ever interesting, full of these jumping twisting alleyways which will take you anywhere you could imagine, to places you wish you were or had been, to parallel universes.

And you can travel by music, it contemplates lyrics and replays bits of your life to you in the comfort of your frozen self, caught up in the tiny veins of a leaf, or the blue blue blue of the sky, or a smell in the air.

And it grasps you by the hand and pulls you racing down this alleyway or that at the speed of kids on bikes, and there is not time to realise that you have missed your stop or an appointment, or the job interview that was going to change your life, but we smile and say sorry, and change tense erratically to help you believe we are not of sound mind and forget I ever met you.

Because the truth is the chance of a lifetime is not what i’m looking for. not at all.

I am looking for the track that ants follow, the secret to how flowers smell, for people who’s souls shine out through their eyes.

I am looking for adventures and dullness and anxiety and love.

I am looking for all the words of my book, for a skateboard and some bruises. For the contents of my rucksack, for a hand to hold for a month or two, and a beach to camp on for life.

And so.

(1)

Now you know. That I might not be telling what you would consider the truth, because I don’t think truth is what you say It is. And I don’t feel like all this is real, and I don’t believe it’s all there is.

I think there is life outside of our box of normal

And I am going to chase it .. on a whim.

(or; 2.)

I am sorry if I promised you something else, if you thought that we were on the same page. Because I have slipped of the page… and out of the book… and into the wind and the air and cold nights And I am going to learn all they have to teach me…

And maybe one day I will come back and tell you.

And maybe one day you will say I told you so.

And maybe we will never see each other again.