writings – the laurel tree

Today is lip balm day

addie — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 14:30:02 +0000

The lip balm vaulted over lipsticks,
and hoisted itself upon a pair of lips,
while the discarded clouds sat around
listlessly, feeling that vast emptiness of
purpose that athletes who’ve lost in
their dedicated sport feel.

But not for long. For, in the sport of
vanity, every colour has its day.

Fallen

addie — Wed, 06 Dec 2017 14:30:53 +0000

Autumn leaves should be red, spicy as the leaking heat of cut flesh. This pretty gash in the palm of my hand, in my flesh cut by the chill, is as spicy as they come.

What a beautiful piece of blood.

Nara Park, outskirts of Kyoto, Japan, 2014

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Nara Park, outskirts of Kyoto, Japan, 2014

Acceptance

addie — Thu, 30 Nov 2017 14:30:04 +0000

Once, I thought a good sky, a worthy sky, should be clear, spotless. And I tried so hard to scrub the stars and moon away, that I scratched out the sky instead. Grey splotches now glare from a patchy sky, and only a sliver of moon is left.

Once, I was a perfectionist. Then I learnt you can’t expect to always get what you want. Isn’t the sky still beautiful, even if I did nothing; even though I did something?

Hangers

addie — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 14:30:06 +0000

When I say that a clothes hanger wants your body, I do not mean it has a prurient interest. It just wants to wear muscle, skin and bone; something more solid, something like you. To hold up your shoulders, wire their blades, so that they will never curve inwards under the weariness that bleeds from your mind and pools atop them. To make you stand tall, no matter what.

Because even clothes hangers can be noble.

Night Sky

addie — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 14:30:43 +0000

Her eye had a rendezvous at the park.
It ran down in the dark and at once
embraced the night, twirling in arms
of starlight; the optic twinkle
ambiently magnified.

It spun out of balance and fell back,
laughing, a mere child to the ancient
night, who, to steal the liveliest
sparkle, proffered a pipe. The eye lit
up and puffed hour after hour, while
her human tossed in bed, gripped by
insomnia.

How sad this betrayal, this scheming
sky. How ignorant this vision, this
Judas eye.

the marshmallow girl

addie — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 18:53:05 +0000

Marshmallow girl was sent to the gallows, punishment for having been born into a sweet life in a world of strife. But she grew indignant, bitter, and was promptly allowed to live. She married the executioner, had a batch of marshmallow kids in the lusterless marriage, and decided to roast them alive.

‘Let their sweetness not be wasted,’ thought she tearfully. ‘Let their lives have meaning, not as I gave up mine. Let them die, or live a death such as I.’
————–
All candy is born to die, and marshmallow girl had foolishly missed her turn.

the magic carousel

addie — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 16:29:56 +0000

Every turn of the carousel muffled merriment, until all that was left was a silent, spinning wheel, the rictus of a Kabuki grin on the face of each mute, horrified child. Every turn of the carousel shrank them, till they became little matryoshka dolls put out and sold as souvenirs.

At their lifelike details people marvelled, and to the fair people took their kids. And the carousel cranks up again, neverending, always revolving, always reeling children in. And the dolls sit and stare, noiseless except when they fall from tiny hands and break.

Look into their eyes, look at your reflection, and see that you are but a dream of the stolen child, conjured up in a mind and living a life that doesn’t exist. Blink. Realise this. Then fall, break, and come alive again.

The end.

nursing fear

addie — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 06:46:14 +0000

Because little things make her happy, little things also make her unhappy. She, who finds kernels of doubt easily.

And the sun sees her pottering around in a phantom nursery, watering those seedlings in her mind. In his yellow mercy, he averts his eye and lets the sky turn cloudy, so she cannot conjure up their growth.

But she potters on anyway, growing paler day by day, because the sun, even the sun – she thinks – has turned away.

the eye in the sky

addie — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:42:59 +0000

They say don’t point at the moon or your ear will be cut. In that world, the crescent is savage and sharp as a knife.

They misunderstand. That isn’t the instrument’s intent. To those that reach out, the moon lowers itself, slicing off the nets entangling them, the worries that’ve pinned them. In this world, the moon is merciless only in lopping off everything that’s wrong.

For in the world that is a kitchen, the moon is the kindest chef I’ve met.

fishy

addie — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:47:58 +0000

I take the school bus home every night. Only I’m not in school any more, and it’s not a bus either. Concepts.
I fold myself into the too-small van and surrender my posture, like a sardine in an airy tin. That’s a clashing concept.
If you tilt the can, and pour me out: is that tomato sauce covering me, or blood coming out of me? Abstractions.
I am a fish travelling in tins to various dinner places, and it’s tiresome to bleed when you are bitten into.
So yes, I am bleeding.
But I’m also home right now, healing, like the vampires in True Blood.
Yes, I have been watching True Blood,
but it’s also true that I took the school bus home last night. Only I’m not in school any more, and it’s not a bus either.
Fishy.