Four.

I can feel the too close thump of footsteps

not walking but tap tapping to the beat-

the heart the beat the drum beat-

Van's TB Sheet.

That ghost that whisper

the irony of death and love

a Love that loves to love

the love that loves.

That piano, the notes falling

that voice that tremor

the passion the sex the sax the tenor.

The low the ultimate low

the ghostly shiver

a pit a hole no light

just a thin slither.

There's hope there's gloria

Patti's pissing in a river

and there are those footsteps

that silvery whisper.

There's always those thoughts

like running water

like a trickling tap

like a silent slaughter.

There are four souls

in the misty night

a white nightgown,

a flickering light.

There are things I tell no one,

things about life -

About me, about them,

my thoughts cut like a knife.

There are things I've forgotten,

things I want more

It would make your hair curl -

to see what I saw.

There's the past behind me

and that's set in stone

and then there's the future

My life, my home.

If home is where the heart is

then I'll never feel truly alone

because with those four souls

I'll always find my home.

666

She has this really sarcastic smirk; it’s pretty much always there. People mistake it for smugness – or they think she’s about to sneeze or something. Really it’s just her amusement at everything in the world. She never really laughs or smiles at anything, but you can tell she thinks a lot of things are funny. Just not funny to laugh at or smile at. She’s actually really smart, a lot smarter then me, and you can tell she’s really smart just by looking at her because she always looks like she’s thinking about something. But she never really says what she’s thinking about, probably because most people wouldn’t understand what she thinks about anyway. She sort of thinks on another level if you know what I mean. She sort of acts like she hates everyone and everything but I don’t think she really does. I don’t think she’s depressed or anything I think she just doesn’t see the point in laughing and joking and doing stuff like that, she sort of just likes to sit in a conversation and not really say anything and listen to the other people talk and she occasionally says ‘hmm’ or ‘yeah’. You can tell she’s smirking on the inside though, smirking about the dumb things people say. I don’t think she’s ever said a dumb thing in her life. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without a cigarette in her hand either. I say dumb things all the time but she never really smirks at me. She sort of just hangs out in grungy little café’s and bars and drinks whiskey and watches people around her. I hate whiskey but I guess it sort of suits her. Anyway, she just sort of watches people and listens to people. She writes a lot of short stories and poems and stuff. I don’t really understand them though. They’re sort of about sex and death and stuff. Anyway that’s pretty much her. She says she wants to change her name to Ingrid, and Ingrid’s a cool name I guess but if I was going to change my name I’d pick something a little better then Ingrid. But that’s just her.

This house.

The cool night air. The distant hum of movement and life, far away. A tap drips. A light flickers. There’s no breath and no life, no movement and no soul. No energy, no feeling, there’s nothing. It’s quiet. It’s still. This house is old, the house is lifeless, this house has nothing left to give, there’s nothing left to take. It’s fading, it’s transparent, it’s nothing.

so happy so sad.

I have this friend who had a baby recently. She loves her baby so much, so much she cries about it. She says that she loves her daughter so much that it hurts, and all she wants in the world is for her daughter to be happy – and the thought that her daughter could one day be unhappy makes her so sad she could just die. She told me that she wants her daughter to have a wonderful happy life – yet there’s always a chance that something could make her daughters life less perfect and less happy, for reasons outside her control, and that makes her so sad she just cries.

Her daughter loves her back too, I can tell. Whenever I hold her, she cries and cries until her mum gently takes her back, then she smiles and laughs in her little baby giggle and her chubby little hands intertwine with her mums hair and they look so happy together, so happy and perfect – the thought of either of them ever being sad or ever being angry at each other or hating each other or hurting each other just makes me want to cry. The thought that one-day my friend will die, and her baby wont have a mum, that just makes me so sad I could cry for days. This baby doesn’t have a dad, so it’s really just her and her mum, and they’re just so happy together, so happy and perfect.

Sometimes I sit outside and have a cigarette while my friend and her baby sit inside, I can see them through the window as I sit outside in the cold, my friend and her baby, they just giggle and look into each others eyes with so much love and happiness and perfection, they both glow with happiness, and it makes me so sad I could just die.

Something i never bothered to finish.

I’d never met Jane’s parents before. I’d never been to the house she grew up in, or even in the suburb she grew up in. We drove past dull suburbia, sad corner shops and scummy petrol stations. Her beat up station wagon made a comforting purring noise. Jane was the type of person who was always happy, and even when she was sad or angry she was still happy. It was nice.

It was growing dim, the faint clouds along the horizon turned pink and orange. The air was warm and heavy as it washed over my face, I leant out the car window and watched the gravel crunch under the tires as we turned into the driveway.

Jane’s old house was sad and lonely. She told me that there used to be houses on either side of it, but they’d both been knocked down. It looked out of place, sitting there by itself, all weatherworn and grey. The windows looked like tired eyes, the door a sunken mouth.

I started walking towards the front door but Jane motioned me to follow her around the back. We were there to collect some of her old things, things she’d left behind years ago. I don’t know why she suddenly wanted them.

The back fence was rusty and loud, as it slowly swung open; I followed Jane as she lead me through a winding path of weeds and children’s toys, a rusting swing set creaked as the wind had its way with the worn metal. I imagined the ghosts of pink cheeked, bright-eyed children swinging back and forth.

floorboards would be better.

There was the time I didn’t want my parents to know I’d had a party, so I hid all the rubbish under my bed. In amongst this rubbish was a bottle of orange juice with no lid and hence was the first stain of many on my parent’s beloved, graying, awful carpet. There was the time I was sick and fell asleep in Sarah’s bed, so she slept on the couch with a bottle of wine. She cleaned most of it up but if you move the couch so much as an inch from it’s position, you can clearly see the milky purple/red colour; the result of a failed attempt at cleaning. There was the time I was so hungry I ate my bowl of cereal whilst getting dressed. I didn’t even bother to clean it; I just moved my bedside table over it. There was the time Kate was drunk and spilt her vodka/coke next to the bookshelf, and cried when I told her she had to clean it. There was the time someone spilt a glass of wine on the carpet after the formal, though we cleaned that up pretty well with an old sheet. There were the multiple times Zoe decided to urinate next to the glass doors in the lounge room; if at first you don’t see it, you’ll definitely smell it. There was the time I impersonated Joey from Friends by piling spaghetti on the carpet. It was a good idea in theory. There was the time Kira missed the ashtray, and again, and again. There was the time I knocked over the ashtray; and again. There was the time I drunkenly kicked the bottle of passion pop, and then used an old dress to mop it up. Then attempted to wear the dress the next day. To my grandma’s funeral. I’m glad you told me not to. Of course there are probably many more times, but those are the times I remember.

The junkie who wasn't a junkie.

“Why do you pretend?” I asked. “Because it gives me street cred”, she replied. “How so?” I inquired. “Because it makes me seem tough”, she responded. “But why do you want to seem tough?”, I questioned. “Because I’m not tough.”, she stated.