Shiver In My Spine

Fear can be described in many ways, but as most dictionaries put it:
“a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.”

Fear is one of the greatest tools known to mankind, but is mainly known on the basis of being a weapon. It’s a weapon that was never given an official name and isn’t official recognised as a weapon. But it is the psychological equivalent of an atom bomb, capable of destroying hundreds upon thousands of lives in the mere mutter of a couple of words.

Fear is the voice on the other end of the telephone, saying “I know where you live”, fear is the bump in the night that makes you wonder what it was, and fear is what keeps you from looking into the dark, to forever discover shelter in the light. Fear is instinctive, one of our most primal recognitions, it’s that alarm in your head saying ‘not to go there’, and it’s the pump the fuels adrenaline into your body, making your heart beat so loud it drowns out your thoughts. Fear varies, whether it be standing up in front of a crowd to give a speech, or fleeing from a knife wielding psychopath. It tells you to stay away; it does the handy work of the mind, being the minds manager making sure nothing harms it. So it gives you a feeling of apprehension, making you aware that you are in danger of coming to harm, it doesn’t matter whether it be mental or physical, and it will attempt to stop you.

Fear is so abundant, mankind has even categorized it, simplifying it down to ones most dreaded fear, varying to a fear of open spaces, known as Agoraphobia, to a fear of spiders, known as Arachnophobia. But what I ask is what the name for a fear of time is. The undying fear of what’s to come, the fear of what tomorrow shall bring.

For my fear lies here, I find myself up at the early hours of the morning , not going to bed to when ‘late’ becomes ‘early ‘, and night becomes day. For my fear is a subconscious fear, for how can one avoid time, numbers with meaning attached to them. But it’s better to say that I fear change, for one’s own world to warp beyond recognition. I did not learn this until recently.

For I wouldn’t be able to comprehend how my world would collapse in on itself and regrown as something else, all within a year.

Looking back I thought that 2007 would be a lucky year, a year I would never forget, and I was right about one thing at least. Within that year, I fell through a door that accelerated my artistic skills further ahead within less than three months, than I had ever improved with the previous decade. My ideal place of refuge was blown out the door, in the processes I lost memories that had multiplied and spawned as inanimate objects. My kingdom of refuge was torn away from my grasp, for I was never to set foot in it again. My fear began to multiply with the feeling of utter dread at the start of a new year, a new beginning, a new person . . .

A new Fear.

In All Of Us

I am an artist – not because I dream of glory or fame – those mean nothing to me now.

I am an writer not because I wish to master language, though as writer that is important for me, but because once upon a thousand times, I fell in love. Since then my life has not been without words.

I am a musician because as a lady I have decided to strive for one thing – to be alive – to live a life that means something, and singing is a way to keep myself accountable – if I’m not living, I’m not creating.

If I can’t write music, it must be because I am not pursuing life passionately enough. Writing at this point in my life, is life, just as drawing or painting once was, and I hope is again one day. The only life worth living is a life worth writing about. If you wouldn’t want to read a book about your own life, I’d venture to say you’re dead already, and I’d put forth the question, what are you living for? Is this narcissistic? Maybe . . .

We live in a dead and dying world – we walk and talk and work with dead people – living dead lives. The only way one can truly write something that means something is to go to great lengths to either live, or great lengths to die. To be mediocre, is to be forgotten. To be mediocre, is to be no one. To be mediocre, is to be mere dust blowing in the wind, dirt between your toes, sand on a beach somewhere.

Thank you for raping me of everything I hold dear.

It's never your fault.

Another Mile

My sister has always got on my case about referring to perfume, as perfume. She tells me it’s vulgar.

Get her!

Apparently, ladies who have been raised correctly call it scent. She knows I wasn’t raised correctly, she was there after all. I was dragged up by the lapels of my Woolworths strait jacket, and so was she.

I'd like more choices. Two aren't enough.

When I choose not to decide no one listens.

He had the road maps on his ass. I just didn't care to follow it. Now I don't know where I am, except that no one else is here. I shunned those little conformitys. And now I've been shunned by the bigger ones.

I think God sells lemonade on the side of the road, in wooden stands. Out of plastic pitchers like any child would. Broke and naive to the conditions of humanity. I think God is the big bad wolf in all those faerie tales where children get eaten. Let's cut his belly open - save them!

Save everyone!

From the paranoia - The hysteria of those that would try to control us.

I think love isn't that different. Serving best only those that would abuse it. Taking advantage of the rest.

I think I'm thirsty and I'll gladly buy any one's lemonade. Including Gods- if it could cure my thirst.

But I'm just silly like that, I need results.

Sleep Demon

I sat down and had a good think about things and my emotions were ranging through every aspect of the spectrum. And without giving it much conscious attention, I walked over to the wall where my guitar was hanging and took it down.

It was dusty.

For some reason, this surprised me.

All the dust floated off when I started playing it so all was well and by the time I was ready to go to sleep I had a new song in the tank. I was rhyming words without thinking about it and, given the subject matter, it was my frustration with my situation that really brought my art back to the surface. I'm thankful for that.

Bear's Lunch

That certain tightness, right there, right in the middle of your chest, you swear it's your heart clanging around, beating itself against your rib cage, which is reflexively trying to contain it. Makes it a little tough to breathe. I thought things were getting better, but it seems reality is making things worse. I thought the numbness was going before, but now I realise that was just the complete shock wearing off. Look at that landscape, the fog of denial gives way to the chasms of depression, the sky is gray and the ground is bare. Being objectively lost in the wilderness is fun.

love and hate

Two supposedly diametrically opposed concepts, so why then do I flip back and forth between the two. Each flip is like a strong electric current getting close enough to create a huge arcing spark.

Heavy Heart

My heart feels like it wants to plunge through my diaphragm, slip down my left leg and rest by itself on the floor. It is literally tugging, pulling, downward. I keep having these thoughts. When I say keep I mean perpetually smashing themselves vigorously onto the inside of my mind not allowing me to think much else. The most insidious is that thought that somehow if I could put the parts back together everything would be alright.

Of course this is surrounded by techniques for getting this to happen. Even worse the brain decides to build a detailed story board of how the reunification will take place, and then how wonderful it will all be. This is obviously absurd fantasy and the rational mind screams all the while that this road is a dead end track with cliff of fatal proportions waiting at the end. It is only inevitable that you do eventually go sailing off this cliff back into the abyss of despair. I'm still working out how best to avoid this road, or at the very least conduct a u-turn. In the mean time writing it out in odd metaphors seems to at least have a short term positive effect.

Sweet Lemons

I've been thinking a lot about dreams lately. I've always been a self-professed day dreamer. I much prefer to spend my time dreaming about all the wonderful things I could be doing than wallowing in the pit of remorseful regret that is so damned easy to fall into.

I've been in that pit many times in my life, but it's always so much more fun living in a land of dreamy dreams than it is facing the harsh reality of what your life is. So much more giddy excitement dancing with women you've never met than moping about all the dances you left by.

The problem I have come to realise with dreams is that they are malicious little bastards.

Looking back on my life now I wish I had come to this conclusion a year ago. It is all well and good having a dream, just as long as you never ever ever try to solidify this dream into reality. You may want something badly enough, you may desire to be somewhere with every beat of your heart, yearn to change the very essence of your being...whatever your fantasy, I've come to the conclusion that it is better to leave it as just that.

However hard you try; no matter how many sacrifices you make; regardless of how much work you do to get those dreams close enough to hug whilst copping a furtive bum squeeze - something will happen to stop it.

Triggers suck. That one little smell, word, object and situation that has you fighting your past with full on effort. There are days when my triggers seem to have very little power but then there are others where something that seems so insignificant on the surface brings flashbacks that leave marks on my soul.

Help me escape . . .