Saturday 27 February 2016

Hello, my name is Panic.

Hello, my name is Panic. I'm the constant heaviness in your mind that never leaves. The sweat from your palms and the trembling of your fingers. I'm the voice that tells you it'll never be okay. My words of torment stick like glue and can never be unstuck. We sleep together, in a tangled web of lies that I've spun and you feed on my deception, the way you would drink a cold soup. Sometimes you'll feel like I've left you. You will feel a sudden feeling of relief, and take one long breathe. But I always come back, I never really leave. I'm the ball in your throat and the harrowing heat that rushes through your body.  And late at night when you're lying in bed, surrounded by the chaos that I've created, I am the tears that roll down your red cheeks and pain that rises up your chest. When you try to scream I'll stop you, when you try to ignore me I'll make you listen. I bring upon you the unbroken feeling of worthlessness and belief that your world is ending. I am the loneliness that you fear countless times a day and the arms that will hold you down. Hello, my name is Panic.




Tuesday 9 February 2016

Butterflies

A little boy with bright blue eyes and a strange affinity for butterflies. He wondered off to the big green pastures watching the blue and black butterflies flutter before him.
He watched as the other children stomped around with their big nets, swiping into thin air, the butterflies moving in a mad frenzy, trying to escape the inevitable.
Over the years the grass became drier and the butterflies became fewer, but the little boy would still sit there, watching and waiting.
And just like a big net eventually catches up to a butterfly, age caught up with the little boy. over the years his hair went grey and his dark skin wrinkled like raisins. He sat in the dried and yellow grass that had once been so green and lay on his back, looking up at the bright blue sky. The breeze was soft against his pale cheeks and the sun was shining brightly into his eyes.
He took one last breathe as a little blue and black butterfly fluttered onto his nose. The old man smiled and closed his eyes, and the butterfly flew away.

May Juan Pedro Lamaison, rest in peace.


Wednesday 3 February 2016

Birdie

Newspapers sprawled across her bedroom floors and pinned to her creamy white walls. The faces of men and women, circled in red pen, pins through their foreheads. She walks into the bedroom wearing black from head to toe. All you can see is the darkness in her blue eyes.  Her name, is Birdie and she hunts the worst kind of people. She tugs off her balaclava and leather gloves , a bush of curly red hair is revealed, her skin freckled and scarred. She peels off her blood speckled clothes and hurls them onto her bed. Birdie opens the curtain, light dripping into the room, exposing the dust as it floats calmly in the air. She walks up to her decrepit cork board, tearing off the photo of an old man with balding hair and thin brown eyes, like a shark. His face is circled in red pen like all the others. She crosses out the man's face with black pen and places the photo inside her desk draw, along with the large pile of other crossed out people. Birdie saunters over to her laptop and switches her screen on, resting it on her lap. She prints out the document she had left open earlier and waits. A few moments later, her printer begins to whir to life. A page begins to appear, she rests her hands on her desk watching  intently the photo of a middle aged woman appears. Rounded with auburn hair and dark blue eyes, holding a nebulous gaze.
" You look familiar." Birdie remarks to herself as she gazes at the photo, baffled at the unexpected recognition she has with this woman.  Birdie grabs a pen from her desk and circles the woman's face, pressing her photo onto the cork board and stabbing the thin paper with a pin. Her screen lights up, an unopened message appears. Sender, unknown. 'Don't fly away Birdie, or I'll have to clip your wings."  It reads. She pounds the lid shut and pours her old coffee over the laptop. She's been found. Her bottom lip tremble, her hands uncontrollably shake.
"This can't be happening."
Birdie stands up and scans the room with urgency, she can't take much, they could already be on their way. She changes back into her bloody clothes and packs the vitals. gun, cash, pocket knife and most importantly... She scrambles toward the cork board and looks hard into the unreadable eyes of the auburn haired woman, ripping her photo off the pin and shoving it in her back pocket. She knew this day would come. She drops to her knees and pulls out a large petrol can, pouring it's contents over everything. The desk, the curtains, the cork board. Everything. She opens her desk draw and grabs her matchbox. She lights one match, and stares at the little orange flame, before she tosses it onto the petrol soaked carpet. It didn't take long before the flames spread but before they could reach her, Birdie had already disappeared. She had no time to wait. She is no longer the hunter, but the hunted...