I Hate This Flower

I hate this flower. Whoever created it needs a thorough dressing down. I can't look at it for more than a few seconds before the stirrings of a migraine are felt. Scientists at a medical hospital in Harvard University discovered that the hue which aggravates migraines most lies somewhere between red and blue, and the hue which not only doesn't make migraines worse, but can lessen their intensity by 20%, is green. Making this flower in the greenhouse a complete arsehole. Poison which lives surrounded by its antidote. Earlier this afternoon I brought some dirty clothes down into the kitchen to be washed, and from of the corner of my eye spotted a recipe book for smoothies on the side of the worktop which was the same garish colour as the flower of evil in the greenhouse. I just remarked out loud to no one really...

"God....Another one! I really hate that colour."

My mum was also in the kitchen at the time, and took my comment a bit to heart I thought, which was odd, and then almost began sticking up for this smoothie recipe book like my comments might have caused it offence! :D

"Well why do you have to look at the book then? Just go about your business instead of hating it", she stated.

"It's not the book that I hate. It's the colour. I hate things that colour"

"You shouldn't just hate something because of its colour. The book had no say. That's racist!"

"It's not racist! I can justify my hate for this colour because each time I warmly accept it through my eyes it gifts me a splitting headache for no reason. The colour is the one being aggressive here, not me! It's impossible NOT to see a book wearing a colour like that. It wants all of the attention, all of the time. And it's so exhausting on your mind to be in the presence of anyone or anything that continually asks you to notice them. Eventually, mental fatigue has to show up as the only thing capable of saving your sanity by numbing the effects of being mauled to death by magenta.

And its foolish people like me who feel the obligation to reassure colours that were born to shock, that we haven't forgotten they exist, whether they have taken residence in a flower or a in smoothie recipe book, in a clown's wig or a magician's waistcoat... - we, the chromatically naive fools of this world shall continue to extend our supportive gaze towards these painful pinks and promptly pay the price, being repaid in piercing pain for our dutiful efforts...

Well I say, no more!!! To hell with hues that live lives like that!

"Hey buddy!.... Yeah, you! Come over here for a second. I wanna tell you something... Say, how do you like that deep throbbing pain behind your eyes that should be kicking in right about.....now?"

"You really enjoy watching me suffer don't you, you dazzling little shit!". Although my expression had retained its indifference, he'd finally managed to get under my skin. A slight growl to my whisper had given it away as I sat staring at his eyes of pure fuschia, wondering why anyone would ever have a need to design a colour so....

"BEN!!! OK!! OK! I have things I need to do today", mum shouted.

"Before you go back upstairs don't forget to take the belt out of your jeans before putting them in the washing machine please"

Perception Vs Reality

I Think Of You

i think of you as a spirit
which wandered in confused
from another realm
searching this world
for its perfect compliment
to explore possibilities
of life lived together
through the other's eyes

and once the it finds what it needs
it returns
to the spirit world
fused to the love it found
complete

A Dream

So, it's a very old dream, which has stayed with me for some time now, and it has gotten a bit rusty as I've never really tried to explore it properly or take time to articulate it through words before. There's no preamble or intro, just straight into the crucial scene, although I guess there is a bit of suspense to a degree.

I'm 9, possibly younger.... hmmm.... this is quite difficult - accessing the dream as fully as I'd like.... I'm trying to recollect the bedroom I had at the time to evoke more than just the dream, if possible.... If it was in Ashley Street then my bedroom had a very strange vibe to it. Very cold, musty and dark, and I think that may have facilitated the nightmares as a kid which prompted mum to get a priest around to exorcise my demons! I do remember flashes of waking up in the middle of the night, scared and screaming out for either mum or dad, it didn't bother me which one came. And they'd have to climb in bed with me and stay there for a while. They were probably very uncomfortable too, perched awkwardly in my single bed until I fell asleep again.


I'd found myself standing in a big white enamel bath, dressed in the brown robes of a monk. They were weighty robes, made from hard-wearing material but I don't remember them irritating my skin. I was stood in the lower half, towards the plug hole and I could see a huge crocodile facing me at the opposite end - a very well fed and meaty fucker! - aware of my presence, but in no way in a rush to hurry over. He began sauntering towards me, his scaly belly rubbing against the enamel floor, which produced unpleasant abrasive vibrations I could feel in my feet at the other end. There was a sense of inevitability brewing. Like my demise had already been determined and I was to just here to watch it play out in this dream.


As soon as I caught wind of this design I began to panic, immediately trying to call upon some dormant mystical power within that could get me out of there, or materialise a weapon with which I could kill the croc. But I remember the sinking feeling knowing that neither of these options would be available to me. I wouldn't be able to draw upon any external source to aid my escape. I was powerless, and the cause of my end was a lot closer now, steadily advancing at the same ominous pace - the vibrations underfoot and atonal sounds of the croc's scraping belly really jarring my insides. The crocodile seemed content for me to take as much time as I needed to exhaust all possible escape plans, because it knew all were futile.

By this point I was balancing tentatively on the grating in the middle of the plughole as attempts to climb up the sides all resulted in my sliding gently back down towards it.

Then a realisation about what I should do came to me. What I was most afraid of was not being rendered dead, but the indignity of dying in this way - excruciating pain and my desperate screams for help reverberating in a cold sterile chamber as the crunching and popping of my bones in the crocodile's jaws violated my ears with a quality which was beyond intimately vivid. No fucking way can I let this happen! So I detached my mind from my body. Disconnected the two somehow. It was only when I needed to that I knew how to. I relinquished my body to the crocodile while I remained present as spirit, conscious of what was taking place around me, but not physically connected. Uncoupled from all pain. I could hear the grunting and wheezing as the crocodile devoured my flesh wrapped in bloodied robes - but the flesh nor the robes belonged to me anymore. The crocodile was just eating something, and I was free to go.