I wonder and wonder if the more I study, the less sociable and articulate I become. It seems to be the case. I avoid interaction with people whenever I can. I keep to myself. I avoid the gaze of people. I’ve always attributed this to stress, but somewhere deep down I feel - I know - that it goes beyond such a simple reason.

Nothing is really that simple. Perhaps I always over-analyze, and consequently over-complicate, but tell me - who doesn’t? I can’t seem to think about much else other than the anatomy of the heart and the spaces within the abdominal cavity.

I wonder where the fluidity of my words past has gone. Has it shriveled and withered from my neglect? Or has it just been pushed aside to make room for dry jargon and mundane technicalities? 

I don’t know.

10:26 pm  •  9 May 2012  •  12 notes

I can’t explain the oscillating moods. Sometimes I feel like talking but other times - most of the time actually - I don’t even wish to speak a word. The growing turmoil within gnaws and gnaws and doesn’t relent. What will happen next I can’t say, because even I don’t know what is going on. 

11:13 pm  •  30 April 2012  •  3 notes

These bones I’ve hidden away, they’re only ever obscured from sight, but the painful memory of their existence can never be ablated. One misstep and the skeletons of mistakes past get yanked out for all to see. My shame, my incessant fear, my foolish infidelity. I want to lay down and yell for the hungry beasts to sink their teeth into my corrupted veins and tear through my dirty flesh until all but my bare bones remain. I don’t want any sympathy and I sure as hell don’t want any pity. I just want to be put through the agony I’ve put you through. Multiply it by five. Ten. Just stop hurting yourself and hurt me instead. 

11:26 am  •  24 November 2011  •  3 notes

I heard these mumblings in my head at around 9pm yesterday. They weren’t the people around me, I was absolutely sure. Of course, the library always has white noise and people whispering to each other in hushed voices and their idiosyncratic automatisms that sometimes manage to drive me fucking crazy, but my brain usually does a pretty good job at filtering most of it out effectively.

What I heard last night sounded like my own voice but also not really. The whispering was low and urgent and it reverberated in my head. The muttering wasn’t even comprehensible. It was gibberish. But I still heard it anyway. I think I just had too much studying for the day or the past couple of weeks to be honest. 

I hope I’m not going nuts.

9:48 am  •  7 November 2011  •  4 notes

Idle procrastination courses slowly through my weary veins and I find myself laying in bed, not at all wanting to lift a pencil, flip through pages of dreary notes or press my filthy earphones in to listen to hypnotic recordings of lectures. I want to be free, I want to fly, I want to be carefree and do as I damn please. My fascinated daydreams spring forth and leap in great bounds before my glassy eyes, smashing and knocking and bursting with effervescent vermilion and crimson and turquoise hues. They infuse my austere room with bright colors and vibrant life and soon my eyelids feel like a million tons so I succumb without much of a fight.

I tumble and I fall; my mind lolls and spins gently. The world slowly drains away into a deathly silence but a completely foreign sound quickly creeps back into my ears and crawls up my nerves. Crashing waves which I can almost feel ebbing and flowing and noisy seagulls squawking and bickering over their catch. Without any conscious effort or thought of my own, I swing my legs off the bed and slip my pale feet into the snug straw sandals which I could have sworn were not there a second ago. The room is still my room but it also isn’t and looks similar but different at the same time. How strange. But I shrug my shoulders and stand up anyway.

I am afraid to open the door fearing what I might find on the other side but a voice in my head urges me to twist the knob and pull the door open - so I do. A light, salty breeze wafts in and caresses my skin, gently beckoning me outside to the rattan chair on the balcony facing the majestic sea.

What is this place? It’s so peaceful and I want to stay here forever. 

Then it all hits me - I’m dreaming. I’m finally dreaming after weeks and weeks of interrupted sleep and stressed out nights I am finally dreaming! And empowered with that wonderful bit of information, I capitalize and stretch my mind out far, far away towards the stunning horizon.

10:44 pm  •  28 September 2011  •  9 notes

The highball sat innocuously in its shimmering crystal glass, a curious juxtaposition upon the barren and pockmarked bar top. The owner of the drink absentmindedly swirled the spirit and took little sips between dreamy observations while people-watching as he did every Wednesday night at Bar 121: 

There was the obnoxious businessman with his ludicrously coiffed hair, ostentatious suit and the hyperinflated sense of self-worth one could spot from miles away, hovering at the far end of the bar. He was persistently trying to make moves on his obviously disinterested prey. And she was trying to very animatedly swat him away like one would a really annoying fly to make her point clear.

Take a fucking hint moron and leave her alone.

Then there was the young lady in the burgundy dress sitting alone in the middle of the dank pub with rejection written all over her melancholic face. She was strangely attractive with her head of luscious jet-black hair and oriental features buried behind her sorrows. The expression on her face, however, made it looked like she had been hit by a figurative train. All traces of what must have once been a beautiful smile eluded her elfin face.

God, it’s tragic just to even look at her. 

He took another sip of his Scotch and felt the smooth liquid slip down his throat and burn a satisfying path straight to his stomach. 

It’s too bad, really. Oh, well…

Suddenly the girl turned to him as if she’d heard his thoughts and gave him a puzzled look. She deliberated for a few seconds before finally standing up and swiftly downing her drink. Then, she strode across the room towards him, all the while holding his gaze intensely with her smoky hazel eyes. 

Oh, fuck. 

11:23 pm  •  3 September 2011  •  8 notes

The house beside mine is roaring with adolescent taunts and inebriated dares. It brims with exclamations of intoxicated excitement as the booming bass resonates through the dewy air. Thump thump thump. The night is only ever young when seventeen year-olds derive decadent pleasure from watching their peers pull off miscalculated stunts.

Another coordinated cry of exhilaration erupts from the darkness outside. I wonder what might be so funny that they cackle with hearty laughter loud enough for the entire street to hear. 

The night is cold, the sky is weeping and I am facing the computer as I always do whenever I’m not otherwise occupied with a yellowed book, my battered phone, the droning television or my crinkled stacks of physiology lecture notes.

I’m alone in my room and nothing has changed physically: The cup is exactly where I’ve left it. The table lamp still slumps at that sorry angle like it had resigned to its unfortunate fate of having to illuminate my scribbled notes for hours on end, day after day, for the rest of its life. My bin is just as overloaded as it was two hours ago after I’ve force-fed it with crumpled flyers and chocolate tinfoil packaging. 

Everything tangible has remained the same.

My mind, however, seems to have taken on a subtly different persuasion. I don’t crave for company as I had before. I don’t stress out about the deadlines of assignments looming in the days to come. I don’t feel the slightest hint of sadness. It is simply at peace tonight.

I’m alone, but I’m not lonely, for I have George Orwell to occupy my thoughts, and the splendid performance by Queensland Ballet that I’ve had the pleasure of watching tonight to reminisce upon. 

11:22 pm  •  27 August 2011  •  8 notes

Your smiling hazel eyes and gleaming upturned lips can fool the world but they can’t fool me. I see right through that halcyon mask that you so delicately weave over your ravaged scars and tumultuous past. 

‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine’, I catch you muttering and I hear you chanting when you think no one watches and no one hears. 

Then, tell me this: Why are those eyes so empty? The depths of despair into which they plunge frightens me so much. How is it that you have managed to layer yourself in sorrow upon aching sorrow, that you’re now trapped as you are, yet you don’t wish to move an inch because it is only in pain you feel safe?

I can’t fix you, can I?

No, don’t try. Please don’t try because everyone who did, left, and it hurts like splintered stakes driven through my bleeding heart. The pain is so profound it seeps into every fiber of my being, permeates every cell of my withered and wasted body. I don’t want to go through it again. I don’t want to lose another to the twisted, pathetic and desolate excuse of my ruined mind.

Just be my friend and don’t forget to call out my name, because I fear I’ll vanish into thin air when no one notices my existence, when no one simply remembers me.

A teardrop the size of a bead rolled down Lauren’s face. The gaunt features staring back at her in the shimmering mirror seem suddenly so alien…

11:36 pm  •  23 August 2011  •  44 notes

For no apparent reason at all - or at least none which I can think of - I was paid an unwelcome visit by loneliness today. That old, wizened acquaintance who always seems to find me at the most unexpected of times. That companion who never fails to drain me dry of my energy and fill in its place a melancholy and sadness so deep it aches right down to my washed out bones.

I miss my friends and the soothing comfort of being at home, the only place where I feel like I belong. I miss Toby (my border collie) and all of his hyperactive obnoxiousness and endearing idiosyncrasies. But most of all, I miss my family, particularly my little sister, who isn’t so very little any longer for she has turned sixteen and is growing to be quite the fine young adult. 

Perhaps it’s the gloomy weather which has cloaked Brisbane in quiescent shades of grey undertones that is filling me with an infinite and heartaching melancholy. It somehow reminds me of a dormant creature nestled in a dreamy and wintry slumber. 

I wonder when it will finally be rudely awakened and tear open the heavy dirty clouds to let the tears of angels cascade and pour down upon the earth and wash away the mistakes and regrets of yesterday. I’m actually looking forward to the freshly fallen rain and its wonderful smell on worn-down concrete pavements. 

The picture you see above is one of me celebrating my tenth birthday with my family, and somehow, in all of my loneliness, I managed a smile as I stared at it. A genuine and sincere smile for it brought me back to that wonderful moment where my monochrome memories played out with vivid clarity and brilliant technicolor.

And I don’t feel like I’m alone anymore, even if I have to spend my next five birthdays without them. 

8:34 pm  •  22 August 2011  •  11 notes

The bittersweet air prickled my skin as I burst through the tiled passageway.

My breath was caught in my chest and seemed to be stoppered by the plug of what I registered faintly as unadulterated fear. I can feel every molecule of my blood course through my frayed and worn out veins. I can hear my poor heart thumping, fighting with every beat to keep my blistered feet aloft. Most frightening of all, I can sense my imminent demise lurking in the shadows with his vicious scythe dripping with my - soon to be - blood. 

Their footfalls sounded oddly distant, but I knew it was only my mind playing tricks on me. Comforting me. Even at a time like this it choose to let me down gently, almost out of pity. They are hot on my heels - the once hollow thuds became reverberating echoes leaping down the time rotted walls, aiming and seeking for the jugular.

My jugular… BANG!

The ceramic tiles to my right shattered into a million tiny fragments as the lead projectile mushroomed and ricocheted with a splitting ping. 

Garbled intonations and jerky inflections were roared from their fanged mouths as they yelled in a foreign tongue I knew nothing of. Their tones grew more impatient, more urgent, more livid. 

I took the steps ahead three at a time about to reach the top, the enchanting fresh air tempting and beckoning, when my foot caught the protruding concrete.

Fuck.

I floated. I tumbled. I fell through molasses as timed slowed to a standstill and I saw my favorite childhood memory in vivid clarity. Before I knew it their maniacal looks and demented grins hovered over me and the gleaming barrel was the last image I registered when an ear-shattering bang brought my world to an equally deafening silence.

A brilliant burning white…followed by a bottomless black.

10:43 pm  •  20 August 2011  •  4 notes