She sits in a fragrant garden watching the faces of the people around her. Her eyes in that face in the corner, her smile shining back at her in the glow of the flickering candlelight. She lights another cigarette, conscious that the quiet girl, face hidden, is silently counting her repetitive drag, inhale, exhale. She sucks the smoke down deep into her lungs, feels the gurgling wheeze smother the rising anxiety.

It’s hot under the jasmine, the bougainvillea branches. She is trying to stay with the conversation, following the slippery snake turns. She can’t concentrate. His feet walked up those steps. Did he trip up them quickly barefoot, or quietly in soft rubber soled shoes? All the lights are on in the house and she wonders which room was his. Where did he sleep? Did he wake up in sunlight or in the shadow of the apartment building next door. She smiles and nods politely. They are all wanting to talk to her. To ask her. To tell her. To show her. All trying to get her attention, to find out her story, the missing years. All twenty of them unwinding at once. ‘We don’t want to upset you’, they keep murmuring between the probing. Don’t they know they are forcing the scabs? Setting off the absence and the missing and the wondering and the acrid taste of not knowing. She answers as best as she can. Sometimes they piss her off and she can’t quite keep the edge out of her voice.

The older woman, all grey hair and plump softness makes her way over to where she sits. Holds out her hand, tentatively. She wants to let her know that it is ok to touch her, that behind the face that makes the older woman cry is a younger woman who misses. She can’t bring herself to relax her body, to ease herself into an embrace. To submit to it. She feels herself stiffen, she knows how this will be interpreted. Cold, unwilling, unforgiving, distant. It is inability. She has wanted it for so long, she doesn’t know how to let it in. She can’t trust this new offer. She doesn’t believe the quiet whispering:

‘We’ve been looking for you for so long.’

‘We always asked about you.’

‘Please let us know you.’

She offers them too loud reassurances of future time travelling. She’s suprised that her mouth forms all the right words when really, all she wants to do is scream at them. They birthed her this way. Sucked her up and swallowed her whole. Their spittle hardened her edges. Fuck them. She was never that hard to find. If they’d really wanted to.

She feels a bead of sweat slowly trickle it’s path between her breasts. She knows her questions will remain unanswered and that none of this was worth it. They’ve just given her something new to miss.

Photograph by Jim

Somewhere there is beauty.

Somewhere she hums a tune.

Somewhere I lost my place in a classroom.

Once, I sat, too long by your side. The smell of the sea on my hands as they sat fidgeting nervous in my lap. I watched your too long springy curls graze your neck and I envied them their proximity to you. Their licence. To touch, to feel, to be, to know. Once, I sat on my hands and stifled the urge to feel your honey gold wisps soft between my fingers. I learnt to crumble under the weight of you. To like the impatience in your fingertips. Once, when I sat too close to you and for too long, I heard the sound of my laughter and was surprised to find that I still could.

Somewhere there was a time.

Time circles above, loops, hovers and comes back to ask me questions. It returns to poke at my edges. Like you do. Like you always have. Because I let you. I invite you with my song and with my longing and with my memory and with my rotten cold heart.

Here there is a game that I won’t play. There are too many spectators, and you keep changing the rules.

This is not beautiful. It is immovable and stale. Here there is nothing, no tongues flick over coffee lips. There is no beer breath. There is no night. There is no touch and there is no ease. There is no singing.

I dont want to measure my words, and I do not want to count. I have no rhythm - no melody to offer. Only quiet shoulders hunched in the lying dark.

Benched by Jim

I find keys. Single, old, ornate keys. I find them often. Sometimes in odd places, but, more often on the sidewalk or underneath a table in a library cafe. Single, shining, silver keys. Or - rusty, intricate bronze keys. I furtively slip them into my pockets. Silently drop them into my bag. Or - snatch them up, curl my fingers around them, try to absorb their cool secrets, and wonder where they belong. I collect them. They sit in a bowl on a table, in my bedroom. Each time I find one I buy a lock. Keep them together. Serve their purpose. Mainly I forget about them. Don’t notice them. They don’t unlock anything in me.

Somewhere there’s a boy with a song.

Somewhere he sleeps and does not think of me.

I hold him frozen in my shutter. Between my fingers. If I squint my eyes, I see him. Captured. Longing. Of mine.

Photograph by Ul Marga

Because sometimes, believing that it’s all going to end up ok - is all that I’ve got.

Anyway.

In an effort to spend some time not looking back in order to avoid looking forward - mosaic fun with Flickr, via the brilliant read that is Schmutzie.

Method:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below using Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLS for your chosen image into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a   picture mosaic of the answers.

Ingredients:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food, right now?
3. Which high school did you got to?
4. What is your favourite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favourite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favourite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word that describes you?
12. What is your flickr name?

You will need a flickr account to make your own mosaic.