Love cats

In Abyssinia we met as cats
Watched soft rain plop
tails swishing beneath a Palladian.
In plague scourged London
we scurried havoc, I was the
flea on your black rat’s back.
You held a door for me in Tokyo.
Our silhouettes danced when Magi fires burned.
We knew each other before we had names,
time together is breathing.

You were the rock pool, sun warm,
a child of aeons past I paddled in.
But I will never be the first snowdrop in Spring.
And you will never be the burning,
of fingers reawakening from the cold.

Does love seek,
the devastation, of a smashed Faberge egg,
the twist, of a knife blade in the innards,
Or the lulling eternity of a shell housed sea?

What I write about

Going back over bits of my writing to post for this blog was interesting, I was looking for things that I knew I wouldn't be entering into competitions, because they weren't good enough, and also because I was no longer comfortable with how they represented me, my thoughts and my interests.

(obviously a substandard representation of myself in this blog is better than none)

They say that a person's first novel is autobiographical.  My novel and indeed a clutch of the short stories I'd written before it concern themselves with childhood, mainly the powerlessness of children, the frustration of that lack of voice that is prototypical and how the concerns of children can be trivialised, belittled by adults who are too engrossed in their own affairs (full synopsis of my novel to come in a future post).

I am currently editing a second draft of the novel, it's heavy work, it's far too long, and I spent too much time perfecting each chapter as an entity in itself without knowing how it would then need to be cut with reference to the overall flow.  Each sentence cut is a real slaughter of darlings.  Added to that I don't want to write about childhood anymore, I want to write about love (or knowing me the lack thereof)!

The first novel happened by accident, no planning, no deliberation, it just flowed out and I let it, I wanted to see what would happen.  For that reason it has some major flaws that I would like to address in any second novel, particularly pertaining to saleability.  For instance it is not meant to be YA but the ages of the characters indicate that it should be, as does the element of magic.

I read Margaret Atwood's Life Before Man a few months ago and I had my own idea for a similiar novel.  Similiar in that it would be about the close dynamic between two couples and their intertwining relationships, the wrong woman with the wrong man for instance, and different in that it would also be like the movie Young Adult in that the protagonists are in a state of arrested development.  This is fairly typical of me and everyone I know so it should be no bother writing it.

I wanted to start it for NanoWriMo but so far life as intervened and I am at 8,500 words behind.  I'm realising I don't have time to both edit and write afresh at the moment so I'm going to have to shelve one effort... for now.

Notes on Love (or the lack thereof):

“I miss you isn’t just some platitude you know, it’s a state of existence, and not a particularly pleasant one at that.”

“The inner emptiness you were supposed heal became as cold and deep as ever as soon as I sat down on that bus.  At least the emptiness has a distinctive shape now.  You are my metaphysical jigsaw piece. Or something.

“Train journey was crap.  Didn't bring anything to read or listen to so I had to just sit there, fully aware of the fact that I was travelling further and further away from you.”

“What do you dance to when you dance alone in the kitchen?”

“What do I do to make sure that what was brought by serendipity doesn't disappear from my life as suddenly as it appeared?”

“Back to work, back to routine, but everything is different, like slow motion or something.  Don't want to do anything else except think about you, so I'm not having a very productive day.  No, my routine won't make me forget you.  But you do make me remember that this is all nothing more than a crap meaningless routine and I won't be able to submerge myself entirely again because there is an outside of routines where you exist. 

Like "The Matrix" heh heh - "You've always felt there was something wrong with the world around you." But I guess that's what I need.  You make me want to care.”

“I’ve told you things that I’ve never told anyone else.  Some things that go on inside my head that no-one else would have an inkling about.  And you know what?  If there is no ‘us’, if it doesn’t happen after all, then I’m going to lock those things in my head forever and do what I can to forget about them.  If you’re not the one to share this part of me, then I really don’t think there could be anyone else.  I’ll just pretend to be normal and get on with my life.”

“I want you and come as close as an atheist can to praying that you’ll want me too.”

"I had an urge, desire, need, call it what you like, to speak to you, but I'd no idea what I wanted to say.  Really.  Literally, I had nothing to say to you."

"After the massacre of the versions of each other that we’ve been carrying in our heads, I think I’d like the you that was left."

 "Why can’t my body and brain get along?  My body is screaming for sleep, but my brain obviously dislikes shutting down.  Maybe it’s afraid of not booting up again."

"I could ever know enough about you (you may want to commit that to memory for ammunition purposes when we fight and I accuse you of boring and incorrigible egocentricity)"
 "I’m left with this feeling of existential emptiness, like being hollow inside.  And I wallow in it.  I’ve spent the day lying on my bed, the ceiling fading in and out of focus and my interior monologue bordering on the surreal in my semi-conscious state.  This is when I feel an absence.  I feel better."

“I know I'm selfish.  I like it that way.”

“This morning I came out of sleep really slowly, lay in this lethargic haze for as long as I could sustain without waking up properly.  You were in my arms.  Not a dream, but a semi-conscious awareness.  I held on as long as I could, until I had to open my eyes and the bed was empty.  It’s not enough that you occupy my waking hours, is it?”

Well balls, the author just realised she only thinks of love as the start of the relationship.  Oh dear!

This is the kind of wanky shite I imagine Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy were spouting at each other in Before Sunrise and After Sunset