allegoryofapril

[allegoryofapril]

My shoes have a hole in them and they’re now incredibly uncomfortable to wear. 

But don’t you see? Don’t you see all the places these shoes have taken me? I cannot just throw them out! I will wear them until they are shredded and torn. Until my feet are bruised and blistered and maimed. I will not let my shoes go. How can I? What a betrayal that would be! To just throw them away? As if I didn’t treasure them, take them everywhere with me. Now they mean nothing, because of one fault? No matter that they hurt me. No matter that they bruise me and blister me and maim me and all I feel when I wear them is anything from discomfort to downright agony. I will wear them until they are torn from my feet. I will wear them and I will wear all their memories on my skin until they are ripped from my very cells. You will not take me, nor my heart, and you certainly will not take my shoes. 

They’re all I have. 

[allegoryofapril]

Lost Things

This year, one thing I decided is that I really, really hate losing things.

My teddy.

My dog.

My childhood.

My sense of self.

I can never hold them again. I will never find them. My teddy is probably in a landfill pile and my dog is in a pot and I don’t feel like myself without them.

I’m happier at the moment. But I sort of think that life has just managed to distract me. The weight is still there. It is always there.

That holds comfort I suppose. The times I feel most myself are when I cry, really. 

Because sometimes I sit, and I think to myself that I don’t really care about the people. Not really. I could ditch them all in a second to be a child again, in a pink spotted dressing gown, reading a book. With a dog on my lap and a teddy in my arms, in the chair my mum reupholstered a couple years ago because it was too worn and faded. 

Well I like things worn and faded. These new things hold no shine for me, and I will kick them out the pram if I can. And then I will cry, because the pram is empty. And then we start again. 

[allegoryofapril]

I always thought I had to find someone else.

Ever since I was a teenager, I have been like many others. Obsessed with the idea of love, partnership, the idea of being able to brag to my friends about having a boyfriend.

Looking complete, adult, organised, established. I am not a failure, I am not lonely, because look! Here is the proof that someone likes me enough! Here is the proof I am not a complete loser!

But as I get older, and care less and less about looking cool, and delve more into a beautifully dark and dingy cave that all writers tend to hole themselves into, I have learnt that I am still myself. And that I like myself.

I always did actually. No matter how sad and lonely I get, I have always been aware that I like myself and my own company, I just haven’t always wanted to be in it. And that hasn’t changed. I just know now, that sometimes I also really do want to be in it. 

Sharing is great, a necessity in fact. Others are necessary. To learn. No matter how wise and wonderful I become, I will learn nothing from sitting around by myself. You need real life to do that, as well as books. 

But you do not need to always be around people to be whole. You do not need to do everything or share everything you’ve ever thought or felt with another person. You are not dishonest if you choose to keep your own version of yourself. 

I have been worried that I am too detached from my relationship. And perhaps I started this writing thinking I would come up with an answer. I don’t think I have one. But I used to think that having a partner is sharing the true version of yourself, laying your heart as bare as you can, mores than anyone who came before. I don’t think that anymore. I think my partner has a construed version of me just like anyone else in my life. 

The true, core version of myself, the one that lives in my head, my soul, is mine and mine alone. And I need her to stay within me to stay alive. Because no matter what happens, we have each other, and no one can separate us. So I don’t want my partner to know her. And maybe that is detached. So be it.  I am happy to be proven wrong, with anything in life. What am I here for, if not to learn, if not to experience? 

[allegoryofapril]

Someone to listen to the rain with.

I wake up as gentle as the untangling.

My spirit is brought back my a cold splash of the river, I remember how it feels to be here. He is still calm, but his rosy cheeks say otherwise.

I miss his warmth but I look forward to the day. I am untainted because I know I can do it again.

I know tonight, I can lay, and listen to the rain. No one can touch us.

[allegoryofapril]

The entire universe exists within my own eyes.

They are the colour of dead grass.

The wild moors, the strong wind turning my ears red.

The chasms of the earth that fill with life.

The twinkle of my mind, on the brink of growing wise. Desecrated by concretes.

I see your growth through my eyes. It’s pushed into a corner, but I see your potential.

A bare branch on a winters day can hold up snow for the whole season, and yet she is no weaker when it comes to her green leaves.

That is the colour of my eyes, the spring leaves in the dusk.

The bright sun is too much, but the dusk, she is the dusk.

She is the brightness and beauty of the darkness and chaos.

I hear you, I reach for you. Talk to me, talk to me. I will stay. I think of you always.

Hush, hush.

Everywhere I look, really, I look for you. The feeling of my hands brushing your softness, the way my cheeks go red, the peace that envelopes me.

Hush hush. I am dark green, deeper and deeper until I am black.

[allegoryofapril]

Making the Bed

I showered.

I lit an incense stick.

I wanted to feel clean, I wanted my room to feel clean.

The room was fairly tidy. From certain angles no mess was visible. Just don't look into the corners.

As the incense burned, there was one task left before I could crawl into bed and finally rest. Change the bedding.

Then everything would be clean, and I could sleep well.

It was late, despite being early summer, still late enough to be getting dark. So on the salt lamp went, and so did the fairy lights. Gentle lighting for a gentle evening.

And as I stripped the bed, laid on the clean mattress cover, made sure it was straight and there were no creases, I began to think.

Once the pillows were changed and fluffed up, there was only the duvet left to do. I took the old one off, laid out the duvet and began feeding it into the new cover. Make sure the corners all line up, then give it a gentle shake to put everything in its right place.

And as I ruffled the fabric, I kept on thinking.

'Is this all there is to life? Making the bed?'

Usually thoughts like this aren't of the happiest nature, and I would be lying if I said I thought this with glee.

Nevertheless, it was not a miserable thought. Because I realised, yes, that is all there is to life. Making the bed.

No matter what happens, every couple weeks or so, the bedding must be changed.

What is life if not the gaps between tasks? The time between cooking dinner, doing the laundry?

Situations may change, I may change. But I will still make the bed. And then, I shall go make a cup of peach tea, and I shall write about how it makes me feel.

[allegoryofapril]

The last few hours of a teenager

I have either not been one for a long while, or I will not stop being one for a while.

You see, I am still naive, my mistakes, although different in situation remain the same in  their brash manner. 

I am still a silly little girl, yet I feel so far from my young self. I do not see her as a part of me anymore. I barely see the me from a year ago as part of me. 

In my mind it is like looking at a projected version of myself. I recognise her, once as a part of me. But now, I cannot read her mind, only remember parts of it.

It is like I am drifting. I bob just above the surface, just enough to stay afloat. I drift slowly from all that is familiar, all that I have known. I view her with a quiet indifference. She seems to barely move, so I don’t spare much attention. Yet when I look back, I notice how far away she now is. Someone that has gone, and me. Someone that continues, somehow, to be. 

I assure you I am not a depressive. It is merely certain facets of my life, my choices and my emotions that cause me to feel this way. Depending on the current state of affairs, you will usually find me loud and laughing, saying what I would observe to be foolish things were I to view them in one of my more still and contemplative minds. She is the best version of me, I would say. She is the one I trust the most, I admire the most. I find beauty in the enigma of life, that is sure. And mostly I feel it is my contempt for prolonged and forced interaction which causes my craving for isolation and nature, but now I think it perhaps is more because of its steadiness. Linking to the former point of course, but here I find a new meaning. You see, my interaction with others differ, depending on both parties emotions and general manner. But when I sit with a tree, or a rock, their steadiness is so overwhelming that it fills me too. There is not one situation with nature which I regret, exempt of course is the times where I have undervalued it. Every time I have sat under a tree, in one way or another I have felt the exact same thing. Myself. 

And so I enter the second decade of my life. I wish it full of freedom and discovery. I wish that I take of myself and my body, yet I am not so blind to think I won’t make some of the same mistakes along the way. I can only hope I make some new ones too, and can learn from all. 

[allegoryofapril]

Crossed legs by the window

The hairspray sticks and the mascara clumps. 

There is a line just under my eyes where the concealer creases. 

Powder emphasises the soft fuzz on my cheeks. 

The lipstick has cracked and faded before I even get out the door. 

My hair falls in soft curls, only my fingers know its crispness. 

I know every line and dip on my face. I know it like the Gods know each leaf.

To me this is beauty. A deep knowing. 

Since I was 17, I have attempted meditation in many forms.

The closest I have felt is the stilling of my hand before I separate my eyelashes with a safety pin. 

[allegoryofapril]

I am myself. The gentle closing of my eyes as I feel the wind on my face, the pleasure in feeling my nose and cheeks redden.

I am not her, but I am everyone. A two hour phone call you didn't expect.

Digging your fingers into the soil, the disappearance of your mother in the grocery store, before you realise you drove here and its your handwriting on the shopping list.

Ugly socks in ugly boots. The dress you can't wear anymore but it's still your favourite. Soothing headaches with gentle chords. Will you ever get round to reading that book?

A connection only found in words.

I'm not here.

[allegoryofapril]

People who inspire me (at least, I'm trying to think this way).

I keep waiting to meet these wise old men in the back of a restaurant. To quote philosophers and life experience and change my world view. To kick me on the back of the head and allow me my own lightbulb moment, some new found zest for life. And maybe these exist, maybe I’ll get these when I need them.

But maybe most of our inspiration doesn’t come from these wise strangers and grand gestures.  Maybe not everything significant is felt in its present moment. Instead it creeps over you, quietly in the darkness. Maybe our inspiration comes from the uninspiring people. I don’t mean failures and losers. I just mean the everyday. The people I see everyday, interactions I don’t give enough thought to. Does inspiration always have to be from my grand, theatrical friends? Maybe the inspiration comes from the way my friend always gets herself to early morning orchestra rehearsals. Or the one who always washes her face at night, no matter how late or drunk. Or the one who loves to talk, will tell stories to anyone who listens. Every single person has some passion, no matter how small, there is a passion for something.

Instead of viewing other peoples determinations as my lack and failure, I choose to view them as my inspirations.

There are so many people I know that I want to tell I love them. Something constrains me from doing so, but in this, I say it. If you are reading this, I love you. My heart is often stitched closed, but know it. I love you. 

[allegoryofapril]

It’s just me, The Who, my milkshake, and a new pot of houmous, and the world🫶

[allegoryofapril]

i’d say the best thing i have learned this year is to just let people be who they naturally are. no psychoanalyzing them, no overthinking my actions, no asking what i could possibly do to keep their presence in my life. i just bring my best self to the table and always move from a place of love and respect. how that person responds is ultimately up to them. if that causes them to exit my life, i just let it happen. i will never be in the business of changing people. people are only ever ready to change when they’ve made the conscious decision to. all i can do is check myself and be kind always.

[allegoryofapril]

Maybe you weren’t a terrible person maybe you were just fifteen

Edit: some of the reblogs are doing my head in. So to put it here again: “I was both” maybe!!! But don’t judge your teenage self against who you are now. You were a child, working with what you had and knew at the time. Of course you would’ve acted before thinking. Of course you yelled and regret it now. Of course you said a few mean things. Hindsight is 20/20. Give yourself some compassion. You were a kid.

[allegoryofapril]

whatever was left, that was ours for a while.

sunrise - louise glück

[allegoryofapril]

saying “hm. must be the curse” every time something bad happens and refusing to elaborate is my new hobby

[allegoryofapril]

My only wishes for 2023

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

— Neil Gaiman  (via wordsnquotes)

[allegoryofapril]

Is this…uni motivation?

2023

COLLECT PHYSICAL MEDIA

SAVE RECEIPTS AS ROOM DECOR

READ AND REREAD AND REREAD AND REREAD

LOSE YOUR PHONE

ORANGE

LOSE AMBITION

KILL THE SHAME MAN

DANCE IN THE KITCHEN

WINE AND ESSAYS

BUSES ARE ALIVE