There are things which hold us together: The man-buns, the memes, the ice-bucket challenge. We are a generation no less confused by life than any other. We are a fearful generation, afraid to leave the lifelines that are our phones, terrified of venturing beyond what is socially acceptable. We are a sad generation, living in the world of an economic crisis, a war on terror, and a climate disaster. We smile in our endless stream of selfies but when given the anonymity of tumblr or yik yak we cry out for help - wishing that the multitude of invisible internet users will be more supportive than the shallow relationships which we are surrounded by in the real world. And all we have to save us is the sneezing baby panda.

The day is over, and with it all its highs and lows. From each small victory to the huge triumphs, from each slight worry to the burdening stresses: all these are in the past. Stars puncture the universe; the tides of seas gently, oh-so-gradually, change; clouds drift through the skies. Half-way round the world people are starting their day; birds are welcoming the morning with their song. Here, in the quiet stillness of night, it is peaceful and safe and calm. Breathing is the only sound, made loud by the stillness. Heartbeat slows, eyelids droop, the faintest smile touches your lips as thoughts become dreams and sleep wraps you in its kind embrace.

If we never meet again

will it matter?

will I cry?

If we never meet again

will you at least

tell me goodbye?

If we never meet again

then you won't mind,

of that I'm sure.

But if we never meet again

I'll still love you

more and more.

Harry climbed the steps two at a time, aware of the muscles in his legs working to elevate him above the main hall of the library. He paused and glanced down, intrigued by the intricacies of every soul. The tilt of a man's head, the creased shirt pocket, the scratching of a beard. He continued up the stairs, smiling faintly at the lady-with-the-white-hair whom he saw here every so often. His favoured bench at the top of the stairs was taken by two young men, staring intently at a laptop screen. He went to the chair by the second window, sat down and closed his eyes. There was a gentle tapping sound of a keyboard, a rustling of coats and the slow, woody sound of an elderly man's breathing. The window next to him had been left half-open and he could feel a draught which sent a slight chill over his balding head. He stopped. He did nothing but take in his surroundings. 

After a certain amount of time he stood up, swinging his bag back over his shoulder. He left the library. He tried to hold on to the feeling of calm content, but it was seeping away from his mind, and the more he tried to grasp onto the sensation, the more the thin wisps of peace escaped from his being. Harry's shoe scuffed an empty bottle on the pavement and the noise seemed to jar with something in the air. His forehead began to crease into a frown. Back in the office a group of men were giggling, sharing an anecdote of their weekend. Harry sat down at his desk and took out his papers. And then the world seemed to tilt and fall away, somehow shrinking into a smaller dimension at the same time as being stretched into a grotesque exaggeration of reality. The metallic clunk of filing cabinets became distant, as if observed from behind a screen; yet at the same time amplified, intruding the quiet of Harry's mind. The work took all of his attention, sucking away all appreciation of the tiny details surrounding him. There was not the space to think. There was not the time to see, to feel, to hear. The lights were neither comforting nor harsh, merely an unacknowledged presence. The other members of the office were neither friendly nor annoying, merely a group of limbs and brains too focused to truly be alive. The hours passed slowly, dragging Harry through every stage of exhaustion until at last it was time to leave. 

The cool breeze of the air conditioning flows around me, scented with the slightest hint of smoke. It seems to wash away the sweat of all the stresses of my mind. The train rattles, rocking me into a pleasant reverie, the painful memories slowly being banished to the back of my thoughts. I fear that at any moment they could reappear, but for now they are resting, for which I am thankful, tired of their persistent nagging. Outside, the colours are bright green from a rainy spring, with the first patches of rapeseed oil yellow just beginning to emerge. The sky is a pale blue, not yet quite confident enough in its positivity to be sunny, but surfacing from the grey dawn of a troubled night. The child next to me didn't want to go home so was crying, but has now fallen asleep, his head lolling, peaceful in the knowledge that his father is there to protect him. When he wakes up he will not remember his wails of the previous hour nor the train guards words, "cheer up little chap" - the words that the train itself seems to be urging me with now. The carriage is almost empty and it seems to have a calming effect on me. I feel less weary, less plagued by my troubled thoughts. I have journeyed through the distress of difficult times, but am on the road to recovery. The wounds of the past are healing, albeit slowly. But I am not in a rush. I'm young, I have time to learn, to grow, to strengthen. We pass a field of grazing cows, and go over the bridge of a small stream. We overtake birds, travelling with no agenda. It strikes me how simple it all is. How easy it is to be happy. Not the ecstatic grinning of an extravagant party, but a quiet contentedness of fresh air. Air that we breathe, filtering from our lungs all the grunge of the past. The pain has not yet disappeared entirely, but perhaps even that is possible. Because amongst all these achingly beautiful hills, rolling into the horizon, and shared with these travellers, so at ease as they look through the window, the hint of a smile on their lips, surely that can happen.

I have reached my destination and I hear a blackbird welcoming me from the platform. It is not the end of my journey but a change in attitude, with the realisation that things will get better; that sadness is temporary and that joy will never stop fighting to enfold me in its warm embrace.

Mirror.

The person I see in the mirror is a

strange version of myself.

Mirror.

Left is right

right is left.

Lend me your mirror.

Eyes see eyes see eyes…

Am I your mirror?

Our eyes are just reflections of each other:

Paintings that want to

see their self-portrait.

A portrait of respect.

or love

or what?

Your eyes define

me.

What do they see?

Not everything.

I can tell my story but it is merely a blurb

to an epic saga.

An epic saga of sleeping, of waking, of

trying to achieve that state of being…

Being alive, living, life.

Mirror.

For a moment

I can see your life clearly.

But my life is shrouded in fog.

Do you clear the mist?

To you am I

a few words?

Or to you am I

a jumble of knots?

Mirror.

Every eye I see

Makes a piece of the mirror.

Pieces of me, tangled into pieces of you.

I don’t understand

how your mirror works.

Words. Faces. Hands.

The language of life – the mirrors.

Tiny mirrors, tinkling jeering tunes.

I am vain. You are just a mirror to me.

I tiny mirror I can barely see,

and yet it is the only image I have

of me.

Do I pass?

Yes?

or no?

Mirror.

I want to experience all the bright colours, all the loud noises, all the exquisite sensations that the world has to offer. I want to take everything the world gives. But I want to live in that pure pastel shade that is good and give what little I have to offer back to the world. And I don't know if I can do both.

I have seen the world's beauties and learnt how to compose a moment so that it is full of a richness and a symmetry and those contrasts of emotions that I crave so much. And I have learnt how to barter and to pay the minimum price for participating in the finest of things which society can create. And it has felt like learning to live. Reality has started to mimic the paintings and books and films that depict drama and romance and tragedy. And that has made reality feel more real than a simple existence could ever feel.

But this simple existence, in becoming an observation by an outsider, has shifted in appearance. No longer white noise searching for an orchestral symphony, it now appears as the humble tune of a child performing their latest piano piece to their parents, elegant in its candor. The colours are pale because the object being painted is not the painter, but the painter's surroundings.

I have existed in the naive bubble of childhood and I have lived in the garish surroundings of the lavish cultures of the world. My eyes have been opened to appreciate its wonders and I will never stop yearning for those ornately artistic moments of laughing over a bottle of wine in the sunshine or crying on my way home, alone in the rain. I will never lose my taste in grandeur and sophistication. But part of me wants to turn away from it all and bask in a pale seashell sunlight, turning the camera away from myself and focusing on the graceful delicacy of the mundane. I have kept the self-portraits over which I took so much care to create dazzling versions of memories, but now I want to hand out my flawed sketches to their subjects. I have learnt how to step into the spotlight but I want to return to the ensemble.

I want to feel a bright sensation of living and I want to have a pure pastel feeling of goodness. Bright pastels.

Note: as a bit of an introvert I sometimes struggle with self-esteem at social situations! I wrote this to try to describe some of the thoughts which go through my mind when at these events :-)

I'm an intruder

Never welcome

Got nothing to give

Just trying to live

Sorry for my presence

My company's a bore

Not what you ask for

For you it's a chore

Show me out the door

You don't want me anymore

I'm uncalled for

Can't take a joke

Can't make one either

I shuffle my feet

As my heart beats faster

Try to be quiet

Have nothing to say

No thoughts, no questions

In the way

Nobody cares

And I don't dare

To make a fanfare

Reveal who I am

Worse than doing nothing

Hiding, cringing, bluffing

Try to be kind

Can't change your mind

Focus on you

Your intelligence, humour, wit

But then it all falls silent

And I'm just that

Ugly boring bitch

You'll only care for me

If I'm here

And I can never get better

Without practice and fear

But I hate being unwelcome

Taking up space

I'm useless

And mean

And dull

I should leave

But still I'm here

PS sorry for reposting, I had a bit of an inability-to-use-technology moment!

Life is filled with tragedies too comfortable to cry about and comedies too miserable to laugh about. And yet, we still spend our lives crying and laughing over our epic tale of sleeping and waking and existing, or - what's that word? - living. Because it's not the tragedies that make us cry, it's the weariness of so many small disappointments. And we don't live in a world filled with comedians to make us laugh, but instead our humour is found in a stupid thought we have which we're too embarrassed to admit to. And mixed in amongst all these half-feelings of joy or sadness or both is the endless list of emotions that words only make seem more important than they really are. So that we spend hours of our life feeling intense ambivalence with a twinge of regret, served with a selection of fear and hope and shame. And then hours more with a different platter of confusions. And somehow these feelings don't seem worthy of our time, because we believe our time should be spent feeling utter despair in its purest form, or uncontaminated ecstasy, or whatever else - the important thing is that it should be an emotion which is significant enough to write poetry or paint about, not just a confused jumble of sensations. Because this confused jumble isn't pretty or symmetrical. The notes don't form chords. And it's annoying that we have to spend our time in this wonky weird world. Or maybe we just have to accept the beauty of crying whilst clutching at our sides with laughter, or of our hands shaking with fear and our toes curling in embarrassment - all at an insignificant part of our day that no-one cares about. Because even if the tune's alternative in the extreme and the painting's so abstract it looks like a child's rage-filled crayon explosion, beauty's in the eye of the beholder, and since it's our life we're beholding, we'd better start seeing it as beautiful.