pilsner+lunch=feeling yuck

just cause im in the rhythm of posting on a regular basis, i feel i should write something today. i looked up some eastern european folktales... i was going to copy the best one. i couldnt decide. then i got picky and wanted them from a particular region. then i decided the day was passing and since i only have three and a bit more in this office - i should get on with the work that needs doing.

we're discussing a new band. an end to jonny:popular. im not sure how i feel about it. granted, the new band is rad - a word for those of you from the ninja turtle era. maybe there will be a j:p revival in years to come. a bad australian film made about us. maddie in a tank top. me in a leather hat...

my room was covered with tiny pairs of wings. on my birthdays, aunties and neighbours would bring glitter and little plaster fairies and angels. books and pink cupcakes and i would pick the sprinkles off one by one, concentrating on them, rather than the eyes that accompanied questions about school and friends. when the house was littered in plastic cups and torn streamers, i would stack the books and boxes as high as i could. i would stand on top, sprinkling a handful of glitter and wearing a pair of wings that id been given – i would jump.

my parents would drink whisky on the balcony and put off the clean up until the next day, as i smashed face after face of the laughing pixies. jumped. landed. jumped. landed. eventually they would throw out the books with crippled spines, and tell my aunties and neighbours to stop buying statues and glitter. that I was too old for it. i started to sniff the nail polish they would bring, to light fire to the perfumes and to pour the bath oils and scented lotions down the sink. i swallowed bath bombs whole. until I met him. until i saw the flight his little pills gave him. the similar need to feel, to fall. the want to engage, to forget, to escape.

but after a year, he still couldn’t say sorry. he would say it if he bumped me or ruined something i’d started – but not when he’d fucked up. when he had been cruel or when he had been wrong – he couldn’t say it. i wore his disregard like a bruise. high on my arm. on my right cheek.
he would look in my eyes and smile, thinking i expected no better from him anyway, he'd whisper, ‘i love you, i love you’.
i read book after book, looking for the answer. squashed their spines, tore their pages. i stood at the top of stairs and sprinkled glitter.