A candle doesn’t need to be lit

In order to be a candle

A candle doesn’t need to be of its original appearance either

So long as it can still be lit

Melted down into trails of dripping wax

Solid now and preserving a state of what once was

Warm or cold and in any shape or form, I will light you if you allow me

For You, my dear, are my candle

 … Read More

Memories of me are escaping, shattered into shards of mirrored glass and exploding out in a red mist of reflections and sharp edges and pulpy matter.

I am helpless to catch them all as my eyes search in a flurried desperation to recall my key moments in existence before they are all gone for good.

The things I used to love and the essence of myself leak out through opened veins where once they circulated, travelling round through a roadmap of my thoughts and always accommodatingly available to be pulled up into consciousness at any time of my choosing, but now no longer.

They all leave me, the faces of my past, the earliest of which I have long since forgotten along with those most recent whose… Read More

In the warmth of her blanket and with her head still fuzzy from the previous night out, Rose woke up in the darkness with a hundred thoughts and feelings still flowing through her mind.

Aware that it was still too early to get up yet also too late to stay up, she laid in her bed hugging her spare, often unused third pillow not daring to check what time it was. Her thoughts swirled around and whether they had been influenced from her already-vanished dreams or not, currently revolved only around herself: her own being, and of the people closest to this fragmented conceptual image of herself.

Her father and her sister, standing there next to the bed staring at her in the blacked-out apartment, their faces young… Read More

Disclaimer: All of this really happened. Names, nationalities and suburbs have been changed to protect the innocent.

• So there’s a girl you like from Language Class. An Italian girl.

• You’ve met a couple of times, and even attended the same Language Class group dinner a few weeks ago. Since then there have been emails sent, promptly replied and responded to.

• You know she lives in Stanmore. It is pointed out to you by a friend that it is odd for a girl like her, a travelling student, to be living in Stanmore, as that’s more of a French area. You agree. You’re pretty sure she’s got a boyfriend. A French boyfriend.

• Indeed, he even picked her up from the dinner, you think. You didn’t get a very good look… Read More