Notes app scraps

x4

there are people working in cities. when they talk about life they speak with the assumption that everybody wakes up early, and gets dressed up in corporate masks. they only put pyjamas back on in the evenings, and they believe that’s true for us all. meanwhile, i’m waking up at midday. i’m throwing a jumper over the t-shirt and shorts i slept in and i brush my hair before i call someone, or nip to the shop, but my face stays unremarkably naked. i’ve forgotten how to have an opinion on my face until i look in the mirror of public toilets and realise the other women washing their hands look more put together than i do. i suddenly feel self-conscious about my shiny pink skin and my gravity-defying frizz. i listen to city rambles about routines and straight-faced strangers. i get off the bus and walk round a neighbourhood that’s slow enough to be digested and i “waste” time waiting, trying and failing to correct my posture.

i talk about people like i’m not one of them. i talk about adults like i’m not 28. i go to sleep unsure of what feelings wait for me in the morning, so i pack my dreams with wishes and optimism that smells like lavender, fingers crossed tightly, hoping trees will miraculously grow while i sleep. hoping i’ll learn how to take care of them, so they grow taller than i ever believed they could, and then i’ll get to climb them.

---

4:30pm

The sky the kind of blue
that makes you wonder if
you’re dreaming


Paler, staring ahead
brighter, looking higher
truth rises


Something new is awake
as blue as British breeze
beautifully so


Sorrowfully so

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thoughts on a walk home:

a crushed lollipop on the ground – something i’d maybe have missed on another day, but today i noticed it and took it a step further by fixating on it. i’m feeling weirdly poetic about the pink and white explosion on the stone-spotted brick path, but i don’t actually know what that means. i just know i’m barely walking now, my pace completely slowed. my eyes are stuck on the spattering – it’s out of place, like how i feel when i’m here.

sometimes when i’m walking i forget to pick up a foot. it scrapes the ground like a loud mistake and i think that’s really embarrassing. it makes me feel like i forgot i was here, when i’m supposed to walk with purpose and not drift, not daydream. i still haven’t learnt how to be present all the time and that’s partly why i write – to be present, and remember that i’m here.

why am i like this? (cue that orla gartland song)

i don’t remember this hill being this big, but i know it can’t have got bigger, which means i’m feeling smaller even though i’m not actually smaller at all. i hope i’m not weaker.

i think a lot of my thoughts are lower-case these days because i don’t really know where they begin and where they finish. i guess they never finish and that’s why my thoughts feel hopeful to me, despite everything. despite intrusions and anxiety. they keep going they keep going and i keep going i keep going

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no matter what the day may hold

shower songs and cinema

or disappointment—broken bricks

everything at your feet to fix

i love you, immensely

in the depths of each one