Posts

Ji

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  Ji, or Jee (which one, I don't know, the spelling of either -if either- I am not sure of). The lovely eighty-eight year old woman whose mouth was completely emptied of any teeth, and who, when she stood up, had to hold her head in one palm, fingers bent backwards, while simultaneously dragging two small, stacked plastic chairs behind her. Despite her fragility -and lack of facial assistance in her mouth-, Ji seemed keen on chatting with me. She offered me some coffee (to which I politely declined), and stumbled gracefully, bent over, towards the stairs at the back of the little shop into which I had entered.  I brought over her chairs, and she asked me to sit down on them beside her. Ji told me that her parents were Chinese, but she had been born in Thailand.  I couldn't quite make out some of her sentences as she spoke to me, but I listened closely nonetheless. Her English was good, and she seemed to understand me well, although at times repeating some of her earlier q...

Your eyes

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 Your eyes they caught me from afar and imprinted on my mind. I've never seen two quite like yours Where the land and sea meet, the centre of your gaze a daze into which I'm brought and where I wish to bathe The place I cannot look when troubles echo through my heart and the windows that I search for like I've found the greatest art

Reminder

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  You remind me of a part of myself that grew distant for a long while. The part of me that finds every little thing so wondrously beautiful-  the cobwebs and the little insects that wander across a branch, and the  softness of trees, and cats, and birdsong. I see the childlike joy spread across your face, and I am drawn into  the excitement of nature's beauty; pulled into presence, and the magic  of the small.

Ache

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He pulls me in,  for a hug just a hug even though I would have avoided it if I could His arms are strong for a small man and as I try to pull away he holds me still He puts his face into my neck and I feel sick. I want to disappear; let the parts of me he took disintegrate beneath his fingertips Man, boy, can't you see the fear in my eyes? But his are windows into an empty room reflecting only the things I do not wish to see I tremble and he laughs I understand the dark voids in which girls hide. ___ Sometimes I wonder how people cannot read others. How they cannot tell, even from a glance, whether they are ok. If they are afraid; uncomfortable. Do they sense it, and simply choose to ignore it? Or are they blind to all except their desires? I may never understand. For now, I can only sit here, amongst the fields and the haystacks, and try to let the breeze wash away these heavy feelings.

Extraction

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  There must have been about three sets of hands around my face. Two angling and pushing firmly, one trying their utmost to pull and twist my deep-set, back-left tooth out of its socket. Someone on Reddit had commented on a tooth extraction thread about the slightly strange, uncomfortable, squeaky sounds that I was now experiencing, and how they tried imagining them as trees blowing in the wind. I began picturing the situation not as trees, but as myself being a scuba diver, scanning a shipwreck in the ocean depths, and coming across old chests and trying to pry them open. Suddenly, after one huge last pull (they were truly struggling), it was out. As I bit down on some gauze to help with the bleeding, the dentist asked if I'd like to keep the tooth.  It was so big. "Four roots!" she told me. I asked her if that was normal. "Both normal and abnormal", she laughed. Herein lies a gaping hold in the back of my mouth.