Water Torture

I was eighteen when I first moved out,
My mum cried.
Six months later I was back.
Two years later I moved out again,
My mum cried.

I came and went so often
Her tears never dried.

Now she cries every morning when I leave for work.

Her face is wrinkled vertically.
Tears have worn grooves in her cheeks.

She stores them in glass jars and bottles
Like an emergency supply kit.
She keeps a careful inventory.

Every night I water the garden with tears
and carefully doctor the inventory.
It's the only way to slow the build up.

I'm worried one day the jars will crack,
My mother's years of tears will wash her away.

If she left I would flood our house with tears.

Workshop

Today at my writing workshop our tutor told Sam “It feels like you didn‘t know how to finish this story.”
“You couldn’t do it better,” Sam said.
The tutor pulled out a copy of her novel and slapped Sam across the face with it. Sam took a book out of his bag. It was a hardback with his name on the cover. “Yeah I’ve got one too.” He slapped her across the face with it. She went flying across the room and knocked Hazel off her chair. Before the conflict had a chance to evolve into a brawl I picked up a pile of my chapbooks from under my chair and ninja starred them at everyone in the room, paper cutting the throats. Twelve less competitors.

Kindling

She sleeps in the firebed,
Under cover of darkness.
Rekindling her dreams.

Combs

There were combs everywhere. Tom's head was covered in combs. It looked like it was made of combs. His hair was just the thread holding them all together. The dentist didn't know what to do, Tom's teeth were different from anything he'd ever seen.

Explosions

Ate a circle full of squiggly lines
Made my stomach go squiggly
Front exploded like a gun
Back exploded like a spaceshuttle

Worms

There are worms in my socks. If I take a step I will squash them and there will be worm carcasses in my socks. I will have blood on my feet. Not as bad as blood on my hands but I won't be able to cope with it. I will have to wash my feet and my socks. There will be blood stains on my kicks, that is unacceptable.
When I was eight, and Conor was seven or eight, we looked after worms during lunchtime. We picked them up off the concrete where they would get squashed and put them back in the mud. We were like superheroes saving mice from cats. We also threw dust at bugs and killed them.
When I was eight we did a gardening project at school. Our teacher told us to tell her how many worms we found in the soil. I ran into the classroom to tell her there were twelve so far. She yelled at me for not taking my shoes off and stamping mud into the carpet.
I am terrified of spiders. When I used to have dreadlocks I had daynightmares that spiders would colonise my hair. Their webs would be camoflaged. I am scared of other bugs and insects too. I wouldn't touch a worm voluntarily any more.
I remember running around Shirley's house with a fly swat leaving carcasses in my trail. I didn't pick them up, it was enough that they were dead. One night I squashed a moth with my book. It left a bloodstain on the wall.
I went vegetarian at the beginning of this year. Since then as well as not eating animals I've tried not to kill them.
I am also scared of cats and dogs.

Can't Sleep

Johnny made coffins for angels. They were the shape of crosses on account of the wings. Open casket ceremonies were more impressive when the wings were displayed outstretched.

People from the village thought the coffins were blasphemous. They mobbed over to Johnny's workshop with fiery eyes. They looked at the workshop until the fire went from their eyes into the workshop.

Johnny ran in spirals. He only had time to save one coffin but he couldn't decide between them. He took his insurance policy out of his filing cabinet and ran out the back door.

Johnny ran to the top of the hill and watched the workshop trip over the fire. The no longer fiery eyed people wandered off vaguely.  The angels' bones cracked and turned black.

Writing

I've decided I want to write more. So I'm going to try and write something every day and put it here.

Cats

Everything was covered in snow. The cars the trees the hills the cats. Lightning came down and melted some of the snow. Now there was a puddle.

The cats hissed. They didn’t like getting wet. They shot out of the puddle then wandered back to it and lapped it up.

The puddle was gone so the cats wandered off. They were looking for their houses. They couldn’t tell which hills of snow were houses which were trees or which were hills.

The cats’ footprints left trails in the snow. The angels watched and tried to find pictures in the scribbled lines.

The angels stood on the powerlines. They were supposed to be unhooking the hanging sneakers. But the cats were more interesting.

The cats were all black. They walked onto the lake which was covered in ice. They dug in their claws to stop from sliding.

One of the cats left the others on the lake. It walked to a pylon and started climbing. The angels were worried. They started trying to unhook the sneakers before the cat arrived.

The cat got to the top of the pylon and looked at the angels. It raised an eyebrow. More lightning came down. It hit the angels and they fell off the powerlines.

The lightning moved along the powerlines and the streetlights lit up. The cats on the lake turned around and saw the angels. They walked over and ate all the meat. The bones were white on the snow.

Kids On Swings

These guys are my friends.
They're blog looks pretty boring and they're bad businessmen but they make cool clothes.
Check them out here.