Prose – Hit The North

Young

And just like that, I’m catapulted back in time, back into the mid-nineties. Social media means phoning your friends to talk about films, clubbing is still the preferred choice of our weekends, and we can handle drinking culture and the occasional pill or spliff. Pulp, Bjork and Husker Du ring out on the dancefloor. It’sContinue reading “Young”

Uncertain Choreography

Tentatively, I dim the cheerful banality of morning radio, dialling down the forced fun and drinking industrial strength coffee, trying to shake myself awake. It feels like new terrain, despite the fact that I grew up here. It’s both origin story and Version 2.0 : director’s cut. I’m the main character in a remake fewContinue reading “Uncertain Choreography”

Autumn

The cherry blossom leaves are shedding: soon, the Bush outside my window will resemble a broken necklace chain with red gemstones scattered on the ground. it’s getting dark earlier and the lack of vitamin D is making me feel that sense of foreboding. I always get this way in October..it’s like anti-nostalgia, a dress whereContinue reading “Autumn”

Anxiety

There was no name for it, the first time it happened. To be honest, I’m not even sure how old I was, or even the catalyst. There was only the feeling, like the floor moving away from me and the churning, like a rending machine in my guts. It was only later that I reallyContinue reading “Anxiety”

Packing

Why is moving house so emotional? Perhaps it’s being confronted with the amount of crap you’ve accumulated over the years. Or maybe it’s the simple nostalgia of so much time passing. The unknown is also overwhelming, the giant leap towards who knows what. When I first moved here, it was as part of a couple.Continue reading “Packing”

Talking To A About Electro

I’m talking to A about electro. I quite like A. She’s looking at me the way you indulge a child who’s learned a new word, and with a slight superiority. She’s smiling in a half grimace, head tilted slightly. She means well, though. I’m going on about Frankie Knuckles. I do not know if AContinue reading “Talking To A About Electro”

Twitch

They imprisoned themselves with desire, settled in with trust, threw away the key with marriage. I am floating directly above them now, laughing at their laboured positions as they fumble in the bed in the corner of the room where I died. Now, they seem to think that children will paper over the cracks ofContinue reading “Twitch”

Hedgehog

When I was five years old, in my music and movement class in primary school, the gym teacher asked us all to pick an animal to portray. I was a hedgehog, I immediately decided. I scrunched my little body into a small ball like a piece of paper, a discarded draft, and swung there onContinue reading “Hedgehog”

A Misfit Amid The Misfits

I’m the textbook misfit. The squashed puzzle piece that somehow ended up in the wrong jigsaw box. I don’t belong in many places. It’s always been like this. At school, I was a goth whose goofy side meant I wasn’t clique-sized. My impersonation of Pee Wee Herman marked me out as an idiot,and the haircutsContinue reading “A Misfit Amid The Misfits”

Dreams

Dreams are porous; they leak out via the creases on the bed where my body lay, making a silhouette like a crime scene. You’re not part of this anymore, it’s purely a solo venture now. You used to be. Now thoughts of you have curdled. These nights, you are confined to the bottom of secretContinue reading “Dreams”