The sleep, perchance to dream.

Sleep is not wasted when one has the ability to dream.

Mind if I smoke? Care if I die?

How can a lithe piece of paper filled with tobacco be so fatally attractive in the eyes of some?

What's good company when someone is better friends with the cigarette?
Needing their company every five minutes rather than yours.

Does one not realise that as they joviantly laugh at the grotesque picture on the pack, that picture is nonchalantly becoming their reality?

Riddle me why it is not self indulgent to be paying to kill yourself slowly but surely?

And 50 years on, the tobacco stained skin, the husky voice and the lined face don't quit when you do.

But behind the anger it evokes, the naivety it exposes, the scars it leaves, maybe, just maybe one day, you will see why it hurts more than anything else. You will see when one of the people you love the most gets lung cancer 30 years after he has quit. But his 40 years of not having quit came back to haunt him. Because unfortunately it put up the unbeatable battle. And just when you think you've won you find that 5 years on he dies because his lungs are too scarred to keep working.

And now, maybe now, you can begin to fathom why it is the hurt that outweighs all the rest.
And that now the rest means rest in peace.
And the good bye you used to say to him, you instead have to say to his coffin.

I miss you Grandad.

We pass this way but once.

May your kind smile be the one to linger with us till our last days.
May you let us see the world through your twinkling hazel eyes.
May the love you held for us give us strength through these trying times.
May your creased skin still hold all the memories even now that you're gone.
May your kind voice echo in our thoughts when it is you whom we think of.
May it be your face that lights up the night sky if we cannot now have you in our days.

All I know is the sun is shining.

Writing an essay is a little bit like the a cloudy day.
If you think about it, the sun never actually goes out. Someone, somewhere, in the world always has it. And even when it is cloudy, above the clouds is the sun, smiling down with its big cherry face giving you the answers. The clouds are merely the procrastination one utilises to avoid doing the essay, the procrastination that tells you there isn't the information up there to do it, to get on with it. To nail that shit. To A+ the mother fucker.

But the clouds always clear at some point and even if there are only those few rays of sunshine pounding down on the pavement it's enough to make the start.

Have a sun shiney day, not a cloudy one.

I like this word.

I got that idiosyncrasy.

I don't.

Modelling bridal wear. Makes you think.
Is a wedding really just the same as a runway show? You have a straight line to walk, an audience to impress, and a nervous smile that shakes.
Do the people watching you realise a wedding is the start of a marriage or just a day to look pretty and sip Moet?
Does anybody really remember that a marriage isn't a transaction, signed sealed and delivered by a wedding?
Does all romance go out the window?
Are we just a society who like the look but don't care for the work?

I can't help but think, as I am painted with pink lips, taught how to hold a boquet appropriately, plastered with hairspray, and told I am not smiling enough as I totter down the runway, even in the love drenched audience watching me, that perhaps they are more in love with the dress. Or the ring. The cake, or the car. The honeymoon, or whatever sparkles.

14 definites. 1 wonder.

I've learned that, being yourself is only not enough for those who don't love you.
I've learned that, though I have green eyes I am not a green eyed monster.
I've learned that, without trust a world doesn't spin.
I've learned that, everybody has insecurities. It is not wise to play on them.
I've learned that, people who take your confidence as arrogance never knew you enough.
I've learned that, if you are a black sheep you shouldn't worry about not following the white flock.
I've learned that, at least if others are talking about you, then one less person has to suffer the cruelty of their words.
I've learned that, if it's raining your hair is going to go curly, which was more interesting than straight anyway.
I've learned that, peoples' reactions aren't a reflection of you, rather themselves.
I've learned that, just as one door closes, another opens. But something may keep the one behind you slightly ajar.
I've learned that, those who don't believe in love haven't yet felt.
I've learned that, there is something about needs. Sometimes when you get them met, you don't need them anymore.
I've learned that, every dog has his day.
I've learned that, there is always the exception to the rule. I live by this.
I've learned that, some things never need to be questioned and the day you start may be the day you lose.
I've learned that, when relationships end, cynicism is an easy camping ground. But not a necessary stop.
I've learned that, destroying the evidence doesn't have a hope in hell of fading the memories.
But i've wondered; if you have mastered the forgiveness and not the forgetness can you ever truly forgive?

Hannah.

Thinking of you.
The smile that lit up the world, could turn even the saddest face from blue.
The little purple bow,
traveled all the way to India you'll be happy to know.
Told it's story to many about the fragility of life,
but how to live it in the most passionate light.
To be true to yourself you taught me so well,
because if you don't, no one else shall.
Indebted with thanks I am to you, for you showed me how to walk a mile in someone elses shoes.
To light up a room, to a grin from a gloom.
To live each day as it might be the last, to not waste the time that will soon be the past.
You are where the poppies lie,
writing your purple across the sky.

What about do's?

To the woman taking our tutorial.
It was like being back in school again! I didn't know whether to hate it or love it.
"Would you like to share the joke?"
"Uhhh it wasn't really a joke..."
"Good then be quiet and LISTEN TO ME."
Then there was silence. Then giggles in my head, for I was too afraid of this little leprachaun woman to possibly make them physically heard.
So most of what we got for the hour was "don'ts." Positive Priscilla she was feeling today. My, I would not want to upset her, not with the likes of grammatical errors, non Harvard style citing, nor over use of commas. Guilty as charged.
What did we take out of that tut?
A gazillion donts.
But hang on, no wait.
What do we do?

(p.s both of those 'do's' would have been italicized if I could figure out just how to do it. So you should just imagne they are when you read it for extra effect. PLUS this was also a good excuse to use my on going obsession with brackets.)

This IS also the 6th time I have to edit this in order for it to make sense. OCD much? Jesus. (Christ Superstar!)

Stop and Stare.

Appreciate what is around you. Stop for a second, even two everyday just to have a gander. Beauty was there before diesel trucks existed. And it never left.
Don't look in the mirror too much, you're attached to this face for the rest of your days. Have a look at someone else's. The story it tells, the emotions it bears.
Never ceases to amaze me what you can find.

These boots are made for feeling.

Walk a day in somebody else's shoes.
Take a hike in them.
Spend a moment.
Then you will feel.
Feel what it's like to take the words you dish out.
Get your own helping.
A serving the size of your words.
One that yells them back at you from a cold china plate.
Feel them.
Now, don't do it again.

"Yellow, why?"

A heart that weeps.
A soul that's broken.
Nostalgic is the love for someone, something, anything.
It's a mindless job, the hands do and the brain fades.
What was once talent and genius is now passionless. But it provides a nice income.
Love or money.
Money buys you stuff. Lots of stuff. Cluttering appears not only in a house.
But love is priceless. Though, it won't buy you a thing.
Funny how the best feeling, emotion and gift in the world can never be bought or sold.
I can hear the sorrow in his voice, as tears start to well in mine. I can see the effort, know it's not going to waste.
Don't stop trying, there's not just another side, there's as many as you like.
The world isn't black and white.
It's a mellow yellow.
A tickeled pink.
The blue moon.
A whiter shade of pale.
The greenest grass.

Your face lights up, as it does sometimes. Yellow is written all over it.
Remember what made you happy.
Stop making it easy to remember the bad things and forget the best. Stop, please.
Know how much you make me cry with laughter. And how much your words helped me when I was halfway across the globe.
Know how they made me cry with joy to know you have always been here, thinking of me when you should've been thinking of yourself.
I would never wish you any different, just happiness.
Words may never have made much sense but hopefully you stumble upon this one day in your office and
maybe you'll stop and smile. Like you do. And your face lights up, and writes its' yellow.

Tickled pink.

How can one/ I explain that I am content. Not how, nor why. Just content.
Supposedly you can only bring that feeling to those around you, but essentially it is our own doing that carries us alongside this.
I don't feel that being content is about losing wants and needs. I enjoy wanting, a lot of people thrive off wanting. Often it can be the wanting that is more enjoyable than the getting.
To me being content is being immersed in a moment. Knowing that on matter how you got there, looking back is a fading memory. And that sometimes answers aren't needed. That looking for them keeps from enjoying the question.
Live for the question marks.
Strive for the exclamation points.
Write your own story.
This one's mine. Chapter three so far, anyway.

Blank.

Observing gathers answers, though who felt answers were always so necessary? Can we not just have a question to follow without bringing the journey to a halt with an answer? The answer is not always static, maybe it has crossroads, lined with concrete-hand-painted-zebra-striped barriers. One that comes to a pause at the toll boxes, demanding the printed paper, the precious thing we value so.