loneliness

Tale #140: All I Know Is That I Am Not You

I am an absence of self, a shadow of nothing. I do not know what I am. All I know is that I am not you.

I turn the key and open the door, each day, to somewhere new. A house, a home, a bedroom. Alone. And for a while, in the silence that’s been left for me to lose myself in, I dream of a life.

Yours, perhaps, pieced together from the objects and fragments with which you’ve built your home. Or mine, sometimes, constructed out of nothing but fragments of my own imagination.

When I hear the click of your key in your lock, I have to be quick. And as I leave I take something small. I keep it with me to remember you by in those long lonely hours of the night. For somewhere in the dark and the shadows behind the doors of your rooms, just like you, I dream. I dream.

And all night I wonder, if we compared my notes to yours, how close would I be to knowing you. How much of yourself would you recognise in me?

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Notes:

1. Written in February 2020.

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Tale #137: The Snow Daughter, or The Voice Beneath The Snow

The whispers come up from beneath our feet, every step another sigh, every sigh a plea, a cry. But the mistake would be to listen, to stop, to try and find the source. For the voice is a trap, to catch the caring. To steal that final flicker of warmth from your trembling desperate heart, to turn your soul to ice.

Better instead to ignore that snow siren’s cry. Better instead to let your own heart turn to stone.

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Notes:

1. Written on April 1st, 2019
2. See not only Sirens, obviously, but also the Yuki-onna.

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Lonely Window

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Notes:

1. Written on October 19th, 2020

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Tale #94: Beneath the weeping willow she sat down and wept

There was a girl who liked to hide. Each day she sat alone beneath the weeping willow. The branches and the boughs of the tree wrapped themselves around her to form this secret safe haven that was all her own.

Each day she cast, in her mind, a spell so strong the whole town would burn. Tears ran down her cheeks and soaked into the cotton of her blouse. Blood ran from her clenched fists into the dirt of the ground on which she sat. And the words of her spell dripped from her tongue into the protection of the tree itself, which ate them up and swallowed them whole and kept them secret from the world.

In her heart, unspoken, was another wish, one that would let her stay here forever, surrounded and safe and alone. But always, eventually, the weeping willow had to let her go, and she would return to the world that was immune to her spells of destruction, but which was trying its hardest, each day, to be the ruin of her.

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Notes:

1. Written on July 1st, 2019
2. The title is taken from By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart

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A Dream Of Company (places in space #30)

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Notes:

1. Written on June 20th, 2019
2. This is the final Places In Space story
3. At least for now
4. Due to me reaching the end of my sketchpad
5. And also running out of ideas
6. And there’s only so long you can claim repetition is a thematic concern of the piece
7. Before it just becomes repetitious
8. And boring
9. All by itself
10. Regardless of your explanations

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Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!