~Together.~

Together we’ll run

Through the fields made of dew,

And the streets paved with ice

We will run.

Together we’ll laugh

At the tiniest things –

Only we’ll understand

Why we laugh.

Together we’ll lay

‘Neath a blanket of stars

And the bright silver shine

Of the moon.

Together we’ll be -

‘Til you shatter my dreams

For a person

Who’s no good for you.

Apart we shall stay

As a storm rears its head

And casts you adrift

On the shore.

I will fall to your side,

You’ll return my embrace -

We both needed

A warm hand to hold.

Together once more

I will help you pull through

From the misery

You now endure.

And as we sleep by the waves,

In the chill morning air,

I will stab you

For breaking my heart.

~From This Day On~

Gazing out over the choppy waves of the North Sea, Rhianon knew that today would be the starting point. A sense deep inside her told her that what she was about to was right, a sense that had been with her since childhood. But even though she knew that doing this would fix everything, Rhianon’s heart felt heavy at the thought of all the things she had left behind and, as if the ache in her chest spread to the muscles in her neck, her head fell forward, once wandering eyes staring back at her from the puddle at her feet.

The emptiness of her eyes scared her and automatically her head snapped up, eyes once again roaming across the horizon, escaping from the horror that lay only five feet away.

A lonely cry alerted Rhianon to the presence of a baby seagull, abandoned in its nest by its mother as she searched for food. This confused Rhianon as she remembered, from what seemed like years ago, her science teacher describing the intricate ways of birds and how a chick was never left alone, especially one so young as this one.

She caught sight of a lone black shape in the distant sky and once again, her instinct told her something she knew to be true. Inside her head Rhianon was screaming, “Where are you?! How could you just fly off without a backward glance? You’re its father! It needs you! It can’t survive without you! Come BACK!” but she daren’t open her mouth, else she broke yet another calm atmosphere; destroyed something else that wasn’t hers to destroy.

Rhianon had made a pact with herself as she sat by herself on the train from Waverly Station. No longer would she invoke the harsh feelings of disappointment and failure that her mother seemed to suffer from so much whilst Rhianon was around. No more would her stepfather give her disapproving glances across the dinner table as she glared at the abomination that he had married.

As the train had slowed, Rhianon had silently agreed to fulfil her pact that day with all the strangers bustling past her, surrounding her, staring at the lone teenager shouldering a huge khaki backpack - filled with scrunched newspaper balls, her sleeping bag and all the spare food she had managed to scrounge from the flat in Livingstone.

Now, standing so close to her goal, Rhianon felt the strangest feeling build up inside of her. It was one of such happiness and yet something else lingered on the sidelines – a touch of excitement and complete content. For the first time in her life, Rhianon experienced a sense of achievement.

She opened her mouth and let the sea air flow through her mouth, down her throat, filling her lungs with a freshness for which she had yearned for so long. A clarity came over her and, adjusting her position ever so slightly, Rhianon let her meagre supplies slip off her shoulders and leant them against a scraggly bush poking through the bare ground a hundred metres or so away from her final destination.

Rhianon lifted her head once more and slowly walked forward until she could feel the crumbling rock under her feet, falling down, down, down into the black abyss that was ever present just out of Rhianon’s sight. Once more, Rhianon filled her body with the sea breeze gusting in from the North, her hair blowing back behind her, as if trying to escape the fate that was rapidly approaching; the fate that Rhianon was willing to embrace with all her heart.

One more step and suddenly Rhianon was following the rocks before her except she wasn’t falling. Oh no. She was flying with the seagulls into the distant horizon, swimming with the dolphins into the deepest blue of the ocean, crawling with the crabs along the pebbled shoreline even before she hit the boulders waiting for her at the bottom of the cliff.

* * * * *

It was four days before Rhianon’s family noticed that the young girl had run away from home and it was on the same day, approximately two hours later, that three hikers spotted her body sprawled across the jagged rocks that lay at the bottom of the steepest cliff in that area. The local police had concluded early into the investigation that it could be nothing other than suicide – the lack of any indication that another human had been there and the backpack found at the top of the cliff allowed no other explanation.

However her family, to all those who observed them, appeared to be unconcerned with the mental state of their daughter that had quite probably troubled her for a number of years. Not because they didn’t care but from that day on, all the problems and complications in their lives had simply disappeared.

~Mirrors~

Don't you think it's strange that looking in a mirror is a different experience for everyone?

For some it's a reassurance, others a struggle. Some find it purely impossible to view themselves as others would, preferring instead to base the opinion of their appearance purely on what they see when they look down at their own body.
It can be very different - what you think you see and what you are actually seeing. Mirrors have the ability to show us the truth when we believe no one else. But they can also lie and distort shapes beyond recognition which, although amusing, can sometimes destroy people.

For something that shows a reflection, it's a terribly tricksy object. One slight alteration to the angle of the glass and BOOM you've got a completely different image. I often wonder if the same goes for a personality. Alter it by just a fraction and you end up with a new person, a totally changed being.

So is it good to try and alter the way we view each other? Not just by changing the mirror but by forcing them to change too. To suit you or to "make them fit". Perhaps we should leave them be, leave them to get by. After all, who knows what you're going to end up with if you go round making alterations?

#Taorem...

Before we moved inland, I had a friend I’d never been without. For now, we’ll call him Taorem, though his real name is so much more beautiful.

We were born in the same hospital, in the same month, the same week. We practically lived in each other’s houses, shared families even. This meant that as children we were almost inseparable. Yet we were often kept apart. We could hardly spend half a day without launching into an explosive fight – mostly verbal, sometimes physical. So we were separated – “for our own good.”

Really, all we were doing was marking our territory, laying down the boundaries – we shared so much that it was often unclear to us what belonged to the other.

Throughout our early years, we spent much of our time creating new worlds to explore – urban jungles in the park or rich forests under our duvets. However, it wasn’t long before everything changed. In fact, it wasn’t long after our young childhood freedom and innocence was stolen by the enforced conscription of education that our world collapsed. He had to leave – to be with his family Taorem had to follow his parents to a strange country, a different world that seemed a lifetime away. Along with his brother, he walked away from the only place we knew.

Only a couple of years later I too had to follow my family to the land she grew up in. It was as strange to me as any foreign country I’d been to – there were no beaches, no seaweed, no seagulls. How could I live somewhere so far from the untamed wildness of the sea? How could I belong here?

But part of me was glad to have left behind the empty memories of joy I’d had on the coast. Without Taorem I felt I was somehow missing something, like I’d lost an important part of life, but being so young I had no idea what this was, what it meant. With this new land came the possibility of new life and the chance that I could work out what it was I was missing, solve this puzzle that twisted my young mind into knots.

When we were little, our parents joked that we were an old married couple. Now I wonder whether they were witnessing the beginnings of an eternal bond. Of course, I have no idea whether he still thinks of me, or if he’s found the thing I’ve always been searching for since he left. I thought I’d found it once but I must have been lying to myself.
After Taorem left, I didn’t realise that part of me had followed him to his new life. It resides with him, whether he knows it or not. I try to call it back but it refuses, still clinging to him and the hope that one day he might return. It never will come back to me unless I somehow manage to unhook its claws from the empty promise of his reappearance.

We were young, so young, that I never knew what it was that I felt for him – Taorem was like my brother and yet he was so much more than that. I could never explain how it was but I’d always thought that nothing could keep us apart – even through the strained efforts of teachers to separate us we always ended up together somehow.

And now, sometimes it’s all I can do to stop myself thinking of him – seeing him, hearing him, feeling him.

If he doesn’t remember there’s nothing I can do, but I can never forget Taorem.