Blanket

Cover the valley, make it look like the mountains are being flooded with a white carpet, something surreal. The landscape, never the same, almost challenging to my eyes. A sea of cotton wool. Would it catch my every fall? It looks like a perfect pillow, just holding itself there. No shift, no adjustment to its glory. The days, so painfully beautiful, dancing around us, embracing us, defining our walls. The clouds, like her, my blanket. She is out there, walking, breathing, despairing, rejoicing, feeling the heart strings pull at her, needing a blanket too. She is a baby, I am a cradle. I am the wind and she is the trees. All for you, all for me.

Milano / Audrey (August 2012)

So, Milan didn't blow me away like Venice had. In fact, Milan seemed like a really poor version of Madrid. I could see similarities, but Milan didn't pull it off. Any of it. People were clearly loaded and geared to representing the fashion the city is known for at the price of a more down to earth existence. There was something alien about the place and its people. I didn't feel any connection with it like I had with Venice only the day before.

The only connection I found was with an Australian woman called Audrey who was staying at the same hostel. She was really good to talk to, which was something I'd been missing all day.She had these exciting eyes sparkling in the dark outside area where we were sat on the floor, initially with others and a little later just the two of us alone together. I wanted to take her to my room, just lie there, talk all night or until I inevitably fell asleep. I wanted to imagine the ceiling, the roof away and discuss the universe with her while the stars were all ours. All of them for us. Dancing across that sky.

Yeah, she had tattoos, and no, I'm not a big fan at all, but the meaning of each helped me on my way to forgiveness, haha. She wasn't serious. I like that. I am often the same. Life is so short, why waste it being unnecessarily serious? She was funny and cute. Okay, so I wanted to taste her and lick her legs as we had discussed earlier, jokingly in conversation (don't ask how that happened), but to be serious for a second her pins did look ripe for a licking. Absolutely so.

I had a room to myself. I had two massive double beds in there. A room big enough to hold them and have extra space. I could have got lost in there, in the ocean of that bed (well, I had to pick one, didn't I?). It felt almost tragic that I was in there alone. I slept well, even if it was too late really. A woman somewhere would have wanted to be there with me. I wish I could have felt that then. I just felt like the king of all loneliness again. I didn't like that. I failed these last days in turning everything into a positive as I had lately so well. I wanted some genuine affection. Ellie was a year ago now. People had wanted me since, I'd wanted some people too, normally different ones, yeah, you know, not the ones who wanted me. All kinds of situations had arisen, in fact. I'd hurt some people unintentionally. I'd almost been hurt myself if not for having a philosophy where I didn't feel I could lose, because all life, no matter what, was a valuable and life-enhancing experience. But now I can feel a hole. I don't like it. Maybe these four days travelling has highlighted the void. I didn't expect it. Maybe it's been growing inside since the Russian actress. She swept through the night like a deceptive wind rustling the leaves. Pieces of some giant puzzle, a tapestry, life.

I imagined us lying on one of the giant beds each and just talking. Then it would become quiet and I'd go and climb the walls onto the bed she was on. I'd tell her not to worry and just stroke her hair and face, look into her eyes a little. I might even kiss her. Kiss the world away. Kiss that face until it melted from the heat, from the surprise, from the tenderness, and the madness of the days. A stranger doesn't need to be strange.

Forest of Legs (June)

If you had long been an admirer of women and the female form, an observer, such as myself, there comes a time in which you find yourself closer to heaven than at any previous moment of your days.

For the forest of legs I had never seen a start to a summer like this. The only good thing about leaving was the knowledge I would return a little over a month later. I could only hope nothing changed on the farm. I was on the wagon. I wasn't hoping to fall off.

Animals (May 30)

I wasn't quite sure from the eyes, if the alcohol and drugs had done that to them, or if they were a type of breed that inevitably fell into that whole game. It was to really risk your hand. I couldn't see a pretty ending, anywhere in sight.

Hollow eyes, dark, like some vicious dog waiting. Waiting on a pounce. On anything. We are animals. We can control ourselves. It is said.

Who Knows

It's not so much a question as a statement. If you don't have the answers though, for yourself, then I guess the shadows can't see inside either. I hold the hope of a heart, in a hand, on a rope. I for you can only breathe so long. Underwater abattoir. You leave me. Suffocate at sections. I never promised you an olive garden. They say. Go in search of and thou shalt suffer when not uncovering your sought riches. Allow space and time to co-create their beautiful babies of truth. All will be revealed. Rewarding patience. I can only open so much, like a bare book, the bones sticking out from the lesser skinned parts. I am yours. I am nobody's. I am a celebration of everything we don't know.

elvira

She was some kind of space pixie. She hadn't come from the common womb either. Just looking in her eyes, some truth just lying there, it was obvious she had the key.

I didn't want her to go, but I was glad for those few hours. So much time wasted, this so well used. We were gonna know each other a good while. Always time, my dear,

Sometimes it comes on really easy. The topics, the life analysis, the ease of comfort. She was effortless to be with. Oh, space pixies, you hide so well. Where are the others, lost in corners, never to be discovered? Sleep tight, little pixies, sleep tight for now.

Family

My darling family,

Where are you for the days? The passing days in which I hold you close at mind if not in arms. We could be sad at these distances or we could be grateful we ever had enough to miss each other in the first place. We could look forward to our next collection of minutes in each other's company, and only see the light. How I miss my mother and father, but what I have become is a testament to love and their guidance, whether it felt strange at times, inside my shell, understanding them and the world that surrounded me. The ballooning upon emerging from a protective shell, the blossoming of life, as it takes over, as we hold the reigns, control it, each in our own way. Me in mine. Oh it all looks spectacular from here. I can see the waves, singing a gentle lullaby.

So, I wonder how your days are. How are your days? I can type words out to you, feelings of warmth. I can see you whenever I want. Nothing is missing really, only those pretty arguments we fall into in person.

Yeah, I see people around me who are close by to their families, some obscenely so, some where they come and go into each other's daily lives and it seems nice and some who just coincide rarely, despite closeness in location. There is all kinds of situations. Some people probably don't miss their families so much and others will be locked into moments of sadness that they don't share a little more of the days with those closest to them. I think freedom and pursuing the calling of a heart is the greatest thing we can do, as the heart is our finest weapon, but that sometimes leads us away from the spot where our roots were twisted into the ground. I never considered tearing myself from the spot painful, I just don't know where I will, if ever, lay down those roots again. For now they excel at running over new turf and taking the upper parts of the body to lands where the wind can be felt on a neck, in the hair. I wonder why I don't miss my 'home' and am hunting for another, but I know it's right. My family is there, even in silence, it is there. You, fragments of me. You, with eyes and a pulse and a will of your own.

So, enjoy the days, as we are, together and apart. For our eyes will see each other soon, in more than dreams. Until that moment I am yours. As ever I was and will be.

Bless your socks and the contents, bless you on your way.