The Memories of Celeste, aged 17/ 25/ 53/ 89

17

The last song had just been played and you were standing on top of the hill, floppy brown hair in your eyes and the biggest grin I've ever seen plastered across your face. I took a picture of you. The excitement, the sweat - but although some things can never be captured, I still tried. I shook it in my hand. I tasted on my tongue, my skin. Everything was in its right place. I kept you in my heart of hearts and I wore you on my sleeve of sleeves. The night was hot and humid but we still chose to walk. We couldn't stay still, the molecules bounced off one another in a curious frenzy. And when I got home I wrote everything down but  before the ink had its chance to dry I began to sound silly and romantic. I am constantly struggling to differentiate between the two. Tonight however is not for tempering, and perhaps that is why I took the photograph. To hold and to remember. The sad thing is that memories don't outlive people. People outlive memories.



25

The folding of a letter, the sound the drawer makes as it shuts, the turning of a key and the click of a lock. Everything was in its right place. But I wonder to myself - is this intentional forgetting anything more than an act of cowardice? We experience time in a very strange way, we feel as if it is constant and that there is a linear progression to it. But time is like a train as it hurtles towards an unknown destination, and only when it stops at various points in the journey are we able to contextualize it. Nothing will ever be as concrete as it is now, when we are actively experiencing it. The rest will be lost to nostalgia. I am afraid our narratives diverge here, and there is no point in grasping. There are many pages yet unwritten for us both and although saddening, there should be much excitement for what is to come. 

53

It was nice seeing you today. If we write a book about our lives, how much space do we allocate the characters that populate this novel? How important are some people in contrast to others? Do they deserve a line? A paragraph? An entire chapter? Do they feature fleetingly or do they keep coming back again and again - in different chapters and on numerous lines? What convictions do we assign these characters? How prominent are these characters in our lives? And how prominent are we to them? Are we just footnotes in the lives of others? A moody publisher. A line of admirers I fear I have grown weary of. Coffee stains on a table after the book signing. A long heartwarming conversation over bagels. It was almost as if nothing had ever changed. But that was impossible, it was only time trying to convince us that there was nothing which had been lost to history. And yet, the lump in my throat remains. Have all my words ironically deserted me? Do I have none left? It is said that actions speak louder than words, but then again I've always been a quiet person.



89

I found something extremely interesting today. An old picture I don't remember taking. Nor do I remember the person in the photograph although I feel I should. My convictions aren't as strong as they used to be. The strife that used to drive me has been turned down a notch, that is not to say that I understand a lot more now, it's just that I don't worry so much about not understanding anymore. Time is contagious, and all my friends have gotten old. The train is slowing down and I know it won't be long before I have to disembark. I've been blessed with so many wonderful realizations but I doubt I have the space for any more. As I'm writing all of this down my mind drifts to different places and different people - pity how none of them seem to be in clear focus anymore. Isn't it funny how we move forward in time but our thoughts move backward? A smile on a hill. A long walk. A closed drawer. A face in a crowd. These snippets of memory frustrate me because they exist as that - mere snippets. All that remains is an idea of what happened. I fold the photograph and place it in my pocket as I smile to myself. Not remembering burdens me slightly, but I doubt I will be burdened for much longer.

midnight city

beginnings: 


locked behind a door, beside a flawed and failing memory. 



the skyline of a midnight city

the skyline drawn from memory

the skyline drawn on my forearm

a skyline that starts to fade

a familiar face against a midnight city

a face etched into memory

a face that starts to fade.


This is what it would look like if my dreams were organized in a list, and I would have no trouble arranging them according to chronology. What came first and what came where. But as it is I awake on a pillow moist with sweat, and the slivers of my dreams appear as lines written over one another. Although some small modicum of meaning can be wrung out if I concentrate extremely hard, the number of lines that overlap and smudge into each other point to the bleak reality that something is most definitely lost forever.

This is the writer speaking now, and I feel it is important that I separate myself from the text just this one time, in the beginning. I fear what I have to say will not be completed, as different lines of thought are constantly imposing themselves upon me, threatening to rewrite whatever clarity I think I've found on this particular island in time. There is a little apple-scented candle burning in front of me and I am typing away furiously in a room with a single table and a single chair. The reason for my impatience is because I will be forced to forget everything at midnight. The apple candle will go out, the rain outside the window will turn to ice and I shall be lost to waves and waves of dreaming.

I make no attempt at honesty and if you persist in looking for it you will only be disappointed. This is fiction and none of this ever happened(all fiction is precipitated by fact, all stories stem from what is lacked). This is repeated several times and only when I have deceived myself do I begin to write:

Cats are having very loud sexytime outside my window. I wonder why Sam isn't barking. Maybe he's watching. That perv.

avo . cado

woke up to find that everyone dressed in bathrobes and that cake had become the global currency/ woke up for real only to discover that clothes remained a social norm and that people did not barter in cake/ displeased/ got up/ made some tea (peach)/ did not finish tea/ looked for weetbix/ found weetbix/  ate weetbix/ still hungry/ ate another/ drank some milk/ said hi to sam/ no response/ went upstairs/ sat on bed/ played guitar/ snapped a string/ went back downstairs/ watched an episode of fringe/ played some music/ pause the tragic ending/ both sides now/ wish you love/ sunday afternoon/ not yet lunchtime and i'm feeling mellow already/ change of mood needed/ midnight city/ drifting in and out/ in the morning/ feel a lot better/ sam finally says hi (i blank him)/ took a shower/ recited the monologue from american psycho whilst showering/ don a bathrobe for fun/ time for lunch/ open fridge/ nothing inside but cheese/ open pantry/ nothing inside but bread/ settle for a cheese sandwich among the plethora of options available/ check the mail/ nothing for me/ read the first ninety pages of flowers in the attic online/ bored as hell/ give up/ play some more dancey music/ really warming up to m83/ spazz out like i'm having an epileptic fit to midnight city in my room/ draw the curtains/ spazz out some more/ exhausted/ take nap/ wake up/ take sam for a short walk/ arm almost ripped out of socket by cray as fuck dog/ dump sam home/ walk across to bazaar/ buy in the following order: ayam percik, bread pudding and guava juice/ accepted currency still money/ hop back home in rather joyous spirits/ nom nom nom/ so damn full/ struggle up the stairs/ start writing another post about things(read: me) i take way too seriously/ get distracted/ write (this) instead/ realize that my text is meta and self-reflexive woo/ and tentatively, perhaps a little later on: browse pictures of cats/ figure out how to make guacamole/ play some more rachael/ go to bed/ hopefully, HOPEFULLY dream of a world where everything is paid for in cake.