The Alternate Ending

OH MY GOD IT'S FINALLY HERE! DAY 40 GUYS! I'M GOING TO WRITE THIS WHOLE BLURB IN CAPS TO SHOW HOW FRIGGIN' EXCITED AND OVERJOYED I AM AT THIS STUPENDOUS OCCASION! Just kidding, I'll write normally. LOL, FOOLED YOU, I'M STILL USING CAPS! CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPS!

Now to the real business of the day, my 40th poem in as many days. I started doing this whole thing as a journey of personal enlightenment. I am not even LYING when I say this small block of 40 days has been one of the strangest periods of my entire life. And as 25 year olds go I've had a pretty weird life. Not braggin', jus' sayin' yo.

So I guess I really have learnt a lot. I've realised that I have the best gang of friends a gal could ever hope to find, and you're all perfect in your own imperfect ways. This has all been for you. I mean, not really, I literally just said it was very personal, but you know...what I'm trying to say is, thanks for being there and shit.

I wrote this poem way back at the start of the challenge and have been gently tweaking it throughout the whole process. It's aaaaall about personal enlightenment, so rather fitting. It's almost as though I planned it. Imagine that, me, forward planning! What on EARTH.

Anyway, this is the end. OR IS IT? DAY 40.

The Minus Owl

I

On the third day

the owl flew out to me.

“Any milk today?” it said.

“Don’t mock me,” I said.

“And those feathers aren’t fooling anyone.”

“Axe to grind?”

“How can I take you seriously?” I said,

adjusting my noose.

The owl clicked its beak

and rode off on the sound.

II

I picked up a stone

and cursed it.

“There, now you won’t ever be loved.”

And I threw it back in the dirt

where it came from.

III

On the tenth day,

the owl flew out to me.

“What do you hate?” it said.

“When you’re playing a game,” I said.

“And somebody cheats.”

“What’s a game?”

“A party I’m not invited to,” I said.

I looked off wistfully.

The owl laughed its way

out of the scene.

IV

I spent a whole day

putting different wigs on a whale.

“What you need to understand is, I’m unemployed.”

I heard that whale

works in Hollywood now.

V

On the eighteenth day

the owl flew out to me.

“What do you want?” it said.

“Just a mile or so of solidity,” I said.

“Something to keep me going.”

“Where are you going?”

“Where have you been?” I said,

remembering how scared I was.

The owl nodded,

getting into a car.

VI

I picked through the rubble,

looking for artefacts.

“I’m really starting to appreciate the dust of a place.”

I wrote my name with a stick,

seeing it exist for the first time in years.

VII

On the last day,

the owl flew out to me.

“What do you have?” it said.

“My body,” I said.

“And the teeth of a survivor.”

“What did you ever survive?”

“Life,” I said. “At least this long.”

I held out my arms, shaping the years.

The owl gave a hoot

and was gone.

At the Carnival

Dear all...

I'm afraid I've had to cheat a bit today because I'm so bloody busy...this is not an entirely new poem. Well, it's actually not new at all. At least not to me. It SHOULD be new to all of you though, and that's what's important, to me at any rate...it also means I can go out and get my love on with Alex, who writes a super sassy blog over at Inferior Design.

Please try to enjoy this, despite my betrayal - I've chosen this poem especially to highlight it. I appreciate your pity. 

Old Friend

My friend and I were friends for a long time. We grew up together in a shanty town just outside London. Not many people knew of its existence and the air of collusion that wove its way through the streets seemed to bind the residents irrevocably.

I’m flicking through the old photographs of us. Me, dressed as a bald man with a limp; she laid on a towel in the rain pretending it’s summer. It causes me a certain pain to remember what happened; pain just below the jugular, as though there’s a small man in there, opening tin cans and throwing the lids around with little regard for his surroundings.

For a long time my friend had acted strangely, pursing her lips when she saw me coming and speaking only in pound coins when I said hello. She started dating an old sea captain from the 1600s. When I tried to tell her it was an impossible relationship, she said, “When the witch watches the walkers in the woods, the woods won’t wake for the walkers.” When I told her I didn’t understand, she laughed and called me a philistine.

The day was June 16^th 1972. I knocked on my friend’s door and asked if she’d like to come out for some Estonian street food. “I can’t,” she said. “I’ve fallen into a deep depression. The ocean of my despair will drown you.”

“I’m a good swimmer,” I said.

“Not good enough,” she muttered. Behind her, I could see a dinner party going on with an empty place, just big enough for her to fill. I took our friendship from around my neck and put it in a small cardboard box shaped like a mausoleum. “Bring this back to me when you feel like you want to talk.”

Sixteen years later I saw the box in a charity shop. I opened it and found it empty but for a few blades of grass, which acted as a perfect metaphor for the knives now lodged so firmly in my back. I called my friend on her old number.

“Hello?” she shouted over the Carnival of Betrayal going on in the background.

“It’s me,” I said.

“It was never you,” she replied before putting the phone down like a cancer-ridden Labrador.

I head out into the garden with a box marked old stuff from the past you’ve tried to forget and put it into the hole I dug with my hands last night. Six parts petrol, one part match and the smoke is waving its farewell into the evening.

Nubbin of Joy

Today, a self-portrait:

As you can see, I am dancing with a large YES. That's because there's a lot to be YES about this week...at least in my small, strange segment of this planet we call "world".

First: I have some new readers who AREN'T my friends or family! HELLO NEW READERS WELCOME. I WILL WRITE THIS WHOLE BIT IN CAPITALS JUST FOR YOU. I HOPE YOU FEEL AS VALUED AS YOU ARE!

Next: I have been shortlisted for a poetry prize. Yay-o-Rama or what?! So now all I have to do is murder the other eleven people vying for first place and I will be the winner! And also in jail, which really worked for Oscar Wilde, so maybe not such a bad thing? I'll keep you posted.

C: Some people (most people) probably don't know that I'm moving to Edinburger in September to do my masters in creative writing. Yes, I know, it seems as though I treat this quaint vernacular as a bit of a lark, but I do actually take it very seriously and want to be a proper writer with a little ink stain on my middle finger, so that when Professor Bhaer bowls me over in the streets of New York and takes me back to his room to dry out my soaked manuscript, he will instantly know that I am a writer and we'll fall magically in love!

...anyway...yesterday I got an email to say that the university wanted to give me a scholarship award - wholly unexpected! And you know, not to be big-headed, but they kind of indicated that it's because I have an amazing ass. Well there you go kids: work hard in school and you can have a perfect rear just like me! So *big* word up to William Sharp, my homeboy benefactor.

Hmm, now that I've shared all my good news, I feel like I've broken a year long tradition of moaning about pretty much everything...Oh, wait! I AM annoyed about something! I have an inexplicable bruise on my right knee.

Peace and love everybody, peace and love.