Thursday 14^th October 2021 (Toffia, IT)

It’s exactly a week since I last wrote anything. I haven’t done so well at sticking to my half a page of writing each day. Perhaps I’ll try to remember what filled my days between, perhaps I won’t. I only know that it’s been two weeks since my arrival, yet it feels at the same time shorter and longer, nothing has been achieved, and yet so much has been achieved. My Italian vocabulary is increasing little by little, I’ve switched from caffeinated to decaf, I haven’t missed butter, the sound of a shotgun is commonplace and the mountain goats have a favourite nightspot on top of a precarious stony crag – to escape perhaps the hunters, predators or the cold, so we thought.. learning since that they are simply there because it feels right. I will miss the amazing mountainous views of lush green foliage that I have already begun to take for granted as it surrounds us in every direction.

I CAN’T WRITE ANY MORE NOTES

If I do ever return to them and read what I have written, they won’t even make any sense.

So really my notes are pointless.

The act of note taking is really me pretending to myself that I’m being productive, that I am getting organised, but the more the notes pile up, the less I can face them.

No Roller Skating Allowed

I was confused as I peeled my face off the floor, I didn’t know if the blood was dripping from my nose or my mouth. I watched the blood droplets hit the floor in quick motion and survival mode started to kick in, I found tissues to hold to my face whilst simultaneously wiping the evidence from the floor.

I ring Mat, but no answer; I ring again, still no answer. Even if Mat gets to the studio, there’s no way I’m getting down 3 flights of stairs in roller skates to unlock the door. My head is pounding and I’m not quite sure what’s happening, but my fingers manage to fumble with the double-knotted triple wrapped around laces. I’ve done it, my feet are free from the wheels, I stumble to the toilet to check my face in the mirror. I forget there is no mirror in here.  

My phone hasn’t rang. Mat isn’t coming. I need to make it home. I pull my coat and my shoes on. Switch off the heaters and turn the light off. I’m at the front door and I’m staring at the alarm system I use everyday but now I can’t fathom how it works.  Fuck it, I leave and lock the door behind me.

‘Mattttt’ I shout. I‘ve made it home. The next 15 minutes still remain a blur as I come around sitting on the closed lid of the toilet seat, holding a fresh tissue to my face and tears rolling down my cheeks.

‘I’m really confused, I don’t know what’s happening’

‘Have you been roller skating in your studio?’

‘I think so’

‘You said this morning, you were going to roller skate in your studio’

‘Yes… ‘

‘Right that’s it, your not allowed to roller skate in your studio anymore, the studio is for working not roller skating’

‘But I was having a really good time, I was practicing the Mohawk turn.’

2021 Spring

Words turn to black marks

And the waves of emptiness crash into me

I freeze

Numb with emptiness

Anxiety emanates from my fingers

And my face cannot break

Expressionless

A lump in my throat

An ache in my back

Dizzying eyes

I feel sick to my stomach

Too many

Sugar coated bubble gum milk bottles

A pound a bag from the k market

I rub my eyes with my thumb and middle finger

Or to be more precise I put pressure on the eyeballs

My thumb has my right eye

My finger the left eye

Starting at the outer edges of each eye

I draw thumb and finger across the eyes

To meet at the bridge of my nose

The eyes are weary

Tired and sting a little

It’s all the soot

Falling

Down from the ceiling

The soot sifts down

And finds all the crevasses

the world is a much quieter place now

I can hear the birds chirp more clearly

every sound

every action

seems magnified

and yet contained

people seem less friendly

not even a smile as I pass by

instead of smiles

looks of disgust

with no real reason as to why

it will soon feel like

the early hours

all day

an extension of the quiet

and the void

just the crows

crowing.

written Thursday 19th March 2020