Juxtapose

Dandelions. 
On grass like cashmere. 
Ripped, swaying uneven. 
Bees like cartoons, bumblebees. 
Bright and warm and soft and smiling. 
Melodies singing in the leaves yellow, crisp enough for the season.

Juxtapose.


Grains; grey and white and yellow. 
Screaming with every step. 
Blue skyline, black pine trees silhouetting with the changing sun. 
Seagulls harassing happy holidaymakers as if it were 
maggots at an open morgue.

         Seven fifteen A.M, barely functional.                The hiss of water bubbling over bubbles, excited by the heat forced upon it. A flick of the switch, the clunk of cheap chinaware on the black marble granite, the ting of stainless steel alongside the rim.  Tick. Tick, tick of the sugar pills falling and smashing into the dark brew becoming nothing, and something all at the same time. The aroma, desperate to be known. A white ring left behind, a few drops smashing onto the hard wooden floorboards, mixing with last night’s breadcrumbs and dizzy feet finding gravity.

         Seven twenty-two A.M, getting there.              The salty cold breeze rattles through the gaps in the windows, ghosts begging for salvation.  A click of the lighter, the nicotine and road tar racing from lungs to veins to arteries to a heart beating and living and breathing. This light is not yellow, not orange nor blue or black, but white. White unlike the walls, or the snow, or the freshly wasted trees turned paper. But white like serenity, white like there is no other exquisiteness in the world, no other anything that could ever be so pure but the white light beaming onto pale skin.  The white you still see under closed eyes.

         Seven thirty-three A.M, almost.                       The patter of callused feet pat against the same loose floorboards in the same path as the day before, and before that, and even before that. A hip catches on the door handle on the way in, then a shoulder on the wall corners. The scrunch of dirty clothes and take-out packages crunch under each step, determined to make more disorder than before.  Where has all the coffee gone?

Juxtapose.




         Twenty-two sixteen P.M, Wide-awake.            The bright ball of fire is no closer to the sky than it is the trees. There are no stars; the sky is far from black, or grey, or navy but an azure. The warm, welcoming colour in kindergartens and bathrooms and Doctor offices, it’s in the sky, but it’s on cold skin, and it’s reflecting in lonely eyes. It’s everywhere and no-where at the same time. It’s blue when the world is black.

         Twenty-two forty six P.M, Numb.                    The world is almost quiet. Clinks of glass sing together with a melody unheard of, dancing together under their own rims. Vodka and Gin and Whiskey and Wine and Cider and Absinth partying together. Lips on lips, hips on bones, heads colliding. This is the quiet of the world.  Drowning it out as the spirits drain livers, there is nothing. A ringing; a metal ball on a metal surface, circling. Around and around and around, zooming, ringing, screeching. Screeching silently. There is no sound here. Only the melodies swaying with each other. Like the heads, they collide and become nothing but white noise. Nothing if at all importance.

         Three thirty-six A.M, Awake.                           It’s all screaming, the dots as they soar through the orange above, the pounds of steel and rubber on the bitumen splutter and bang and roar.  There has been no sleep, no rest. Eyes, they sting as what feels like ice fight with corneas protecting burst vessels as they spray across the white, taking homage to what once was unperished. This place has become something so beautiful from something so ugly, a place of fairytales and a world of dreams, built upon a dark pit of unconsolidated sin. 

                                    

Juxtapose

Eleven Twenty Eight A.M, Distinct.                            The distinct absence of all emotion, the moments of reconciliation as beads fall from the sky. The leaves, they weep the soundless cry of elation knowing they will survive. Thirty feet of seventy years replenishing rotten cores burrowed out by lives winning nature’s course. The tears falling from the black pelts to the ground with no sympathy for the sufferers. They no longer die to survive, and in this moment of a blasphemy summer rain, the steam creeps from the bark as the trees are painted from brown to gold and the bird can finally breathe. The earth can finally breathe, and in this moment the sufferers slowly surviving can finally breathe.

Thirteen Forty Seven P.M, Word.                     Twenty-four hours, one thousand four hundred and forty minutes pass. The clock hands fall disintegrating into ashes. Twenty-four hours since the crash back into reality, twenty-four hours since the jet engine roars to the dry bitumen, and in one hour it will no longer matter. The novelty of time has expired. One day has passed in this world.  One day has passed in the superficial reality where two lives intertwine, two lives of the same person. 

Nineteen Fifty Four P.M, Sleep.                                The boulder resting upon aching shoulders falls parallel to the roof spinning to the bottom, reaching out for an affair in the impossibly possible. Nothing is guaranteed when time is of no objective, when there is nothing left to love in a life so desperately in need of destination.  The sun is not to be setting, in a better reality the sun will be lighting the world of the people in a better life.

Juxtapose

Sixteen Fifty-three P.M, Boarding in six hours and seven minutes.              The uneven squeaky lumps once covered by cheap sheets and duvets made of artificial feathers seem exposed in a now empty space of molding yellow-cream walls and crusting carpet absorbing cigarette smoke. This bed was not for sleeping.  The dated dark oak flakes away from the wardrobe now empty, patiently waiting to become home to anything again. Stale. This metaphorical prison cell of serenity stands stale and thoughts ricochet off the same glass ambitious eyes once hazed out off. These months of nothing and unequivocally everything draw to a close as this room grieves from the skirting.  Weeping through dusty air vents, fighting through the mildew, forcing the almost romantic cries of ceremonial farewell.

Eighteen Twelve P.M, Something.                    The groups gush out from The Underground, hissing and grunting and huffing and sighing.  Precise pressed lines on navy suits, flawlessly seamed trousers marrying shoes so polished the ground becomes the sky. Everybody hates Mondays. This day is not a Monday. This day is a funeral. Cold and grey as these ordinary people live extraordinary lives.

Twenty One Sixteen P.M, Last.                        The last time a body will fall flat on this bed, the last time ruined shoes will walk on these cobblestone paths, the last time lungs will be so rich to breathe this sweet air.  The thing about last times is that although first times are appreciated and loved and cherished forever, there will always be last times that brings uncanny uncertainty. The last times that will shatter hearts with the realization at one point a parent will hold a child only to put them back down and never hold them again. Now there is this last time, where there is nothing but empty possibilities raging through the mind of the same optimists ambition equaling a sum of many, yet the answer blatantly stares back into hollow eyes.  Failure.

Juxtapose

Eight Fifteen A.M, Sunrays.                   They plague through walls of glass, stinging under closed eyes. The blades above this body lying dormant spin with the softest of sounds circulating burning air around a burning room onto a burning face. They spin so fast like their only purpose is to watch the pain of the people underneath, suffocated by the conclusion that this is not where one should be. This land of inevitable blue skies and dried gum leaves, dead branches hanging off rooftops waiting to fall to rest.  The sweltering, almost choking rays scream through the window, desperate to welcome warmth to a life in dear need of anything, but that life looks the other way.

Juxtapose

Twenty-Two Twelve, Gate is open.                  The fluorescent walls shake, the glossed floors tremble.  Clean. The white washed floors are clean, bleach burning through plastic linoleum, meeting with tears falling from eyes, to chins to become another lost emotion on the walls of this airport. The security lines, plagued with an abundance of stories, travellers coming or going, eager school girls twitching with excitement, the happy honeymooners on their way to exotic islands. Airports are hospitals for ambitions.  The walls hold macro memories that will only ever be forgotten in death.

Juxtapose

                  

Nine Twenty A.M, arrived.                    The car pulls into the opening of a warping wooden structure; the tires aimlessly roll down a loose gravel path gentler than eternity.  Friendly dogs run and bark and jump in excitement. They have no concept of whom or what they are excited for, they have no concept of time and place, they have no reservations in the world. Only unconditional loyalty. This house of white brick and black roof and all the space in the world never seemed so big. What was once worlds apart is now in front of empty eyes overcome not by emotion, yet absence of the very thing defining humans as they are. The same house a child became an adult in, the same house lived in by hate and anger and sadness and happiness and purity and love. The same house that is home, but not the same home that was wanted.

Juxtapose

Twenty Two Fifty One P.M Boarding.                The feet sprint through the terminal, dodging small children and just missing exquisite stands of Gin bottles and Prada Perfumes. Bags bouncing on backs hitting necks, grunts as hopeless tourists get in the way again. Everything is calm, a loud silence underneath the cracks of the P.A system calling surnames to doors, plane engines thunder behind glass, a newborn twittering with no sympathy to sanity. In single file the anxious travellers line up, passports of deep reds and blues and greens handed over to fresh faces and bright smiles. A warm hand points down the corridor.  In the same unison familiar wide eyes and warm hands pointing down the isles greet the same passports. Window or Isle or Middle. Please not window. Please not middle. As time passes the bodies are thrown against headrests as the heavy plane soars into the sky.  Happiness surrounds the holidaymakers, but this is not a holiday. This is the death of a dream.  

Juxtapose

Nine Forty Two A.M, Warmth.                         The warmth of a Father’s hug, the rest of a drained head into a strong shoulder. A hug that has never been felt, yet déjà vu says otherwise. A Father’s love passing to a daughter so desperately seeking validation. A journey of seventeen thousand kilometers, one tube, two planes and one car drive yet so much more. A travel from a misery of happiness to a blanket of black sweet nothings.

                                                

                           

Juxtapose

This city is nothing if a distant memory.
They have shipped me away,
demanded my exile,
forced my body to follow their choices.

They ripped me away with little care for my soul.
My soul I have lost in a city I fell in love with.
 My soul I will never find ever again.  
My soul I will forever long for painfully.
Do I make a new one, or wait for my own soul to find me.

Juxtapose.

[juhk-stuh-pohz, juhk-stuh-pohz]

Verb.

“To place two of the opposite

                   together for comparison and contrast.”