You only regret the chances you didn't take

You stood in the doorway, your hands by your side 'don't leave' you said

Please stay...

But she was afraid, afraid of hat staying meant, but I was afraid... Afraid of you, of me, of the situation how it reminded me so much of the last... Afraid that staying means opening up - possibly hurting myself again... So I ran, I ran as fast and far away as I possibly could, a place where I could collect my thoughts and maybe come back one day, with an empty head, an empty heart and a clean memory.... but, time... It doesn't wait for you and sometimes, just sometimes .... It's a little too late. 
Goodbye my friend. I wish I would have stayed. 

We only regret the chances, we didn't take.

Runaway with me

I want to escape with the stranger I met on the street last week. I want to enter their world for a whole day, a whole night, even a whole week.
I want to sit behind my lense and capture them in their environment.
I want to know what it is like to live in someone else's universe for a day.

I want to sit on their rooftops, talking about life, our dreams our fears, our past and most importantly, the here and now, this very moment.
I want to lay on the mountaintops and be enveloped by the night, surrounded by nothing more than the stars and the light of the moon.Wine stained lips, messy hair wrapped in a band of flowers, secrets leaving my lips. I want to walk along the sand at the break of dawn, welcoming the day. I want to whisper sweet lullaby's to the Lord in the heavens above.
I want to pray for a better tomorrow.
I want to want to love today.

I want to take pretty pictures of love, of sun and clouds and flowers and empty fields. I want to runaway with you. Away from this, from here, from the past, from the present, from everything I have ever known. From every secret I have ever had to hide. I want to be free again. 

Ani DiFranco - Untouchable Face

"Untouchable Face"

think i'm going for a walk now
i feel a little unsteady
i don't want nobody to follow me
'cept maybe you
i could make you happy you know
if you weren't already
i could do a lot of things
and i do

tell you the truth i prefer
the worst of you
too bad you had to have a better half
she's not really my type
but i think you two are forever
and i hate to say it but
you're perfect together

so fuck you
and your untouchable face
and fuck you
for existing in the first place
and who am i
that i should be vying for your touch
and who am i
i bet you can't even tell me that much

two-thirty in the morning
and my gas tank will be empty soon
neon sign on the horizon
rubbing elbows with the moon
a safe haven of sleepless
where the deep fryer's always on
radio is counting down
the top 20 country songs
and out on the porch the fly strip is
waving like a flag in the wind
y'know, i don't look forward
to seeing you again soon
you'll look like a photograph of yourself
taken from far far away
and i won't know what to do
and i won't know what to say

except fuck you...

i see you and i'm so perplexed
what was i thinking
what will i think of next
where can i hide
in the back room there's a lamp
that hangs over the pool table
and when the fan is on it swings
gently side to side
there's a changing constellation
of balls as we are playing
i see orion and say nothing
the only thing i can think of saying

is fuck you...

Sometimes a song speaks to us, others it says exactly what we want to. This is a combination of both.

The Summer of 99 - We were here!

Once upon a time, on a beautiful summers day, we were all sitting in our alleyway, as we took out our permanent markers and wrote our names 'Suzi, Kate, Mel and Tamar were here - The summer of '99' 

On that beautiful summers day in 1999, as we put the pen away, we promised ourselves that as the years went by, and times got hard, we could come back here, find that place on the 10m long fence where each one of us had ever so joyously inscribed our initials and instantly be reminded of that beautiful, happy, blissful summers day, as 14 years olds when we had all found each other and  amidst heartache and trouble, a strong unbreakable bond had formed between us that nothing could come between and that no matter what happened in the outside world, that we all had each other and with each other we could survive anything. 'We will come back here later in life when we've all graduated and we will look at our names and be reminded of all the happy times we shared as young kids. The memories, they will make us smile on those days when we find it hard within us to smile. We will think of all the crazy things we did and laugh, and we will treasure the time each one of us had in the company of each other. Today, I needed to smile, to laugh, to feel alive, more than ever.

It feels like a lifetime away today, yet it feels like yesterday. My heart is trying to hold still and together as I take a trip down this wonderful memory lane, the lane that saw and felt the highs and lows of our teenage years. This was known as our alley. All four of us met here at 7-a.m. sharp every morning of every weekday for six whole years, from here we'd all walk to school together. If one of us failed to show up, we would walk/run/walk to that girls house, even if it meant being late for school, just to make sure she was ok.

I came back here today, to look for my name, to remember that time in my life, that time when everything was great and perfect and wonderful as it should've been, as it was not right now. As it hadn't been for quite sometime now. I park my car and begin my descent down the alley way. 

I can hear the birds chirping, the sun is out, it's just like that summer's day so long ago. There's a stillness in the air. There's no cars around, not a soul, just a fly that buzzes right past me. I walk down the narrow slope of the alley way, I can hear the leaves crunching under my feet, just like I could all those years ago it's as if nothing has changed. Yet, everything is different now. I am here, alone. Without my girls.

The trees still look and feel the same. Providing shade, filling parts of the sky with beautiful shades of green. The wooden pillars are standing as dividers in the centre of the alley. I remember when we would race each other down to the pillar, our school bags tossed to the side, along with our cares. The air still smells of eucalyptus and pine trees. The gravelled floor is still concealed with brown leaves. They are still falling on the ground, just as they had all those 15 years ago. With each step I take I run my index finger along the ridged brown aluminum fence, feeling each bump, it's a bit like life. Lumps and bumps. I am looking for my name, for something, a sign that will tell me I was actually here all those years ago, that this too isn't a dream. Another thing my imagination has created to escape reality. I am looking for something, anything that would take me back to that time in my life, when I wasn't alone, when for the first time I had found happiness. Friendship. 

In this alley, we survived so much. We got through the death of a my best friends dad, the loss of our best friend, family drug and alcohol addictions, divorces and losses of first love. This alley was our combined hope. Alone we were nothing. Alone we were destined to crumble but together, collectively we were not only survivors but we had the most extraordinary time of our lives. Many a days we would laugh as we got high on weed, others we rolled down this hill, drunk on vodka we had bought with stolen charity money - (which we later repented for). But no matter, how hard the times, we we were an army of support for one another and in this alley, with this love and never ending loyalty we made it through the toughest days of our lives.

I stop half way down the hill. The silence is as it was fifteen years ago, Except i can't hear my friends voices. I can't feel the dreams in my heart. I can barely even hear my own heart beating these days. What happened to me? What happened to that young girl who had all these dreams ahead of her? Where are my friends? I can't see my name. Others have come and gone since, they have taken to this fence with spray cans. Our names, gone, like we were never here. Like this too has been taken from us. 

As I begin my walk out, a young man is coming out of the house next door. We exchange faint smiles, he doesn't look like i remember the owner of that house to look. It use to be owned by an old ageing couple. Maybe he is their son. Maybe they too are gone, like they never were here.

'are you alright?' he calls out as I turn my back to him and keep walking up the hill, heading towards my car. He knows something is not right, he knows I look out of place here, I am wearing leather leggings a neatly pressed white collared shirt and a LV Bag. I turn around, fake a smile and nod. My eyes filled with tears that i am struggling to contain..I wonder why he thinks I am here.

Are you looking for something ? he asks.

Yes. For me. 15 year old me. For something, that reminds me of the past. The past I left behind. I've come back to find me, the me I left behind in this alley way. The me that believed. The me that once had a life and friends and a future. The me that wouldn't go unnoticed if she failed to turn up here at  7.o04 am. I am looking for my life. The last time I saw it, it was here, here in this alley way and so were my friends.

'For someone' I add. 'Someone I left behind here a long time ago' 

Home

And there's a huge part of that world that still intrigues me
It pulls on my heart strings, it makes me feel like I belong, like i've come home
It couldn't be further from a safe, comfortable, home, yet...it feels like home.
Don't judge me, for we all have our weaknesses and this is mine...
I miss the place I once called home
I miss the trenches, the darkness and the danger
I miss the world I once belonged to
for now...I am just floating, floating above the clouds
Escaping once and for all
Trying to find a place I belong
A place I call home

Leaving...

one of my favourite movies of all time is GIA. The beautiful, tragic, touching story of Gia.
The first time I watched it, I resonated with what she said about people leaving....ten years later, the same line still stands out.

'WHERE ARE YOU GOING, PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS LEAVING, WHERE THE FUCK DO PEOPLE GO' Gia shouts as yet another person in her life says they have to leave. I feel like this today. People are always leaving. Is it better to be better off alone, than to let someone in, only for them to have to leave again...I am not so sure.

One of You is Lying

By the time you swear you're his,

Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

Infinite, undying -

Lady, make a note of this:

One of you is lying. 

Dorothy Parker

ME

I wake up in the middle of another night, gasping for air, my chest closing in on me. I am trying to breath, yet I cannot. I close my eyes and try to sleep, try to forget, yet my mind is awake. My room feels so large at night, it feel so big, so empty. Yet, it is too small for anyone else but me. Sometimes i feel like I am drowning in my own skin, suffocating, losing me in me.

If the sadness is to leave something needs to be done. Things need to change. Walls need to be broken down, smashed to a billion pieces. The past needs to die. I need to live. 

Tick Tock Tick Tock

 

Time - it has a way of constantly moving forward - even when we don't want it to. Even when we're not ready for it's hand to strike the next number, it does. It doesn't wait for anyone, not for you and certainly not for me.

It forces us to grow up. It forces us into a life we are not one hundred percent sure we really want.

I woke up this morning and strangely found my soul longing for a time long gone. A time when I was just a young adolescent. Free from the pressures of life, responsibility and finance. Anchored in security. Because there's a certain type of security that comes with being a 13 year old, a consistency that feels like home. 

You wake up everyday to spend 6 hours with your bestfriends - you catch the same bus that does the same route morning and night with the same bus driver. Your friends get on and off at the same stops. Your friends are steadfast, your timetable secure, life for the next six years is bliss. It's stable, secure and filled to the brim with steadfast love.

Fast forward ten years, you have rent to pay, marriage to secure before a certain age, time to have children - because that biological click is ticking, a failing economy - job instability, debt, friends moving away, last minute let downs and cancellations - because now everyone has their own timetable and their own life - and they dont have to be at school by the ring of the bell and you don't all meet at 8-11-1-3pm everyday. And, your parents are aging and you know no one lives forever, your siblings have moved out of home and you miss them. No more watching movies and eating dinner by the fire - all together, as one.  Nothing is the same anymore. 

Suddenly you feel so lost - lost and alone and like you're losing your grasp on reality and time and nothing is secure or fulfilling or worth it. Not even your partner, because really, they too aren't really yours and marriage vows to most these days are forever  changing and you can wake up one day to find that he has skipped the country with his / her assistant. It's frightening. It's lonely - its unstable. You are always longing, longing for a time, a time when everything was pure, perfect and secure. A time when life was planned out for you and all you had to do was turn up. I miss my past. I miss my old life. It's now A time long gone.

Where Art Thou LOVE?

Does true love exist? I mean really exist? Not the unrequited 'I am in love with you but you don't know i exist' kind of love,

but the equally, intoxicating, consuming, passionate, fiery kind of love. 

The love where two people love each other equally and both more than the other? 

The Romeo and Juliet - nothing, not even family ties and history can stop me from loving you - kind of love.I would die for you and you for me....love.

The Notebook, kind of love- where people don't give up on each other...They're pulled away, apart, reunited and consumed by each other? Does that exist?

What about Candy? That intoxicating, tormented and tortured love...that just draws them together and overpowers them both.

I'm curious. Does the magical unexplainable love really occur? And most importantly, is it real? Or am I living in a place of aliens and ufo's and starships and real love is just as possible and rare as these objects? 

A fantasy, an ideal, a dream.,, something that takes me away from reality for no more than a moment? It let's me float above the clouds for a day only for me to land flat on my face, be startled awake and realise....it was all just a dream, and, in reality nothing is as perfect as the love in our imagination.

Love Story – Nikolay Biryukov’s latest editorial for the September issue of Elle Ukraine features models Sam Rollinson (Select London) and Ondrey (Independent Men Milano) as stylish love birds 60s cinema