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"Life is supposed to be difficult," he said taking a long swig for his ornate hip flask, "It’s the struggle against the infinite violence of a universe.” I smiled, perhaps he was right or perhaps he was just an asshole making it up as he went along, but the gravity of his remark struck me unexpectedly. The default to life was indeed struggle, for all life not just intelligent life; why would I be exempt. I didn’t care for the man and his insidious gloat of pomposity. Nothing is absolute, nothing certain, which makes the possibilities boundless. The joy of life is making it from one moment to the next through adversity and earning the things the things people say about you when you arrive at your freshly dug grave carried by those you hold dearest.

Wednesday, 30 November 2016

The Adventures of Tina and Troy

 This is Tina. On the 9th of December we have been married for 10 years. Tina rages against the dying of the light; this is my favourite thing about her, she has the courage of an exceptionally courageous tiger.

This is mostly why we've been on so many adventures and probably why having been accidentally kidnapped by Austrian drunkards in Barcelona is a genuine excuse for being late to your child's Christening that one time.

She wasn't fazed by the terrifyingly ramshackle crocodile farm we went to in Malawi, the Goat sitting next to her on the bus we caught in Zambia or playing scrabble in that bar in Cyprus definitely a hang out for mercenaries, hired killers and gun runners all of whom were terrible cheats.

But the most courageous thing she ever did was say yes to marrying me especially after she got to know me first. I love Tina and it's safe to say that over the years we have been in love.

Its a rare thing to find someone who likes you and endeavours to make you a better person by becoming a better person themselves and even rarer who accepts the things about you that will never change.

Ten years is not a lot of time and adventures are not just good times and delicious cocktails there is always work to be done difficult work, the type of work that takes the courage to commit to your decisions good or bad.

And with Tina I never have to doubt, even in a hundred years and after a thousand drunk Austrian kidnappings, a day will come when she stops loving me because its too difficult and this gives me courage to do the same.  




Tuesday, 8 November 2016

Love's blade

I hurt myself today, stuck a needle under my skin.

There is an empty bed, where my heart used to be, with crushed linen and a glass with a lipstick edge and the ash of a smoked cigarette on the side table.

She paints the streets with her dreams now I’m no longer in them. With dark blues and reds and I couldn’t stop her because it would be too unkind to take her away from herself and make her ordinary.

The rain fell on my face today, cut me deeper than a blade. I felt my heart exposed, my flesh just melt away, as I watched her move further into the night and brighter in all her brilliance.

There is no one else to blame because in my mind I know she’s too beautiful to inspire such futility.