an excerpt

I was inside, sitting amongst a stack of CD’s, deciding which one to put on next when James walked in. He stood reading, as visitors often did, the wall we had covered with lyrics. Black biro burned into the greying walls above a sofa bed that nearly every I knew had slept on. Most of it was in my handwriting, but almost unreadable, I had a habit of swirling most of my letters together, making giant loops with the y’s and g’s. People always tried to spot spelling mistakes, or parts of the songs we had misheard, but they were never right, we checked it about a hundred times. At other times they would bring us crumpled pieces of paper with lyrics jotted down for us to write there (which we did without discrimination) - and I was afraid it would grow, tree-like, branches heavy with sadness to take over the walls of the house.

The Typewriter (a work in progress)

As a child I had a penchant for type-writers.

My mother kept one in the cold out-house that as children we were not allowed into, on account of my sister having fallen and cut her chin. Perhaps it was also to do with her dislike for anything eight-legged stealing it’s way into the house that instilled the fear in her warnings.

Unnoticed, however, I would visit that grey and enthralling machine nightly and return to smudge ink finger prints across walls in my bedroom.