New Heights

Last night I dreamt the strangest dream; I dreamt you were the Eiffel Tower. I climbed and climbed to kiss your lips and halfway there, about your hips, dreamt words of love trickled down to reach my ears while I grasped your fingertips. Pushing through the tourists admiring Paris from your chest, I went on to climb your collarbone, your neck, and right at the sight of your curls a flutter of butterflies unfurled. My eyes met your grin and while my feet furrowed a foothold onto your chin, I reached onto my toes and kissed your lips with my lips, and nudged your nose with my nose

Promises

Nervous, with big eyes, we stared. I, on your lap, you with a cigarette clinging to your lips, your arms around my neck. The smoke rising up and around stung my eyes a little, but I did not even whimper as the fur around my eyes became tear-streaked.

I know you were thinking back to that day when I had playfully killed a snowy-white duck, and amid the fluster of feathers, you had picked me up with a horror-stricken look in your eye. You had just witnessed a side of me you did not know existed, while I had also, quite gleefully, just discovered this side of myself. You might say I was feeling a little mad with power at that moment when you picked me up, away from what I now understand was my victim.

I recognized that same glint in your eyes today as you clutched onto me tightly. But I swear I am innocent! I’d learned my lesson the last time. I know it was wrong. That was the trade-off; all the joys of domestication in return for repressing this wilder nature, and of course wearing the occasional diamond necklace, or those seasonal antlers at Christmas time. But I swear to you, I had nothing to do with that decapitated pigeon lying under the table in the backroom, next to your favourite slippers.

And then he found her

It took two hours and a bloody nose, but he found her. With mixed emotions, he closed his eyes, walked through the door and held the long white strip of card delicately by his nose, inhaling deeply, travelling through time and space. Until he opened his eyes on the exhale and began his walk home through the five o’clock Saturday shopping crowd.

GOSSIP

She said She said She saw Him and Her kissing. Him kissing Her while He has a girlfriend. She loves Him very much. Her kissing Him while She has a boyfriend. He loves Her very much. Kissing in a dark corner of the café while He is His best friend. While He lives a staircase below Him and Her. She and He hold hands out the door while He is left up three flights of stairs, alone with a TV and no credit on his telephone. She wonders if He knows about Him and Her, about Her and Him. She said She said She saw Her seeing Her and Him. Do She and He know She told Her, that She knows about Him and Her and what they’re doing to Her and Him?

Blink and you miss it

“Roar roar purrrrr!” Shouted the lion. Rearing his head, he cast his gaze upwards to the sky above. He turned a few heads who looked disapprovingly round, shushing him for the ruckus he made. Most pretended not to have noticed, for it was common knowledge not to indulge the king of the jungle’s cries for attention and adoration. And so went the day that the angel came down and offered the world the most beautiful song ever heard, and no one noticed but the lion, who had tried to warn everyone and who only really heard half of it because of the buzz of conversation and shushing that filled his royal ears.

‘Liberty Inviting Artists to Take Part in the 22^nd Exhibition of the Societe Des Artistes Independants’

Henri Rousseau