Do you dream of another life, My dear?
In a different world, outside?
Do you want to escape to another place
Where you can enjoy the ride?

Do you really think it exists, My dear?
The perfect place in your mind...
Do you think if you go, you’ll always know
What it is you were trying to find?

Can you try to believe in the now, My dear?
Can you feel that there’s someone there,
Who tries to inspire a kind of desire,
To make you believe that I care.

I do care about you, My dear,
Though I joke about romance and wine,
I would like you to see, if you want to be free,
You should love what you are, all the time.

Believe in yourself, today, My dear,
So beautiful, clever and fun.
Enjoy what you are, know that I’m here,
You shall have your day in the sun.

Small islands of joy in a sea of frustration and disappointment.

Sometimes I feel peace, when I can see the next destination in the distance, nearing me on the horizon and filling me with what I might call hope....

But rarely, too rarely, the journey takes me past a beautiful place, seemingly untouched in its perfection.

It is wrong to blame the fascination a place like this exerts on me, on something as clichéd as siren voices;
          there are no sirens here, no tricks, no subterfuge... rather, the clear blue sky, the pure white sand, the azure water hypnotises me with its promise, while terrifying me with its remoteness.

Do I make a decision to land? Can something so perfect continue to exist if it is disturbed, even by just one touch, one footprint?

One kiss?

I know I need to discover... But I fear... I fear myself.



*She closed her diary. "Not bad" she thought. "Might have been the sort of ******* JC would have written".

And, as she sipped her cocktail and took in the tropical view, beneath the shade of her favourite palm, she watched a small boat put-put-put away from the jetty...

And she admitted to herself:

occasionally she missed the crazy old *******.

"It's a story of obsession." Sophie said, not able to look her friend in the eyes.

"The trouble is, I'm not sure whose obsession".

She stared at her espresso, stirring it absent-mindedly with the spoon. Eva looked worried, and studied her carefully. She had noticed a change in Sophie over the last few days, and they had finally found time to sit and talk. Her interrogation had begun in a light tone of voice, an easy
approach...

"...so who is he? have you slept with him yet?"…

Sophie’s reaction had been surprising - not the amused grin she had expected - much more a defensive glare, as if the question had been rude: and they had quickly decided to go for a coffee in the city.

And now, in a pavement café somewhere in the anonymous downtown, she listened to the start of the story.

"I've hardly seen him" Sophie continued "and I don't know if I ever will properly…".

She hesitated.

"I don't even know if I want to see him…".

"It is almost as if I am a character in a story; sometimes I feel like he is manipulating me, creating emotions within me that I didn't know I could feel… and I hate him for that. I mean he hasn't touched me… he hasn't even said he wants to touch me. The relationship, this thing, has gone from a harmless flirt to…"

She shook her head. Eva didn't say anything. She waited. Around them, she could hear city traffic noises, birdsong and snippets of conversation from passers-by.

Sophie raised her head and looked directly at her friend. Her face was set. She said in a low but firm voice

"it needs to stop before I lose control, but..."

" … what?" said her friend softly.

"I need to know what happens next"

She was so tired.
Somehow the panic of packing and the stress of rushing to the station, coupled with meeting after meeting at work and a run of nights where she never seemed to get enough sleep... had led her close to an exhausted collapse.

She sat now at a window seat on the train, mindlessly contemplating the stream of images through the glass, and allowed herself to close her eyes.

She felt a delicious, almost liquid sense of relaxation start to take control of her body, she felt the muscles on her face lose their tension, and in her dozing she felt herself thinking of the evening before.

Briefly, very briefly he had stood behind her while she typed. A hint of a fingertip on her shoulder for the tiniest of moments was again a symbol that in fact they couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow themselves to touch...

But here, safe on the train, away from colleagues and pressures, in the sanctuary of her imagination, she turned to face him.

And they kissed.

She ****** awake; she felt flushed, aroused. And she was suddenly very aware that she wanted him very much.

Sleep? ****.
**** sleep.
She wanted to sleep with him.

Relishing a challenge
Requiring deeper thought;
Refining my assumptions
Re: all that I’ve been taught.
Relying on my memory (!)
Recalling what we’ve seen,
Realising I feel close to you, my
Rhapsody in Green.
Rewarding, this connection,
Resolving to be bold,
Risking just a little step -
Relief I’m not too old…?
Removing all the prison bars
Results in…. I don’t know?
Romancing may be just a game –
Resist? Or let it flow?
Rich here, my confusion,
Richer still, your eyes…
Rushing I fall into them so
Rashly. Is that wise?
Recovering, I feel better -
Regrets? I’ve none so far.
Reply with just one letter?
You
R

So it’s Spring
Lovely thing
Urge to sing
But eyes sting
Annoying