There is a tumour
Inside of me.
And what does it do?
It grows and grows
And keeps growing.

This tumour
Is loneliness.


-- Eleanor

Eyes like massive clanks- gazes morphed to lanced boils, lungs ache and the tumour of hopeless alien weird melts an old painting we used to call 'existence.'

Ankles dry, calloused thoughts, skin peels to reveal oozing flesh. **** sinks in and swallows floating zinc; immune. Consuming ex-cadavers in mall parking lots and pushing the crippled in shopping carts, an ankle twisted, a mother swallowed monetary *****, the stock market became the shelf market, and creation wondered if we were okay with frozen pizza for dinner.

Life dragged on and on, the world swirled on twitter feeds and Facebook statuses, the streets completed laps around our better judgements and our better lives, we sank to scheduled escapism and believed that one day we would find the light despite our never left-look.

Massive intention swelled to disjointed shark search. A witch-hunt to burn unhappiness in it's own angry passion. Bones; cost efficient at the least and designed in the weirdness of erosion-return. Miniature intention swelled to grabs solidarity. A manhunt to freeze stillness in it's own endless silence.

What complete? What shatter-tastic ******?

Eyes like massive clanks- gazes morphed to lanced boils, lungs ache and the tumour of hopeless alien weird melts an old painting we used to call 'existence.'

by simply watching 'don't call me crazy'
with regards to mental health... a bbc3 documentary.

i find a few pointers, apart from the fact that i've learned
English to a standard that i could
be misjudged as a native, what with african psychiatrists
   and the history of England as  a postcolonial nation...
     the problems of premature depression
and other divergences from the "norm"
  (or is that a tu-dum tss... "the norm"?
i never know how to tell the joke a proper
way, so many jokes are mothered
by punctuation, i don't know
how many there are that aren't) -
so aside from that... the fact that i'm
faking being British... if you have any grievances
against me: you'd better me Ukranian
or Lithuanian... otherwise? *******.
yes, i know the Poles did terrible things,
Vlad wasn't the only person ready to
do sadistic **** on people by impaling them
on sharpened-wooden poles...
   and you thought the crucifix was bad...
but oh look... the artists inserted a peddle-stool
so he could stand while on the cross...
rather than actually: hang from it.
talk about a woman faking an ******.
then again: he was all kissy-kissy with
a centurion having cured the ravaging libido
of his "demon possessed" daughter who
had a hot bagel flirt under her skirt for him...
or as i say: **** a prostitutes
           **** for an extra ten quid: the sigma
of how many ***** that thing has seen
turns your tongue into a dagger...
that's where i have seen my salvation:
   not in the eucharist or degrading symbols
of a godly stature.
       no, the point is:
this misapprehension of where the origin of
thinking resides...
  the true materialists posit the origin of thought
in the brain... but, honey-bee, the brain
is preoccupied with its materialistic responsibilities...
to shoot adrenaline when bungee jumping...
why think it isn't already preoccupied with anything
but thought? the brain doesn't think
no more than the heart might... or your *******
wetted or your phallus becoming *****...
there's no point in ascribing thought to the brain,
even if you abstract the source of thinking
toward the brain as a *mind,
     the suggestion parallels what the brain does,
and what the brain isn't...
   as with the notion of god...
          ridiculous for most people:
or also ridiculous when man is taught to stress
his "individuality"...
                               both seem on equal footing
to be considered phantoms, but the individual is
more of a phantom than god...
                             and as Diogenes of Sinope found out:
you'll find god and the Archimedean eureka
quicker than finding an honest man -
who takes a candle at noon into a market square?
     ah: that famous lunacy...
but in the beginning the word was with god,
       yes, because when we started we only said ooh ooh!
and made those frightening monkey faces to
war off evil spirits and the Arabic third eye, evil.
   Darwinism created historical fiction...
           a bit like science fiction, but instead of looking
forward, historical fiction is looking back,
toward a time when people struggled against
the elements, and had no sense of having to think
given their actual pentagram equilibrium was tuned
into what was around them...
                   the senses could never deviate from
the world of shouting down a cave and hearing echo,
it's only when thought emerged and conceived words
   that the dubiousness of simple musing:
chicken or egg first? created auxiliary sense perceptions...
   we have left the sensual world...
           for we have "enriched" our lives with
thinking, the byproduct of which is what scared me
about this bbc3 documentary... that all mental
illness stems from allow thought to automate itself...
      in other words having no moral compass...
in other words: not having read a single book
   and learned a process of equating thinking with
narrating... as a sensible option to what others tend
to do (the innovators), and allow narration to be a void...
into which they pour all their thinking to
fill that void... with, say, Thomas Edison and the lightbulb...
Isaac Newton and gravity...
it's just scary that people can allow automated thinking,
     made even more evident that counters
the punitive transgender pronoun scenario
   that only focuses on the pronouns: he, it, she.
these youngsters in the documentary are dealing with
submitting to a pronoun focus of: i, it, you.
                      in some vague sense of a religiosity,
that they cannot allow cogito ergo sum into their minds,
a possessiveness of body, that later translates
into an identification with the mind: which is -
well, if you're going to posit the origin of thinking
in your brain, which isn't even there - you mind
as well posit the mind, seeing how the soul
is argued against primarily through our mortal condition.
   is the eye the window to the soul?
  and the brain merely a paraphrasing of that statement?
perhaps...
              but i wouldn't be too worried
             as Walter Benjamin was about art in the age
of mechanical reproduction... i'd be worried
that art is bound to the morgue of psychiatric institutions...
that art is not a term that suggest the origins of
   such ailments:
due the original lack of it in such places:
  but that that it was never there... and that finding
art can be therapeutic is why art can be scolded
               and establishment art is nothing more
than the pinnacle of us, having abused words,
waging fewer and fewer words, can't produce
    a work of beauty... merely a work that occupies
a space.
                art = space...
          that's the statement these days...
being oversaturated with scientific assurances has created
this insurgence of over-competence or making
art not art in a sense timelessness, as in Dante's
comedy isn't equal to space,
            but that it's equal to timelessness...
    or a statue by Donatello...
                          these days art = space...
because it's not going to be timeless... it was once
the iconoclasm in metaphor of: the lion of Judea...
          Lucifer as the morning star...
                         it will not be timeless because it
has been reduced to the establishment's aesthetic
of tracey emins' unmade bed... or
       damien hirst's the physical impossibility
of death in the mind of someone living -
i never said these things aren't art... some people
said cubism would never be art compared to
surrealism... but shove a triangle into Pythagoras'
head and you get some sort of mathematics...
              it's based on that principle...
what wouldn't work in the case of hirst would be
to put a cancerous tumour into a plastic cage...
people would associate it as some sort of atomist
representation of a nanometre worth's of some
larger thing... i do appreciate the fact that big
art works... it needs so much face to embody
the fact that you are to think about it...
                         and not to have a **** over it:
it's art that's anti-arousal and more and more
and more about how to juxtapose it in your mind,
always to abstract the brain as the mind
   and to never appreciate the idea of having
to source thinking as solely endemic to the brain...
the brain is busy, the heart is busy...
            we have perpetuated an outer-body
experience throughout our time since the time when
we first acquired the phonos of thought...
                 and it is a peculiar "sound", thought...
a dance memorable to actually having a hope in
possessing a soul... even after all sturdy things
shrink into the obsolete, and even vegetable.
but the piece i'm referring to?
     kinda paradoxical... given that a shark would
probably eat you... but then again counter-paradoxical
given the fact that most shark-attacks
     make the shark refrain from eating you,
but merely nibbling on you and leaving you alive
albeit nibbled on... maned... with scars...
so i get the part where the shark is in fact:
an impossible death to conceive... only for the lucky few.
  apart from the fact that the shark is caged
like a prehistoric mosquito lodged in amber...
              woodland gold, amber...
  that's the literal interpretation...
                                 but it's still a moving piece,
modern art isn't crap at all... it's just something you
don't get an ******* over...
            take any still life and apply a cognitively
based chemical reaction: stimulate a narrative...
in that famous phrasing, connect the: dot dot dot(s).
    become, in that almost ridiculous sense:
     a Sherlock Holmes... but all that died was about
a minute's worth of your attention...
this is what's fuelling revising a need for television,
big static things... my personal favourite?
that Tate Modern installation by richard holt -
hand on heart: about 3 times...
              i felt like a mosquito drawn into that:
ah the bright shiny light... 180º and a glass ceiling...
that's all it was...
                   art in the age of mechanical reproduction
has to almost ridicule man, or at least ridicule
the idea that he can become an individual,
    as was the ridicule of man that he could become
a god...
               sooner or later any attempt at individualism
becomes trendy, vogue, and magnetises and
monetises a need to mimic, replicate... one punk today:
20,000 punks tomorrow...
       /
           but that sort of mincing is mostly associated
by the bewilderment of our own success...
                           it's almost like a we're engaging with
a sabotage process: deliberately trying to undermine
ourselves by staging a variety of "anti-social" endeavours
we promised ourselves upon a belief in the "individual"...
      modern pieces of art debunk that myth,
it's that modern art pieces require so much space that
gave them the most adaptation prowess over, say,
a puritan's concept of art, as in a Turner painting...
           classical art can be put into a Florentine market
square and be passed by quiet casually,
because it provides an assurance - it forbids engaging
in an iconoclastic vigil, it's an assurance of the past
and how golden it was... but a modern sculpture
in a busy place where many people congregate
without first allowing it the asylum of an art gallery
and people will treat it as a chance to hone on it,
vandalise it, or steal it and sell it from scrap metal...
       modern art requires an asylum to be accepted,
an art gallery is an asylum where people with
good intentions enter and leave appreciating something
that, to the pleb, would get a rotten egg thrown at it.
    and as with regards to how i phrased something
earlier? how philosophy talks of the logos
     that doesn't see the phonos: or the dichotomy
between actual sound, and sound ascribed a
optically-phonetic disparity encryption:
deepened by a self-styled aesthetic of the "ruling elites"...
          and in the beginning the word was with god...
we're merely licking the toes of such a possibility...
         and just you try to bypass the orthodoxy of
encoding sounds with queer spelling...
                     you, in a sense, learn two-languages
with every single one you learn...
   how to say it and how to write it...
                              and then there the how you hear it
and how sometimes you hear different lyrics to
the ones sang...
                         a bit like the Chinese,
who, upon reading the English translation were
bothersome to get rich quickly after seeing
too many matchsticks in ideogram translated as merely
Li Po; i'd too go bananas and become frustrated
and retaliated by getting to Einsteinian grips with
the mathematical alphabet that bore Li Po... i.e. 1, 0
through to 9.
      ah yes... philosophy that doesn't appreciate
grammatical words, or in that sense credible for a biologist
not necessitating a genus to ease any argument,
to actually further it... or to play ping-pong...
   grammatical words are equivalent to the subconscious
given we tend to write some a sense of fluidity...
the unconscious? schematics akin to triangles...
  "images" or rather shapes...
                             beginning with Δ: isosceles...
later varied to the Γ triangle of Pythagoras...
          and as far as we got, a respectability to
not conjure up a square as worthy of encoding a sound...
nearest being the H... and that turned out to
be much ha ha ha.
                   still... i can't come to grips with these teenagers
in the bbc3 documentary talking about
automated thinking! i'm not denying it, i'm not
doubting it... it's just a question:
          how could such a pronoun muddle come about
that you discourage ownership of all your mental
activity? and instead leave a rampant kindred of an
abandoned snail's shell body to wreck havoc?
   it's almost like a a want to refuse to use words...
or encode words... rarely are people told
that the eyes are used as encoding organs...
                   but that the tongue knows no filters...
what the eye ingests... the tongue sometimes can't
digest... and vice-versus... that what the eyes digest
the tongue can't ingest: hence the rebellion
against contrary political ambitions -
   the ears? well: the ears are allocated the heart as
a partner... the tongue and eyes are entwined...
but the ears are allocated the heart...
                     you tend to feel words more than
hear them... because by the time the tongue
represses combining itself with the eyes to
that elevation of thought... your body becomes
autocratically synchronised to a sort of music
of heightened of unanimous response...
             well, it's not exactly a fetish watching such
documentaries.. iconoclasm in metaphor...
  i swear i wrote this before... how philosophy avoids
grammatical genuses... and how all too
ambivalent poetically equivalent nouns and verbs
are to hide our imperfections that precipitate from
art... iconoclasm / anamorphosis in metaphors...
                         camaïeu in allegory...
                   divisionism in pun...
                                       chiaroscuro in imagery...
gestural abstraction in onomatopoeia...
                     just some examples, and none necessarily
     convincing - as ever... this is my excuse
for i am always bound to say language is Alcatraz
   and my escape from Alcatraz is bound to metaphors,
fo

Your children are a precious gift so innocent and pure.
At their birth you have the hope of love, lasting evermore.

You spend your waking days attending to their needs,
Waiting for the next smile and sound of utter glee,

And when you sleep you dream of them and wait until the dawn,
Rising before break of day to greet them in the morn,

Your babies grow and soon become your little girls and boys.
You exchange all their play things for larger, bigger toys.

You’ve learned about mothering and matured along the way,
But your relationship with their daddy isn’t turning out ok.

There are ups and downs and you expect that to be true.
But underlying unhappiness begins to escape through.

Daddy doesn’t seem to be all he is meant to be,
Late nights in the lounge, is he watching the TV?

Your children keep you happy though, just look into their face,
They make you smile, they make you laugh, and they fill you with grace.

But underlying unhappiness cannot be washed away,
It’s growing like a tumour, just waiting for its day.

You are not sure what it is, but this one thing you know,
No matter what happens now, you enjoy watching your children grow.

The pre-teen years are nearly over and the high school years draw near.
Then one child beckons you and whispers in your ear.

“Daddy’s been molesting me it started when I was four
All those times you were asleep, he came through my bedroom door
He put his hands all over me I couldn’t make him stop
I wanted to die many times, to fall down and drop!

He hurt me with his ***** mummy, I am so ashamed
I was too scared to tell before because I was to blame
Once, you were in the room mummy, I could see you sleeping
He molested me then and there mummy, I could hear your breathing

My heart screamed out to you mummy, but I did not exist,
My soul began to suffocate and death seemed freedoms bliss.”

The words your child is speaking echo through an empty void,
And darkness falls around you, encumbering you like a shroud.

Someone just stuck a knife into the heart of what was sacred.
Your precious children have been filled with someone else’s hatred.

You need some help, you need to grieve but who can be trusted.
The fear the shame the hurt the blame your heart is torn and busted.

You collect your shattered children and hold them very tight,
You hold them ever so-close, you hold them with all your might.

Flashes of the years gone by ignite before your eyes,
And you see so clearly, all the torment in his lies.

Time has passed you by and your children have grown
But it feels only yesterday you were crushed against the stones

Written by

Wandisa Zwane  


April 16, 2015



INT.  APT 3101 - THE BEDROOM  

It's 02:31 am and I find myself laying silently on my bed scrolling through Instagram...Twitter...Tumblr....and Snapchat. I find myself struggling to go to sleep.  I wasn't even able to sleep for an hour or two. It's not normal as its way past my curfew. I receive a text message. I'm confused because it's
still too early for anyone to be texting me, and I know everyone nearby is fast asleep because we have school. So who could be texting me?

CUT TO: PHONE SCREEN

HER ( via text )

I'm struggling with the math homework, help ? Are you up ?

ME ( via text )

I am actually. FaceTime, call or text?

20 minutes later my phone starts ringing. She was FaceTiming me. I stare at her name for about 5 seconds trying to put myself together.

ME

Hello, Ellie

I wasn't focused on the math. I was hoping that we could forget about the math and just talk about us and the futility of life. For some stupid reason I really thought you were gonna say something cheesy like I can't get you out of my head but can we just talk until we fall in love? But no it never happened as we had an hour long conversation about math.

CUE " MATH CONVERSATION"

The futility in that conversation was cosmic to the point where I began questioning existence. But when the call finally ended I was disappointed.

CUT TO: VARSITY

It's 8am and I'm at sitting in English tired and drained. Still contemplating about the futility of life.

HER

Hey, Tyler thanks for helping me with the math homework.

ME

Uhm Ellie do you want to come over too my apartment over the weekend and chill ?

CUT TO: APARTMENT 3101

It's 12am and the apartment is really untidy. I jump out of bed and clean the entire apartment in a record time of 12 minutes and 44 seconds. I'm going crazy over here as I'm trying to remember if I gave her the correct directions. Thank god I gave her the correct directions as I see the uber pulling up in front of the apartment complex. I start sweating and shaking and I'm fearful that I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. I start cringing.
I open the door the door and it's her standing directly in front of me. I can't breathe. I'm overwhelmed by an awe of emotions. Literally - she's beautiful

ME

I mumbled - Hey Ellie it's so good to see you ( the hug was very awkward because I was nervous - it was one of those hugs where both people don't know how to hug each which makes things really awkward)

HER

Hi


ME

So glad you could make it. How was the drive ( note to self: I should stop making things awkward ) I'm so irritated at myself.

CUT TO:  APARTMENT 3101 - LIVING ROOM

She's sitting on the couch. And I'm sitting right next to her. Okay let's just say there was a 30cm gap between the both of us. I was really nervous. I found myself drinking gallons of water. I forgot to offer her anything. I was nervous to the point where I couldn't even make eye contact. I just stared at her forehead and her lips.

ME

Aren't you exhausted I mean that drive was really long ( she lived like 3 blocks away from me )

HER

Not really , I'm just really stressed about varsity and stuff I guess.

We actually start conversing with one another for 5 hours straight.We smoke about 3 cigarettes and have the most fruitful conversation ever about female energy and the power of the the heart. She's really enlightened - I thought she was really basic. We both can't go to sleep because we're actually  enjoying the presence of one another. It was cathartic and refreshing actually.

ME

Want go up to the roof and look at the universe?

HER

I'd love too.

CUT TO : COMPLEX ROOF

I brought a blanket up to the roof cause I thought it was cold. It wasn't but we just layed down underneath the open night sky and gazed into the stars. We connected with the universe/ourselves/each other. It was bliss. We ended up falling asleep on top of the roof. To my amazement we were silently wrapped around each other.

CUT TO: APARTMENT 3101 - THE KITCHEN

HER

( chuckling )
How'd you sleep

ME

( Smiling )
I slept pretty well.

ME

Do you have any plans for today?

HER

YES actually...

SEVERAL HOURS LATER: APARTMENT 3101 - KITCHEN/BEDROOM AND LIVING ROOM

The sun is setting and she still hasn't packed her bags.

ME

When are you leaving?

She said she was leaving on Sunday

HER

In 30.

ME

(I tried to not crack in front of her)
Cool.


APARTMENT 3101

About 2 weeks later she surprisingly pitches at my door with her luggage.

HER
I'm moving in with you!

I was excited at the fact that she was moving in with me but I obviously tried acting cool and composed.

CUT TO: WOLVES CAFE

As they're sitting there talking to each other about their families, Osho and meditation over a cup of tea.

ME

I was adopted.

HER

WOW - That's a huge plot twist.

She sat there speechless for about 2 minutes trying to fathom the knowledge I just presented to her.

HER

So do you ever think about your real parents?

ME

All the time - they both died in a car accident when I was 3.

HER

I'm so sorry.

ME

It's okay - I mean I know they're somewhere out there in the universe checking up on me. I speak to them when I feel lonely.

Enough about my tragic past..How are your parents?

I've never told any other soul about my parents before. She was the first person I ever told .

HER

I never knew my dad but my mom has been living with a brain tumour for like 2 years now.

ME

Wow. That's must've been so tough for you when you found out about it.

HER

It was. I went through the most vicious cycle of depression for an entire year. But I'm trying to make most of the time I have left with her.

ME

How much time do you have left to see her her and stuff ?

HER

(She starts tearing up)
3 months

CUT TO: APARTMENT 3101 - LIVING ROOM

I'm still fascinated by the fact that she's into Osho, existentialism, metaphysics and epistemology. But I also felt like our relationship had escalated so quickly. We're we rushing things? The relationship felt like it was moving at the speed of light.

ME

Do you feel like we're moving too fast ?

HER

There's no such thing, if it's meant to be it will be, whether fast or slow as long as it's true, it will last as long as you want it to.

I was momentarily tongue-tied as I was trying to digest the words she just said.

ME

......

(Still voiceless)

She still had a lot more to say after that

CUES : "rants"

But in that entire rant she said something that echoed within me.

HER

YOU KNOW I MAKE YOU HAPPY

After she said this I felt like fainting. So not only did she make me voiceless I was overwhelmed by an ocean of indescribable emotions- wow

DAYS LATER: APARTMENT 3101 - KITCHEN

I'd finally recovered from those powerful words she preached to me. So I found myself sitting in the kitchen trying to write a letter to her about how I really felt. I wasn't the best at expressing my emotions through writing but I gave it a shot.

ME

Love is the unforetold explanation for creation. Love is life. It's the merger of minds. The marriage of minds. It transcends through time, it's timeless. It takes you into a dimension filled with possibilities and opportunities. It helps you understand you are that you are not worthless. Every time I am with you I understand we are here for a reason. And every time I stare into your eyes. I realise that you are mine.  

I sealed it an envelope and put it on the kitchen counter.

LATER ON THAT DAY:

She opens the letter and starts crying.

CUT TO: THE TREEHOUSE

I introduce her to some of the guys in the treehouse. They welcomed her to the treehouse with open arms.

HER

So what do you guys do in the treehouse?

PAUL : (one of the guys part of the treehouse)

Well in the treehouse we just try to expand. We write, make music, poetry, nothing much really.

MCDONALDS DRIVE- THRU

She was to lazy to go home and cook supper she was s bit hypocritical cause she said we should stop buying junk food. So we decided to go to McDonald's. We were down to our last packet of 2 minute noodles anyway.


CUT TO: HOSPITAL

We went to visit her mother. She introduced me but there was no warmth in the hug we shared. I could feel her shrill body disintegrating. She was really cold. You could see she was dying.

HER

How've you been mom ?

MOM

She couldn't even speak properly. It was sad but when she eventually managed to responded to Ellie's question.

MOM

I'm still fighting but I don't know if I can do this for much longer.

HER

No mum you can't leave me.

MOM

I don't want to make you empty promises my child.

Who's this handsome young man Ellie?

HER

(Smiling heavily)
It's Tyler, my boyfriend

She just called me her boyfriend in front of her mom. She just put a label on our relationship. I thought it was completely platonic.

ME

Afternoon Mam. It's a pleasure to finally meet you.

I knew her name ( Stacy )  but in that moment I felt like a child in primary school - so I decided to be respectful and call her mam. I wasn't sure whether or not I should call her "Ellie's mom" or Stacy. It was just a tricky situation. So I opted for mam.

MOM

( smiling )
The pleasure is all mine Tyler.

She told me to come closer to her cause she wanted to whisper something into my ear.

MOM

Tyler I'm clearly dying as you can see. So I'm leaving with you an important task of ensuring that's my daughter remains happy at all times.Take care of her for me - please

ME

I'll take care of her - she's in safe hands.

MOM

That's the spirit Tyler. Can you give us a moment please Tyler.

HER

Just go down to the kiosk and get me a bottle of distilled water. Please.

(Tyler leaves the room)

MOM

I remember the first time you wrapped your tiny hand around my index finger , you had my soul laying on 3 cms of palm.

( Ellie interrupts )

HER

Mom don't do this , prolonging life is pure idiocy.

(she smiles as a tear rolls down her cheek )

Die so your soul can have its summer ,don't worry about my pain cause I'm really happy for you, your soul can finally taste true liberation, see my tears as autumn leaves falling from trees , I'm naked and all I can show you is the truest forms of love.

MOM

You're so beautiful because you're so true. Our connection has no equation my daughter, as I leave my body just know that my time with you transcends forever.

HER

Mother it's time for you to leave. Take a piece of my happiness, it's futile anyway and I have it in abundance but I shall be lost without you in body, I shall be found when I'm with you in soul.

MOM

Clarity comes with the last breath, as hatred and love become nothing, you are nothing and everything all at once, I'm happy for you have given it to me, tomorrow and yesterday no longer matter

(her heart stops beating and her souls goes home - heart rate monitor indicates her mom has just flat lined)

Ellie starts screaming. The nurses and doctors come sprinting in.


DOCTOR

NUURSE HAND ME THE DEFIBRILLATOR !!

HER

(in agonising pain and disbelief that her mother is dead she starts screaming)

SAVE MY MUM, PLEASE SHE CANT LEAVE ME !! YOU CANT LET HER DIE.

DOCTOR

Nurse get her out of here.

She's kicking and shoving the other nurses as she is being escorted out the room.

NURSE

Don't worry the doctors are doing all they can to save her.

Tyler comes back from the kiosk with the distilled water to find Ellie on the floor crying.

ME

What's wrong?

HER

( Her face goes pale )
She's gone ....

2 DAYS LATER: BACK AT 3101

Ellie has locked herself in my/our room. We haven't spoken to each other for like 2 weeks.

She finally decides to come out of the room.

HER

(Breaks down, again  )
It's her birthday today.

I've never seen her so broken and disfigured before. She's in pieces - distorted.

NARRATOR

Death is the door between two lives; one is left behind, one is waiting ahead. Death is the ultimate experience of this life - Osho

“Birth leads to death, death precedes birth. So if you want to see life as it really is, it is rounded on both the sides by death. Death is the beginning and death is again the end, and life is just the illusion in between. You feel alive between two deaths; the passage joining one death to another you call life. Buddha says this is not life. This life is dukkha – misery. This life is death"

HER

I WONT CRUMBLE - IM A BIG GIRL NOW. MOMMA RAISED ME TO BE A STRONG WOMAN SO IM GONNA DO THAT.

She put up this facade as if nothing ever happened. She didn't allow herself to mourn the death of her mother. She was apathetic for the next 2 weeks.

This  was a tricky phase because she either woke up angry or sad. She just rampaged through the house, didn't attend lectures - she just left a trail of destruction wherever she went. I even have the scars to prove it.

A FEW WEEKS LATER: THE DEATH ORDEAL IS FINALLY OVER

She gained about 5 kilograms in that entire period. She just kept on stuffing her face with ice cream and chocolates

HER

Tyler thanks for being there in my moment of absolute depression.

ME

I thought you were never going to be able to get yourself out of that dark abyss you were trapped in.

AT THE BEACH

The sun is setting and the couple is walking along the sand enjoying each other's company.

ME

I've got something for you Ellie

( I hope she likes it )

HER

Yes?

ME

Close your eyes

(Takes out a heart shaped pediment from back pocket  and places it around her neck )

You can open your eyes now.

HER

(Smiling)
It's lovely, thank you

ME

(Smiling back)
I'm giving you my heart but not my soul.

HER

(Blushes)

ME

(In my head)
I'm giving her my heart she better not break it.

Have you ever had that feeling before in a relationship where you think you love the other person more than they love you. To the point where you'd even get their names tattooed onto your chest. Cause that's how I feel right now.

IN THE CAR:


I'm driving Ellie to the airport. OR Tambo in fact. I'm playing some Jamie ** but I quickly change it and play my favourite song Female Energy.

CUE "FEMALE ENERGY"

ME

You excited?

HER

Yes I'm really really excited for this.

ME

I'm really gonna miss you

HER

Me too.

Ellie was completing her mothers bucket list - so she had had to travel all the way to Tibet and learn Buddhism. Nothing much really she was leaving  for 2 months.


But little did Tyler know that this was going to be the last time he sees Ellie because her plane never landed in Tibet - the plane crashed and it sunk with no no one  surviving.

STILL IN THE CAR:

Ellie hands Tyler a letter

HER

Tyler please don't open this until you get home.

ME

(Smiling)
I'll try my best.


Car parks at drop and go zone at the airport. Tyler takes out Ellie's bag from the boot.

They hug and kiss

Ellie cries.

CUT TO : "APT 3101 - LIVING ROOM "

Tyler opens the letter.

CUE "ELLIES VOICE AND ON OUR SWEATERS "


It's funny how for someone who has been so used to being lonely, the second I grip onto something that seems real, my biggest fear is losing that grip - even though for the longest time ever I've become immune to the feeling of loneliness. The same way people become dependent on other beings, people can become dependent on loneliness too - you become immune to self reassurance, your insecurities, your vulnerability and after a while it seems ideal and okay, but only because it's all you've got. You allow yourself to be consumed by this self indulgent energy making you think you don't need anybody because how else do you get by when you know that you have nobody. So when someone comes creeping in through the front door, with nothing but good intentions - you shut them out because you've lost sight of the difference in the realness of someone coming through the front door and the fakeness of someone coming through the backdoor. I struggle to fathom your presence because I didn't see you coming, through any door, you were just always there in plain sight. I don't know how to describe what I feel when I'm around you because I have never felt anything like it. All I know is that it leaves me in a place

You’re a poisoned rose in a wedding band,
A glad eye with a stabbing hand,
A tumour ,vicious rumour surrounds you,
BP Exxon -death abounds you,
I first found you amusing and witty,
cutting remarks a stick with both ends ******-

Gutter scumbag with a glaze of charm,
Only interested in doing harm,
A sociopath with a crocodile smile,
always had the last laugh,- real fight? Run a mile,
Backstabber Judas priest,but **** was I deceived,
Each Lie you sold I truly believed.

I stood by you ,defended you til the bitter end,
Bitter irony I know,with you as a friend,
Who the **** needs enemies, its all a front,
An affront to my instincts,get out of my life you ****.

chorus

"My toxic friend this is the end get out of my life for good,
Every time you smile a child dies you’re up to no good,
Don’t call me-text me unfriend me before you end me,
You’re the epitome of the new word-Frenemy."

Now I hear you’re spreading rumours behind my back,
Bad move,wrong play better stand back,
Your malicious manouevery no longer stands,
I’m two steps ahead your end is planned.

You better watch your back,you’ve got no back up and no spine,
Juggling hedgehog maze lies through a field of land mines,
I’ve got my eye on you ex pal,don’t worry your time’s come,
we’ll see who can outrun the .45 from a gun,
That you’ve been begging for for years no tears at your end,
You’re a poxy oxymoron my toxic friend.

So come out to play my way and see who draws first,
I guarantee you a surprise not my blood burst,
Flying in the air like a hose god only knows,
You’re a fly in my eye a burr under my skin so out she goes,
The left that hits your jaw will saw your head from your neck
You talk a good fight,good night,I’ll leave ya wrecked.

chorus

"My toxic friend this is the end get out of my life for good,
Every time you smile an angel loses wings you’re no good,
Don’t call me-text me unfriend me before you end me,
You’re the epitome of the new word-Frenemy."

you're a tumour in the pit of my stomach
so small and benign at first
but you grew
and grew
until you reached my heart
you encompassed me with your poison and wouldn't leave me be
so I had to cut you out completely
because right now I have to worry about me

by J.B.S. Haldane

I wish I had the voice of Homer
To sing of ****** carcinoma,
Which kills a lot more chaps, in fact,
Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked.
Yet, thanks to modern surgeon’s skills,
It can be killed before it kills
Upon a scientific basis
In nineteen out of twenty cases.
I noticed I was passing blood
(Only a few drops, not a flood).
So pausing on my homeward way
From Tallahassee to Bombay
I asked a doctor, now my friend,
To peer into my hinder end,
To prove or to disprove the rumour
That I had a malignant tumour.
They pumped in BaS04.
Till I could really stand no more,
And, when sufficient had been pressed in,
They photographed my large intestine,
In order to decide the issue
They next scraped out some bits of tissue.
(Before they did so, some good pal
Had knocked me out with pentothal,
Whose action is extremely quick,
And does not leave me feeling sick.)
The microscope returned the answer
That I had certainly got cancer,
So I was wheeled into the theatre
Where holes were made to make me better.
One set is in my perineurn
Where I can feel, but can’t yet see ‘em.
Another made me like a kipper
Or female prey of Jack the Ripper,
Through this incision, I don’t doubt,
The neoplasm was taken out,
Along with colon, and lymph nodes
Where cancer cells might find abodes.
A third much smaller hole is meant
To function as a ventral vent:
So now I am like two-faced Janus
The only* god who sees his ****.
I’ll swear, without the risk of perjury,
It was a snappy bit of surgery.
My ****** is a serious loss to me,
But I’ve a very neat colostomy,
And hope, as soon as I am able,
To make it keep a fixed time-table.
So do not wait for aches and pains
To have a surgeon mend your drains;
If he says “cancer” you’re a dunce
Unless you have it out at once,
For if you wait it’s sure to swell,
And may have progeny as well.
My final word, before I’m done,
Is “Cancer can be rather fun”.
Thanks to the nurses and Nye Bevan
The NHS is quite like heaven
Provided one confronts the tumour
With a sufficient sense of humour.
I know that cancer often kills,
But so do cars and sleeping pills;
And it can hurt one till one sweats,
So can bad teeth and unpaid debts.
A spot of laughter, I am sure,
Often accelerates one’s cure;
So let us patients do our bit
To help the surgeons make us fit
____________
.
*In India there are several more
With extra faces, up to four,
But both in Brahma and in Shiva
I own myself an unbeliever.

                                  J. B. S. Haldane (1964)

You were my everything,
I've always known  you were special.
But only now I realise,
How much I needed you my little girl.

You were my constant companion,
Never left me alone,
Always by my side,
Even after I left you alone.

You forgave me everytime,
I left you home alone,
Sometimes months at a time,
I was gone.

You trusted me always,
At the door on my return,
Waiting to greet me,
But I could tell you were concerned.

You had been abandoned,
Early in life,
I know you had a difficult start
Moving from shelter to shelter is no life.

We were supposed to be together,
I knew I needed to help you,
Rescue you from a sad untimely death,
And give you a loving home.

You had nowhere to go,
All those years ago
I couldnt let you die.,
You had to come and be mine.

You were more than just company,
You were a true friend,
They told me you didnt like cuddles,
But I found out thats all you wanted in the end.

You helped me more than any human,
You were so loving and kind,
You understood everything about me,
You were there when I lost my mind.

You let me cry on you,
You saw me cut myself,
But you never ran away,
Although I know you didnt want me to cut.

I loved you very much,
And I know you loved me too,
And I hope that you understood
How much I really loved you.

You saved my life one morning,
When our smoke alarms failed,
The house filling with smoke at 5am,
You got me out of bed.

Even Qasem loved you,
For when I was stuck in hospital,
He got over his fear as a Muslim,
He made friends with you, didnt mind your poo.

I always knew how you felt,
You showed me your disgust,
When I brought home the school gerbils,
And you pooped on my bed in disgust.

You looked after me in Aberdeenshire,
As I looked after you,
I know our house was very cold,
You got used to the coal fire so soon.

You helped me move back to Arran,
Im sorry for how stressful that was,
Such a long time to spend in a box,
But we had no choice but for trains, boats and bus.

I had lived here before,
But for you it was all very new,
Yet you adapted so quickly,
Walked out of your box, like you knew.

I know you were happy on Arran,
You settled in so quickly,
It was liked you'd always lived here,
Maybe because we were close to the sea.

My people got fewer and fewer,
But your loyalty was forever,
I know sometimes you were hungry,
We were both hungry at these times.

I never meant to neglect you,
And I know you understood,
I'd do anything so you didnt go hungry,
When I couldnt get out of bed.

I cooked fish from the freezer,
Though I know it wasnt your favourite,
I never meant to make you sick,
Your body just wasnt used to it.

I am sorry for how much I left you,
You lit up my life when I returned,
I trusted the people left to feed you,
Knew they'd take care of you while I was gone.

I was so happy to see you,
Looking healthy and content,
With your bright yellow eyes shining,
And your comforting purr of content.

Thank you for looking after me,
Many times you kept me going,
Although I have wanted to die,
I could never leave you my darling.

I had to stay alive,
I know you needed me,
No one else could be here for you,
And I know how much you loved me.

I may have gone away at times,
But I was always pleased to see you,
I knew you were here waiting,
And I always thought about you.

You became my only companion,
Nearly everyone else had gone,
You showed so much compassion,
You never left me alone.

I got to know you so well,
You went out a little in the sun,
But you never wandered far,
Wanting the door left open for a quick return.

Im sorry for the times you got stuck outside,
I know it didnt happen a lot,
But you always went to hide somewhere,
I know the fear now, it can be too much.

I know how it feels now,
I get the panic and fear too,
My legs collapse for no reason,
I know how it must have been for you.

When you got so sick,
I hated seeing you in pain,
But I knew you still wanted to be here,
And I kept promising, mummy will end the pain.

You were like a little angel,
Took your medicine so well,
Let me feed you by syringe,
You wanted to be here still, I could tell.

But then you were in such pain,
All night you'd lie so close to me,
Resting your bleeding tumour
Against my neck, the pain I could see.

Then I knew you didnt want to be here,
You were tired and had had enough,
You looked at me, trusted me to end your pain,
The tumour bleeding, swollen, you couldnt close your mouth.

I knew when you sat out in the cold,
You wanted it to end,
You were hoping you would die,
But I didnt want you to starve, so your body was still strong.

I could see you were in pain,
I could feel it too,
I even got used to the smell of your tumour,
So close to my face, as I tried to comfort you.

I'd wanted to give you diazepam,
But I knew from my training its not right,
But I did give you extra pain killers,
On your very last night.

I didnt want you to suffer,
Anymore than you were,
And it seemed to help you settle,
And these nights would now be no more.  

Mummy asked the vet to come tomorrow,
You had told me it was time,
I let you listen to the birds and music,
Comforting you until she came.

I wanted to take you to bed again,
But I know that would have been wrong,
I didnt want to end you life,
But otherwise, I would have been cruel, and wrong.

You enjoyed your last meal,
Some tasty treats came in the post,
You had more medication,
To ease the pain, as the time drew close.

The hours seemed to last forever,
But I was happy to see you at ease,
The vet came to our house,
You had your sedative on my knees.

You are not keen on strangers,
And tried to go and hide,
But the sedative worked quite quickly,
I picked you up and cuddled you till it was time.

Your body went limp,
You were so sleepy,
And the vet shaved your leg,
Much more humane that the heart, I agree.

Then she injected a huge dose of barbiturate,
Your heart stopped almost instantly,
Mummy wanted that injection too,
You died quickly upon my knee.

Now you are in the garden,
And I am so sorry,
But I did everything I could,
I cant let you in anymore, but I really wish I could.

I am really lost without you,
More than I expected,
Never knew i'd feel this alone,
Dont know what I expected.

The house now feels unsafe,
The panic does things to my body,
Nightmares wake me up,
And now you're not here to help me.

I wish I could have gone with you,
And we could still be together,
No more pain for either of us,
We'd be together forever.

I am so sorry Tiggy, please forgive me, thank you for everything,
love from mummy ***