October 8, 2015 by Janey L Foster

Voyage

She was so excited, you know. The morning air waking her eyes, the chill with a promise of sun. She went to work that day, just for the morning then she left. Her colleagues wished her well and all through the hours that she worked she thought. She went over the folded clothes she’d packed away. She ticked through the documents in her bag. It sat waiting for her on the bed in the light that moved across the duvet, to noon, to the closing of doors.

Her friend was coming to pick her up, to take her and drop her with bags and she was ready. Changed and brushed, bristling with expectation with the possibilities in front of her.
And she stood, she could see it all from where she sat now, where she had stood and the bluster of the docks caught her scarf, it spiralled up around her face, out of control in the gust. Everything was new, strange, bearings to find, sea legs to attach and she thought of her friend who had worked there. He was clear and vivid in his absence and she imagined him grinning – and his laugh.

She was there, you know. She could see her, hair burbling upwards, a thin top because that’s all she would need and she was light. She felt herself sparkle at the edges, like a fraying blanket that comforted in its age. The ends of her pulsed and danced, waves of photons twirled around her and she was free. My God, she was so free.

And in that place, high up over the water shine she was wrapped. She was swaddled in the things she needed and the people who formed her life.
There had never been a moment like it, not that she could recall, where every cell in her form crackled and sparked and she was at the start of something. Her laugh was lifted up by the eddies, carried high in gushing thermals, through the gulls until it it broke. Sound waves scattering fragments of her into the day, into the swell of her world.

And she was there. And she stood. And she could feel every throb in her body as she sits now, cold, looking out towards the window. Wrapped in a parka to shield her from the day. The condensation moving sluggish down the pane, her view blurring through the droplets. And in each burst of water she sees herself, reflected, smiling back. Caught in time, in motion. in that place – when she was who she used to be.

Back there. She stood – she was alive.

September 24, 2015 by Janey L Foster

Stoned

I like rocks. I like stones. Pebbles are my friends. There’s something quite reassuring about their edges and their lines. I like to peer inside them at their sediment and colours, study the way the hours have formed their shapes.

I keep them on my windowsill next to the plants I can’t look after. I try to nurture the growing things, I feed and spray. I pick up the leaves as they fall but my fingers are pink and not green. Some things stay for a while, now and again they flourish but whether it’s the angle of the windowsill or the anger of the sun at my glass, I’m not sure. It’s such a sun filled kitchen and the windowsill calls out for plants. So I buy and I tend and I leave. Maybe it’s the leaving where it goes wrong. Maybe it’s the constant watching that they need. Maybe if I pull up a stool and stand a post, keep a weathered eye on them at all times, that I’ll spot the bugs as they approach and I’ll fire at them with my special order nozzled spray. Maybe if I never move from this spot I can head off the disease before it sets in. Maybe if I do nothing but watch them that they’ll be alright. That the sun won’t crisp their leaves, that the soil won’t gasp and shrink.

I like plants. I like their potential for growth, their searching roots, their sap fresh leaves. I like their short-lived promise and the rich dark stink of soil.
I pull up a stool and wait. Wait for the seconds to eat them, to watch them crumble again. I watch my stones next to them. They are reliable, they sit, they soak up the heat. They smile back at me, warm and unchanged. At least I can’t see their changes.
They watch me. I crumble in the photons that they absorb, my leaves dry out. The bugs come.

I like rocks, they give me a sense of permanence but it won’t last. I like to hold them and study their lines, to connect with the heat they’ve absorbed.
They clank and graunch against each other, they tell me that they’re solid – I understand.
The leaves drop, the water evaporates, the sun moves around us.
My stones wink at me, they know it’s only a matter of time.

April 25, 2015 by Janey L Foster

Bud

So you know how it goes. Clean page, the brightness burrowing into me.

And I find myself here, holding Rose’s hand and encouraging her into the light. She’s not that old you know, just a child really though with everything that’s going on around her she feels much older now.

She’s not shy, though she seems to be. Between you and me she’s afraid but keep it to yourselves. She’s battling with so much, the layers engulf her at times.

Look, I need to leave soon. But pay attention. Rose will get here – I promise. She has her tattoos to show you but go easy, give her chance to find her way. She will take her time to trust you – but when she lets you in, then you’ll know, then you’ll really see her and you’ll understand what I mean.

It takes time, yeah? Wait a while.
She’s travelling.