Breathe in the air, polluted it may be
For each second breath brings you a second closer
To the day your mother dies,

Treasure each vowel, for the lives in A and E,
And the I.O.U.’s you’ve yet to pay
To her, to him, the birds, the bees, 

For every time you speak
You’re a minute closer to silence
So never settle for being quiet, 

And every moment is moments further away
From that rainy day your father saw beauty in the rain
Shared his umbrella and said hey, 

Each time your foot leaves the floor
You’ve operated the pulleys and leavers, sent orders through your spine,
You’ve perfected the sequence of walking,

Swings and swishes and sighs,
Whistles through gap teeth, 
Speak now and make every word count,
Fuck the word count
Write more and more and more and more,
Write on walls, on desks, on doors
“I was here fuckers I was here.”
 

Decided I’m just going to use this as a place to post my life, crappy photos, bits of writing I’ve done, thoughts, and re-blog a few things I really like. Sorry it’s not going to be as consistent or nice anymore. 

Ok so I was about to go to bed and I ended up talking to my friend and it’s really got me thinking and I’ve had a bit of a revelation and it’s cleared my head so I need to write it down somewhere so I’m just gunna go. 

This summer has been really shit, I’m not gunna lie. A 4 year relationship ended for me, which was one of the hardest things. Alongside this I’ve slowly started to alienate myself from a lot of groups of friends, people I would’ve seen really often a while ago. I’ve always been the sort of person that liked to feel liked and needed by others, even in recent past posts on here I’ve expressed that. It has always made me feel good to feel as if I’m important to others. I don’t really know why it happened, perhaps I just got a bit lazy or sick of trying with people, and consequently have lost touch with them, so I haven’t really been going out and socialising as often as I would’ve several months back. I guess ultimately it’s down to me, I hate to be one of those people who’s bitter whenever someone goes out without inviting them, because I’m sure I do it an awful lot to others, as I have quite varied groups of friends and I enjoy different peoples company. However it made me sad to see groups of friends and hear about them being places without thinking of me. Also, with University looming (11 days now!) I have been uncharacteristically aware of my spending and funds this summer, and for other reasons I’m not gunna go into, I’ve had to pull the purse strings a little tighter. Meaning I’ve been giving holidays, festivals and many outings a miss. So I’m not generally as convenient to get hold of or make plans with as I used to be, because I simply haven’t been around as often, so understandably it’s easy for people to forget about me. At first this bothered me, I started thinking that there was something wrong with me and people didn’t like me.

Leaving a long term relationship has also been a big learning curve for me, I missed him, and still do, all the time. Often I’d find myself thinking that no one cared about me and I’d lost the one person that actually did. I found it hard to talk about with friends, as I wanted to be happy and have fun with them, so they’d want to be with me, not drone on about how bad everything was and be bad company. It’s a vicious circle really, I couldn’t stand pretending to be so carefree all the time like I used to be but it was easier and safer that way to get on with the day. I didn’t like to talk about feeling lonely with friends, scared of being seen as some sort of a loner or something I guess. It’s not to say that people didn’t invite me out, but often it’d be something where I’d have to attend alone and travel to and from by myself, which I know I should’ve been comfortable with, but in my head it just reiterated the fact no one cared about me much. Eventually I started to alienate myself from friends, because I decided to stop calling and texting so frequently, it turned out that I just wasn’t present enough in their minds for them to call and text me as often as before. I started just thinking “these people don’t really care about me, so why bother?” Which meant 9 times out of 10 I’d rather stay in and sit on the computer or watch a film or read a book then go out with the people that “didn’t really care.”

I started working as much as I could and spending less than I ever have, and I only really wanted to spend time with family. And now I realise that has hard as this summer has been for me, it’s kind of been a blessing in disguise. I can still have a great time chatting with people and hanging out, going out clubbing, whatever. But I’ve also become aware that I’m OK on my own. I can enjoy myself on my own and I can accomplish things myself, I don’t have to please people all the time, and have everyone know I’m funny and exciting in order to know I’m funny and exciting. I don’t have to be surrounded by people to have fun and other people don’t have to care about me for me to care about myself. I guess all in all I’ve learnt a lot of lessons, and some good things have come out of a pretty dire situation. I’ve now got enough money in my bank that I can start University with the confidence that I can get what I need, and feel secure. I’ve spent a lot of it already on bits and bobs and a place to live etc. And trust me, no holiday or night out feels better than the idea of investing money you’ve earnt into your future. I’ve also lost a bit of weight from drinking less and working more, which is a nice bonus. But most importantly I’ve learnt something that I hope will stick with me for a long time, I do not need anyone to make me happy, I am the only person that can make me happy, and to be honest, I’m happier now than when I had so many other people around. I don’t need anyone else to validate me.

Don’t let others determine your self worth. 

Hey there friends, where have you been? Come summertime, with dreams of yours and mine, and you’re no where to be seen.  

I feel like I can’t open up or really talk to any of my friends.

The most notes I’ve gotten on any of my posts has been when I posted some writing on a political issue. More like this?

I still doubt the government will learn anything from this and sit up and take notice due to the riots. It’s so much easier to dismiss it as bored youths in the summer holidays wanting to mindlessly ruin someones home. 

I just wanted to set the record straight, I have seen a lot badly informed posts on Tumblr about the current London riots, some saying “shoot them all” etc. What particularly annoys me is that people can be so ignorant as to say that it’s just mindless violence, and dumb kids wanting a new TV, using the death of Mark Duggan as an excuse. Whilst this may be the case in some instances, it’s not where it ends.

The main areas of rioting at the moment are places where people in poverty live alongside the privileged middle class, largely ignored. These communities have seen politicians and the government lie to their faces, and have been effected by recent cut backs dramatically, watching your government throw away the future of your community and get away with it does tend to cause some hostility. When people feel ignored they don’t like it, they want to be not only listened to but also want action to be taken. 

Alongside this an entire generation has grown up believing they don’t have to take responsibility for their actions, simply coming from a disadvantaged background is no excuse to go around hurting strangers. However, growing up surrounded by peers who commit crime is enough to sway nearly anyone to follow the same path. And when you begin to be judged and sometimes mistreated, by police and other authoritative figures, again this injustice makes you angry.

People around London are angry. Going on marches in thousands has gotten menial press coverage and certainly hasn’t changed anything, whilst the rioting has been on my TV screen for the last 3 days solid. We’ve seen it before, all you have to do is look at previous cases of oppression in communities to notice that people get angry and lash out eventually, and once it begins, others will follow.

So now my work has been boarded up because of the London riots.