Never wake a sleeping Devlin

For my favourite human, who loves his sleep.

Never wake a sleeping Devlin.

He’s the kind of beasty who loves to sleep in.

No matter what time,

Day or night,

If you wake him up….

Get ready to fight.

He’ll pounce when you’re not looking,

And poke your little nose,

Then settle back down from whence he rose.

If you’re brave enough to try, even just once more,

Prepare yourself for an all-out war.

He’ll hit you with sheets,

Pajamas, pillows and feets, 

Then settle back to bed,

Ready to rest his weary, sleepy head.

Blank de blank

This page has eyes – they stare, impatiently.

Hungry.

It may have a mouth, it might not. I am

unsure.

The empty spaces reach to me.

Curling at the corners.

Desperate to peel

                                                away.

I press on.

The keyboard sounds twice as loud.

Thudding like a clumsy child.

Immature.

Not ready for the - BIG STUFF –

Where to begin?

“Simply at the end my friend.”

Rising rage and a hot water hug

After a dizzy night of sleep, bright eyes, sleep and subsequent bleary eyes I shrugged my layers off and headed for the shower.

It was there that my investigative instincts took hold of me. 

It was there that I was met with one rude factoid. 

It was there that a series of unpleasant events were set in motion.

"Rats."

My sister had been at my bathroom supplies like a rat family readying for winter. Gone. She had a way with other people's stuff. And by 'a way' I mean, it was her way: poof, away with anything you loved. These things went straight to a new home, with no way of protest and no way of knowing how long they'd be held captive for. The stuff of cotton's nightmares.

After 2 weeks without her thieving ways, I had almost gotten used to leaving items laying around. I had almost started living a carefree life - one where I didn't feel like a double agent. A life where I didn't have to worry about her scavanging fingers, lurking, creeping - ready to grab at will and with uncharacteristic speed. I had even let the passageway draft slink through into my room, door ajar all willy-nilly. My room hadn't smelt that fresh in years.

Like a bad dose of reality it came crashing down, flooding my body. White hot rage.

I let the warm water wrap around my body, tracing my curves, bringing me comfort, until I practically glowed. Hot water wasn't all they said it was. It was better. My anger had been steamed, pressed and ironed and was ready for someone else to don. It had packed it's bags and moved to the twilight zone. My feelings were neither land mine nor white dove, they were the sand of no mans land. And that dear friend, is why showers are neccessary. Morning, noon and night.

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” ― A.A. Milne

Céad slán, Gráím thú

Crush your ears should your thoughts set sail,

Squeeze your eyes should they crumble and fall.

Clench your teeth should reality escape,

Clamp your lips should attention be drawn.

Hold your tongue lest it turn to stone,

Rake your hair lest you drift away.  

Clutch your sides lest you call retired hands,

Cradle your chest lest your heart pursue.

Roam the glittering sky,

Watch the moon drip into the sea -

Rolling on the day, in silent agony.

Something blue old or new.

Dear reader,

The ocean breeze has stolen something close to me.
She carried it away and peppered the tides.
Leaving tiny pieces of me sprinkled in all the little seabeds.

“The only love that I really believe in is a mother’s love for her children.” - Karl Lagerfeld

I wrote this for my mum because she was really down.

Dearest mumsy,

You’ve been down in the dumps of late

So I wanted to do something that would negate

The inky sadness on your pretty face,

And get you back to your happy place!

Below is a list of things you do,

That help people, like me, to not come unglued.

See, you’ve helped all these humans that you’ve met

But you hardly ever have time to dote on yourself. And yet,

You do all these things without a second blink

So please, pretty please, take one second to think,

How:

1.       Your smile lights up an entire room, you must be part sunshine to clean away all that gloom.

2.       Your cheer and good nature are by far the best I’ve seen. You’re humble and hilarious and fun (and definitely not mean)

3.       You look pretty good for a fossil in motion, even though I'm sure you’re probably older than the ocean!

4.       You have so, so many friends, all over the planet, you kind of remind me of a really well rounded pomegranate.

5.       Nobody I know has ever had the heart to speak ill of you, and even if they had, every single human would say it were untrue.

6.       You have a family who hang on to your every word, whether it be sober, muffled or (as it is often) slurred!

So please, dear mumsy, please do me this one favour,

Please desist with this silly, woeful behavior!

And look at this list when you feel like a mountain of crap,

And remember how awesome you are, even when you snap.

“Sane is boring.” - R.A. Salvatore

In an attempt to write more, here is something that I whipped up during a chat with Barrel. The ending will follow soon.

The lesser boring Barry

Every morning was the same. Barry woke up at exactly 5:59am; a second before his alarm clock whistled, just as the sun was peeking out from behind the morning mist. Breakfast was a well rounded ten minute affair of precisely squared apple cubes and artfully lathered toast. Showering took another ten minutes as its mistress, until finally, he was fully clothed in the crispest cotton seen to man. To top it all off, was a big finish that consisted of a swift but vigorous shoe shine and then off he went on his way, primly clutching a slim briefcase, only to stop at the corner café for a cup of piping hot java; ready to take on the day.

But this morning was different.

Barry awoke, with a start, to the most unpleasant ringing sound he’d ever encountered. The sun was still playing hide and seek with the moon and his alarm was a long, long way off. Something was off. No, in fact, something was very wrong. This was just not how things were done in his house. Ill at ease, Barry laid his sensible head back down on his ever so slightly creased feather pillow and closed his eyes. Unfortunately for Barry, his body was now in full morning mode and his limbs refused to rest.

From then on his day got much, much, much worse.

- Breakfast was a no go.

- The dishwasher had inexplicably stopped halfway through its wash and Barry was left helpless without any cutlery and plate-less.

- The toaster, perched on the wrong digit, spat out a charred remnant of what had originally been his last slice of whole wheat rye.

- The geyser was in woeful need of repair and so an icy cold shower was the order of the day.

- Meanwhile his ears were still ringing from the hideous disturbance that had woken him up not so long ago.

- In a hopeless sleep deprived daze, Barry had also notably singed his favourite collared shirt.

But the straw that broke that camel’s back wasn’t the mouse hole he discovered during his rigorous yet thorough flossing regimen, it was the scrape his new loafers incurred during a tad-too-vigorous brush with the polish. Finally, at his wit’s end, Barry stripped his singed cotton off, unfolded his flannel two piece and balefully tucked himself back into bed for a sick day. Only to be unceremoniously wrenched from a blissful slumber by the same unpleasant ringing that had signaled the demise of his day.