Image: David Fanuel
I have cut so many people out of my life that my phone is starting to feel like a graveyard of dead friendships and abandoned conversations. But I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry. From the burial mounds I’ve sprouted flowers, and from the silence I’ve curated peace.
Filed under Brain Poetry
Today I graduated from University with my (first) degree. I wore orange to match my hood, and ankle boots that were just high enough to reach my goal of wearing heels to my graduation. I woke up early, straightened my hair, contoured my face, shaved my legs, and then donned the good ol’ traditional cap and gown. I wore my cap backwards for a good few hours, and my hood kept slipping off my non-existent little shoulders, but it is nice to feel like I have something to show for the three years of all-nighters I just pulled. I had my 10 seconds of fame on stage, my head was tapped by the vice-dean, I forgot to smile for my photograph, and at the end of the day I have a foiled certificate, a detailed copy of my academic record (yikes!), and a generic key-chain with the words “UP ALUMNI” stamped across it in what I’m pretty sure is Arial pt 12 font. Arial is the font I have to type all my essays in, so why they’d choose such a triggering layout is beyond me.
Apparently it was supposed to feel strange. The ceremony was about 6 months after my final exam, so it makes sense that it would be a reminder for some people of the compatriots, and the campus they have left behind. I decided to take my degree further by completing my Honours year. So for me graduation was less of a reminder of the blessed student life I used to have (because my life is STILL #blessed) and more of a nice day off from tutoring and studying, with the added bonus of having my immediate family focus all their attention on me.
The one thing graduation did for me though, is it made me reflect on how much growth I’ve experienced throughout my undergrad years.
If we look at the first blog post I wrote in my first month 1st year , I spend an awful lot of time discussing all the “strange” things that had happened to me in that month. These included:
I was 18, stupid, and completely mind-fucked by all the freedom I suddenly possessed. I thought drinking booze straight from the bottle was cool, that kissing strangers in sticky clubs was exciting (thank you Hook-up Gods for keeping all the venereal diseases away from me), and that I would never find another man like my high school boyfriend of two months (I still haven’t, and thank God).
At the end of that silly, silly blog post I sign off with a little “I have a tertiary education to attempt.” And wow, was that education attempted.
Despite the failed module towards the end of 2nd year, the 3 distinctions I managed to scrape up on the way, the countless calls home to my mother, panicking over the fact that I may have chosen the wrong thing to study, and the many, many, many all-nighters…the real education came in the form of life experiences.
I wish I could go back in time and meet January 2014 Harriet. I wish I could sit her on my lap, rock her back and forth, stroke her hair and tell her, “Holy shit kid, you’re just getting started. There’s a whole universe of people and experiences and happiness out there to take hold of. You’re going to come out of this new place, with its scary one-way streets, and its horrific neighbours, and its dingy bar bathrooms, and you are going to be glowing.”
I wish that I could pull her out the window of her ex-boyfriend’s commune. I wish that I could grab her by the hand and lead her to a different room in a different house, one with friendlier demons. I wish I could tell her not to fall in love with boys who can’t stand to live any closer than a twelve days walk away, and to stay away from Gin and Tonic and to love every wonderful, awkward part of herself. I want to tell her to keep her secrets to herself, because you never know whose tongues have been dipped in razor blades.
But if I told her all that, she would still think that Pretoria is the weirdest place in the world. And she would still think drinking out of a bottle is classy. And she would still cry whenever things get a little uncomfortable.
So I’m glad I got my undergrad. I’m glad I had so many strange nights, in this wonderful, fucked up city. I’m glad I met the people I ended up meeting, and I cut off the people I ended up cutting off, because today when I graduated, so did 1st year Harriet. And she’s so freaking proud of how she turned out.
My mother got me a graduation gift in the form of a bracelet. Along the outside, stamped in a font that is definitely not Arial pt 12, are the words “Don’t Panic”. Which just so happens to be my favourite quote from my favourite author, but it also sums up the first three years of my student life incredibly well.
Don’t panic. Don’t you dare panic. No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. You are going to fucking glow.
You gotta do what you gotta do to get your degree, Boo.
Filed under Adventures
Source: worldfiled.tumblr.com
Hello my darling,
I know you’re tired. Look at you, you’ve had the marrow sucked out of you by a parasitic force, you’ve spent 5 months trying to piece yourself together and you’re exhausted. My God you’re exhausted, but honey, you’re also so beautiful.
You are so much more than those nights you spent clinging on to a relationship that only gave you grief from the beginning. Remember how you’d run after his chaotic emotions, trying to make sense of the dark corner he stuffed you in? Remember the nights you spent in his bed, your knees tucked to your chest, your skinny frame shivering in his t-shirt, waiting for him to start making sense? Remember sneaking out of your house at 2am to race across the road and climb through his window, because you felt guilty for how much you thought you needed his embrace?
Sweetheart. He’s not the one. I know you think he is. I know he’s got you trapped in the toxic little universe he’s structured around your insecurities. I know you think you’re going to stay with him forever, that you’re going to get your degree and he is going to get a job and maybe he’ll stop freaking out if you forget to text him and he’ll let you go out with your friends every once in a while and maybe he’ll stop yelling. Maybe, maybe, maybe, he’ll stop yelling and shooting wine glasses with metal BB bullets and standing over you as the shards slip through your scarred hands. Maybe he’ll stop blaming you for everything that’s out of your control. Maybe you’ll stay with him forever and you’ll be happy because he’s got you convinced that no one else could possibly love someone as strange and as wild as you. Maybe he’ll stop yelling.
He’s not it my love. You know he isn’t. You know that with every icy word, every bite of his temper, every snarl in your direction that you’ll just get smaller and smaller. You know if you carry on you’re going to disappear. Rip out his claws honey, rip them out of your skin and start running, because your flame can only grow brighter from here.
You are going to burn all of the empty letters he ever left on your bed. You are going to start a mini bonfire in a tin can in your garden and you are going to belly laugh wildly and dance around the carcass that was the past 5 months of your life. You are going to kiss your scars and run your feet raw as you tear down boulevards. You are never going to be afraid to raise your voice ever again.
You are going to beat your pillow with a hockey stick until all the rage and regret that he spoon fed you, explodes in a flurry of feathers and relief. You are going to change all the locks to your heart and then spend the next 2 years simply loving yourself. You are going to snip away at every single toxic relationship that eats into your spirit until the only people who are left are the ones that carry you to bed and bundle you up when you cry. Prepare to have your face stroked and your soul held and your forehead kissed my darling; prepare to feel confused and tentative about all these gentle gestures – I know it feels foreign, but this is what you need and deserve.
Then prepare to have the breath knocked out of you by someone who exudes sunlight and warmth.
I know you think you deserve locked doors and acidic words, it’s going to take a while for you to break that cycle. But when you finally do, when you finally look up and realise your own electric disposition, you are going to free fall into the arms of someone who makes your entire body burn.
He is going to take you to parties and introduce you to fellow wild things. He’s going to take you onto rooftops and sit and listen while you animatedly chat about everything important to you. He’s going to let you bury your face in his chest while he strokes your hair and tells you that he is never going to contain your spirit or lock up your happiness. He is going to look at you like maybe you are magic, and he’s going to pour golden words down your throat.
And you, my love, you are going to realise that the people who try to extinguish your flame are the ones who don’t deserve any of your warmth.
You will detonate into a plethora of water-colours and wild flowers.
I love you with all my heart.
Filed under Brain Poetry
Source: weheartit.com
I haven’t written anything on here in over 2 months.
I totally get that these moments of total writer’s block happen from time to time. I’m only human, my brain can only spew out so many melodramatic metaphors before it gets tired of itself. There’s only so many cliches I can avoid before I become a walking one.
I’m not sure why it’s been so long. I’ve been writing things down, obviously. Disappointed little scribbles in my journal. At one point I experimented and wrote out an entire paragraph whilst under the influence – there was a lot of wiggles and a lot of pent up angst, wow.
I lost my muse…well, my muse lost me. So I’ve had to kind of learn to romanticise other things – like the suffocating smell of festival toilets and the feeling of new socks on cold feet. But over my brief hiatus from publishing anything on my favourite corner of the internet, I’ve managed to write down a few short little blurbs.
So here it is; Harriet’s random 2am/ every day thoughts: an anthology.
On places I’d rather avoid:
“I equate places with feelings. And if it were up to me, the train station where I last saw you would be simultaneously the favourite and most despised place in my entire world.”
In an email from my grandmother:
“I went to New York when I was 20 to see if it was any different from Nottinghamshire. If it was the same, I could always come back and settle down. Instead I found your grandfather and no, New York was not the same as Notts.”
I went to the edge and found you.
On weekends that turn into melodramatic moments:
“It’s almost tomorrow and I don’t want to go home.
Ever have one of those weekends? The spell-binding, soul-searching, over-the-moon kind of weekend? I am at the end of one and I’ve got this sinking feeling that I’ll never feel something so definite, so completely euphoric. I feel my youth creeping up on me, I can feel the fire start in my heart and I can feel my toes curl as I yearn for moments that last.
I don’t want to stop being 21. I want nights that beat the sun and glowing embers that don’t know how to die.
I want to carry on living this spontaneously forever.
It’s almost tomorrow and I don’t want to go home.”
“I’ve had a weekend.
A destructive, ridiculous, incredible weekend; filled with sobbing and catchphrases and loving people despite it all.”
Source: weheartit.com
On people who don’t know how to stay:
“I can’t blame you for walking away. How can I possibly? We both know I burn too brightly to be extinguished. There’s a ‘no vacancy’ sign just for you hanging over my vibrant, unbelievable, explosive life.”
“Because our entire existence was me trying to hold on to what you used to be, and you trying to show me how much you’ve changed.”
“I hope when you retell our story, you describe me as ‘the girl who screamed poetry at you when you told her to run, even though she was never yours to walk away from.'”
“I’m glad you’ve found ways to smother your grief for humanity, but don’t you dare do it at my expense.”
On what they never taught me in school:
“In 5th grade English class they told us to write down everything with as much detail as possible. They told us that parts of speech were imperative, adjectives meant something.
They never told us that, in reality, adjectives are just as superficial as their intentions. And some people will say anything just to gain a piece of your soul.”
On how much can change over several months:
“I am not the person I was last November. I am nowhere near the girl who blushed electric at your empty cosmic promises.
I am not who I was last November. I got ripped from that body by circumstance and change. I got pummeled into this shape by disappointment. I am not who I was last November.
I am not last November. I haven’t written poetry in months. I don’t believe in shutting out the world any more, I let the cold seep in to wake me up and chill my bones.
I am not who I was last November. I am not a Mississippi sunset, I am not burning up as I race down a wooden dock towards you. I am not superlunary, I am not yours.
I am not who I was last November. I have run out of time; you wasted it. You, and all those after you. I have run out of time and sand and clock hands.
I am not who I was last November. I have an iron soul that can’t be thawed and eyes that flash sunlight. I will burn you up. I will make you miss me. I will drive you insane, kiss you catatonic and then leave you to combust.
Because I am not who I was last November. I am not who you pretended to love. I am not even myself.”
On how much better everything has turned out to be:
“If I end up living a life that is anything short of vibrant, I won’t survive. Tonight I braided a man’s hair whilst sitting on the floor of a bar. I drove around my neighbourhood yelling promises at strangers, I kissed my friends goodnight and flopped onto my bed. I am blissfully surprised at how wonderful everything has turned out to be.”
The bit about festival toilets:
“There’s nothing more carnal or cathartic than finally having a poo in a festival porter-loo.”
And despite all these ridiculous metaphors, here is my final WTF moment:
“Squeaky swings sound like children screaming.”
(What the fuck, Harriet?)
Think of this as a farewell to all the moody posts about something that is now a nothing.
There you have it. The sneakiest peak into my drafts folder.
Not much else to say, except goodbye.
Filed under Brain Poetry
Source: weheartit.com
Friendships are complicated webs. Two people decide they like each other slightly more than they like other people and therefore they entangle their lives in joint memories, shared secrets and a blur of complimentary character traits. As soon as the web is spun, glistening and dewy in the morning light, it’s difficult for it to unravel without someone getting trapped in the chaos of cut strings and unpleasant emotions.
Relationships are slightly trickier. They are more fragile, require more maintenance. Relationships, at least the ones I’ve been in, are made of a more brittle kind of silk than friendship, they’re tenuous and devastating.
Both kinds of interaction are as disastrously beautiful as they are lovingly crushing. They represent the pleasure and pain of what it means to be truly human, I’ve been hurt by both.
The worst thing to deal with, besides for the fall out, is when friendship and relationship blend in a delicate and confusing emotional masterpiece. Especially when circumstances allow for only friendship to grow, where does the lust stop and the platonic begin?
Yesterday I had a leisurely post-lecture, pre-devastation chat with my friend Su. We discussed the positive traits we see in each other and how important they are to our lives, a bit of an uplifting tête-à-tête before exams crush our souls. She told me the one thing I willingly and selflessly give to people, is my time.
I’ve always understood that time for another person is the best thing to give them. I’ve never been the type of person to buy affection – I don’t demand attention with sad stories or gifts. I’m not exactly rolling in cash money. I could be eating 2-minute-noods out of a rusty tin can, or trying to diabolically take over the world with lab rats and soggy cheese rolls and I’d still take 10 minutes out of my day to remind the people I truly love that I am still a happy presence in their lives.
That’s the thing. That’s the snare in the web of friendship/ relationship/ weird hybrid of emotions, I give and I give and I give my time sometimes to people who don’t have a minute to reciprocate it.
That’s the hamartia of this whole thing. The fatal flaw in an otherwise devastating fuck up of fate. My love language is time and the people I waste it on don’t understand that they’re taking the most precious thing I can give them, for granted.
I tried to type out the story of why I’m writing this blog post, why I was angry crying at 7 o clock this morning, why it feels like a scalding ball of rage and disappointment has settled in my chest – but I still deeply care for the person this is about, regardless of the imbalance of energy we invest in each other, so I won’t.
I’ll leave it at this. I’ve waited months for a phone call, and the one I got wasn’t nearly as wonderful as I thought it would be. I did a happy dance in the middle of a crowded bar when I found out it was going to happen. I clutched my phone to my chest and beamed around the room whilst assuring the people I was with that I wasn’t getting in too deep, that we’re just friends, that my emotions were not dangling on the promise of a ringtone.
Then everyone around me got to see the heartbreaking plummet of my emotions from ecstatic to disappointed. There was no more happy jigs, my heart stopped clawing its way out of my chest, I stopped beaming and got angry. I’ve never been so angry at someone I care about so much. I never expected to be hurt by someone I put so much faith in.
Su sent me a message about it. She has a wonderful way with words and what she wrote to get me to stop crying made me weep like a small child. I’m talking big fat ugly tears, foetal position, howling.
Forgive her if it does the same to you.
You are so much.
Not too much, but so much.
You are light and rambunctiousness and serendipity with dashes of serenity. You are more than a horny slur at night when someone is too lazy to be decent any other time.
You are a muse. Worth more than dirty words in dark hours and worth more than just a thought.
You deserve the love of legions. And one man who has behaved so cruelly (it is cruel) does not deserve that honour. He doesn’t get to make you feel this way and then let you down so hard.
Darling, you’re more than this and even if he forgets, everyone else remembers. You need to remember that also.
I am so much. I give my time to the people I love. I would spare 10 minutes in the busiest of days if it meant I could add value to my favourite humans on this planet.
I have recieved an apology, it’s going to take time for me to sift through the carnage of the web I got caught in. I’m going to have to figure out how I expect people to treat me and the minutes I give them.
I am complex and caring and a light-stained street of emotions. I can’t afford to settle for less than I deserve.
Neither do any of you.
Filed under Average Advice
source: weheartit.com
I am not going to cry when you leave.
I know that’s what you’re expecting, I don’t blame you. All my actions leading up to this point have been emotionally raw. The last time you left we sat at the train station for 45 minutes with my head on your chest, trying to pull ourselves together.
I promise this time will be different.
When you leave, when I finally stop smelling your sweater, stop running my hands through your hair, stop leaning over to kiss you gently on the cheek; I will allow myself one minute to let despair catch up with me. I will clench my fists, breathe deeply and then choose to be happy.
I am going to miss you, my god, I am going to miss you. But as I’ve learnt, my dear, I can not afford to burden you with the responsibility of my happiness. You are a small part of my joy, but you are not the force holding me together. I am my own little hero, I am saving my own little heart.
When you leave, when I stop living in the golden haze that comes with you, I am going to continue studying for my test tomorrow. I am going to wake up early for class, celebrate my birthday with the people I love and read books that I will clutch to my chest, laughing until my breath stops.
When you leave I am still going to sprint down boulevards, yelling after all the devils I’m chasing. I am still going to dance around my bedroom to aggressive banjo solos and obscure bands. I am still going to grin maniacally at absurdities.
I am my happiness, darling. There may be a place for you in my ribcage, but I own my soul.
And my soul has decided to be euphoric.
Filed under Romance or something like it
My head’s a little fuzzy from all the positive reassurances I’ve been feeding myself since 11 last night. They’ve managed to fill my cranium with white noise, bumping into each other every few seconds, trying to squeeze themselves into tight spaces to make room for the demons who are hosting them.
Hello. It’s been a while. I’ve been busy, trying to fill my days with as much thought-numbing joy as possible before all the monstrous thoughts come back. I’ve been happy, so happy. I’ve shaken my fists at gremlins and run down stormy avenues in rain boots – shaking poetry out of my hair and out-sprinting every anxious pang I’ve ever held captive in my chest.
But happiness has a nasty bite. It roars and shakes it’s dreadful mane, daring me to beg it to stay.
My god, please stay.
I don’t want to be left alone with this terrible wave inside me, let me cling to you for a little longer.
I’ve had this pounding ache since 11 pm, a precariously explosive bubble of emotions that I’ve weighed down with an iron anchor.
Don’t you dare escape, do you want to expose us? Stay still and quiet, don’t erupt, don’t scream, don’t show him or anyone else how much you’re hurting. Shut up.
“I am spectacular, I am smart, I have worth, I am not falling apart, I am going to tackle this with the tenacity and stubbornness of a mother-freaking grizzly bear.”
No matter how this turns out, whether the raging winds and torrential rain tear me apart or leave me just a little battered- there is still life within my veins. I will rise, I will eventually thrive, I will guard my heart with an iron casket next time something like this happens because I can not afford to let hurricane emotions whisk me away again.
If you’re going to go, then go. But if you want to stay then please, please do.
Filed under Brain Poetry
Hello you bullet shell of a person,
You like listening to “Hand Me Down” by Matchbox Twenty because you like to think it describes you. You poor, 2nd hand, misunderstood, emotional mess. It’s so fun playing the innocent bystander isn’t it?
Poor Harriet. You’re too much and not enough and everyone’s always leaving and you’ve put too much of your life into other people’s universes without thinking about the consequences. It’s easier to be someone else’s equation, someone else’s magnetic force, someone else’s someday than it is to be your own damn everything.
Poor you. You self-inflicted, broken human being. You like writing midnight drafts about how much of an idiot you are for loving people too much and not expecting anything back. You think demanding what you want will make people leave, you think if you stay light and breezy and happy that you’ll finally be the thing they pick first.
Poor you. You absolute idiot.
You’re not a fucking hand me down. You’re not a substitute person, you’re nobody’s second choice.
How can someone so voluminous and loud and flammable make themselves so small just to feel wanted?
Remember the nights you danced through the rain to smoky bars and tight embraces. You splashed through puddles and twirled down light-stained streets- don’t you dare tell me you’re broken. My darling, you watercolour palette of a human being, how dare you wait for someone else to make you feel worthwhile. Don’t you ever cry golden tears over cosmic promises-you are worth more than the tiny piece of infinity they have to offer you.
Remember how hot your words feel when they sit in your throat.
You
Can
Burn
Them
To
The
Ground.
Get explosive. You were born with a gun powder heart and dynamite thoughts.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re a god damn super nova.
Filed under Average Advice
Sometimes I wish our feelings were a
vertex- poised together, clinging onto each other and converged to a point; but you and I are not equilateral. My favourite irregular shape, we were never meant to have straight lines- we are as voluminous as the night sky, we expand and stretch and can’t stay still. You and I are a constant, not designed for square holes or small spaces, we are an infinite equation.
A line was drawn across our path, and it left us with negative spaces far too great in diameter to fill on our own. I swear I’ll walk over vast planes just to see your perfectly angular face, you’re buried in the apex of my asymmetrical soul.
I wish I could silence my concaved heart, I wish there wasn’t a chord stretched 1500 km from my chest to yours, but you kissed me irregular and stroked my face until I was undefined by everything but your fingertips.
Yet, the length and breadth and depth of my affection is greater than the distance between points A and B, you and me.
So good night, my parallel line, how I wish we could touch.
Filed under Brain Poetry, Romance or something like it
Source:weheartit.com
I’m stressed.
Holy fuck, this must be adulthood. I do not like it one bit. I’m not even out of University yet, I’m not even at the stage of having to buy my own toothpaste and paying my own mortgage (or whatever it is real adults do) and I’m panicking.
This is NOT how I expected independence would be.
I have a growing list of, so far, about 20 things I need to get done in the next 2 weeks, most of which involve money, some of which include tracking down rogue lecturers in an attempt to figure out what is required of me for this next year- all of which I desperately DO NOT want to do.
I’ve recently found myself in the company of several recent university graduates who are on the cusp of adultish oblivion. As they stare into the void, waiting for it to stare back, I am standing nervously in the background listening to them stress about things I forgot existed- things like tax returns and monthly incomes and petrol prices.
I assure you, when I crawled out of my mother’s womb almost 21 years ago, I did not sign up for taxes.
There is a ball of anxiety growing in my chest that has been festering since I moved away from home. It’s about the size of two fists and it’s punching its way out of my torso. If this is what it means to be independent and self-sustaining, I would really like to retreat back into my pillow fort until all my responsibility goes away.
When I was 8 I remember looking at my incredibly stressed out mother and asking her what was wrong. She replied with a curt “I’m just worried”. Thus 8 year old Harriet did the only thing she could do and started to worry about the day when she would have to start worrying too. I was worried about worrying.
What a dumb kid. You have no idea how to worry, grade 2 me- eat an oreo and read your book, you’ll be fine for the next 10 years.
Here’s the thing though, 40 year old me probably envies almost 21 year old me. Look at her- so young and dependent on her parents. She has no kids to yell at, no bills to pay, no husband to boss around. She can travel after she studies, she’s currently worrying about things that are supposed to happen 2 years in the future, she still thinks she’s going to figure everything out. Almost 21 Harriet is actually doing okay.
I have 20 things to cross off my list, none of which involve taxes or monthly installments on things. I’m terrified for the day that’s no longer true.
But for now I think I’m just going to be almost 21.
Filed under Sometimes I Rant
Dalliance 