MAYDAY!! MAYDAY!!

The door shuts and she steps off the wet 'Welcome' mat, opens her umbrella and starts her journey through the greyness. The skies wept and moaned all over her, each house blurred into the last disappearing into the grey horizon, and she soldiered on crunch crunch crunch, grinding the gravel beneath her feet. Crunch crunch crunch her head kept pounding, does he ever think of me? Has he moved on? Must be like that long-legged shiny-haired blonde bitch that just blazed past. But brunettes smoulder......am I a smouldering bombshell? Bollywood boobs he had once said, she smiles. They aren't anywhere near Bollywood, they're real. I am smouldering, she tries to reassure herself. I'm a burnt out pile of smouldering ash, someone please scatter me into the Ganges so I can carry on with my journey. Is it possible for me to feel such emptiness and for the other to feel nothing at all?. We gave up so easily. There was a kebab shop with a bright orange sign up ahead by the kurb, she turned left onto the bridge and walked into the tube station. All she sees is grey, she hears it too. When the train comes to a screeching halt, when the bus rumbles past, even in the uncomfortable silence we all stand in waiting for that stupid train, she fumes. And they're all even dressed in grey and black!

oh how quick the sun can drop away, and now my bitter hands, chafe on broken glass of what was everything.

There's greater solace and succour to be found in silently mourning on a coach filled with strangers. Especially if a group of friends boards. They'll be so absorbed in their own chatter they wouldn't notice her and they'll draw all the attention to themselves. They do, she thinks she's invisible. In this city everyone is invisible in some sense, on the tube there are never any smiles of recognition. There are seldom any recognizable faces. There are lovers about in hordes though. Everywhere, in every corner, in every nook, in every corner, everyone else has apparently found love or a sex-kitten. Whatever, I'm not lonely says she. Saying is believing, but not in this world. And neither is seeing, anyone who’d seen us before D-day would have felt the same envy. She’s the grinch who’ll steal valentine’s day, hahaha maybe they’ll all break up tomorrow! The train starts rattling through the rain; the dark somber hues of black and brown seem to stretch out all the way into the heart of the city. No colour stands out, not the rain-washed green leaves, not the red brick houses, nothing. All she sees is the grey sky above, raindrops dripping down the window and then they descend into the tube tunnel. It's nicer here, there's nothing to see outside and she starts scanning the coach. Hmm.....nice boots...bad hair, she squints, Aristocrat's party was a gay orgy!... ho hum. Looks the other way but the Chinese tourist family just depress her more. She looks up. Log onto www.gradjobs.co.uk The UK's Hottest Graduate Jobs!!

i know someday you'll have a beautiful life, i know you'll be a star. In somebody else's sky.......But why can't it be mine?

grooooaaaannnnnn I don't have a job yet. I can get a job but I can never be with him again. That's why she's feeling suppressed. She's lost the plot, what is the point in chasing any dream when he isn't going to be a part of that future!?! He didn’t want to be. She offered her best and it wasn’t good enough for him. WHAT THE FUCK!, she rages. She rages and agonizes over this everyday. Everyday. Every single day she feels like nothing, she hangs out with friends, she laughs, she guffaws, she even burps and farts. But she cannot cry and that's what's choking her. The tears don't come, they always form but never fall. That relief just isn't meant to be hers yet. She's proud, she hasn't spoken to him since they parted. She gives him no time of day. He has no idea of how she feels, and she has none but she has inklings. She's made sure to make him feel as disposable as he's made her feel. But he's genuine about being friends; she hates him when he's nice, she hates him when he implies he misses her and that he doesn’t want her to erase him from her life. Why do you care? And if you did care then why the fuck are we not together? Maybe it is because he was just another white guy and you can’t expect anything from them. Maybe race and culturally ingrained notions of romance and loving and giving have everything to do with this. Suck it up gurrrl, brown in the new black. Keep that in mind. Grrooooaaannnnn………a future with a Delhi guy? What’s to look forward to there? The tears that torture her, they’ve formed again. And at the most inopportune moment......when I'm on the tube, or sitting in a bar, when I'm out buying groceries, I can't seem to leave the sorrow behind and it refuses to leave me. They're always there, balanced precariously at the edge of my eyes. Until she can understand she will never find the relief she seeks. All she wants now is the pain to go away, somehow she thinks he can do it. He who bored a hole through her soul, all he can give her is a square for where a circle should be and she seems to think that he’s her best bet. Stoooooooooooopid girl. It just doesn't make sense, she screams in her head. I can't make any sense of it, tears start to well up in her eyes, her cheeks feel warm. Aaarrrghh! Those fucking tears!!!!!! She knows no one's looking, she sighs. As much as she cherishes this anonymity she loathes the invisibility. The alienation of modern living. She wants to talk to him, but what will I say? She thinks. Hi? How are you? Are you dying of AIDS? It would make me happy if you were. Ohhh it’s only testicular cancer? O deahhh….that’s ok honey you know you’ll still be a man. She wants him to want to talk to her. She wants him. She thinks of the good life, a great job, fabulous new clothes, an exquisite new black Macbook, a CD collection worth some obnoxious four figure sum, a posh house, posh living, great friends, a life to celebrate each day but every night she'll go home to an empty apartment. A decorated party hall, birthday balloons, the clown's there, the cake’s melting and the guests don't show up. I feel like that crestfallen kid, the fucking reject. Oh the pain, she forces a weak smile, am I really feeling this bad? She's fallen off the wagon again. Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was the realisation that these manic days are distractions, the girl has real issues on hand and she isn't dealing with either of them.

i take a walk outside, i'm surrounded by some kids at play. i can hear their laughter, so why do i sear?

They pull into her station, she's dreading the outside. It's still raining; people with umbrellas are fluttering about like headless chickens......fucking health hazards, she cusses at them under her breath but smiles profusely at the man who apologizes for almost gouging her eye out. Wanker! I hate the fucking rain!! And then she sees it, reflected in the shiny tinted windows of The Shop so audacious that they have a window that displays nothing to the commoners outside. If they could own a black hole and put it up, they would. Then not only would they show nothing of their wares, and give nothing, but they could take away everything. Actually I need a pulsar for myself, she muses, a pulsar that will swallow my pain and all my memories because smoking pot ad nauseaum isn't killing enough brain cells so as to able to forget. It even seems like a good idea to her, despite the odds of owning a pulsar. And she's serious about forgetting. The Shop has a bell and she wants in so bad. This curvy girl, with gorgeous curly hair and a face she knows so well, impish, she wants to desparately move on to a good place. She just needs to work out what good means. See what she has and not be obsessed with what she doesn't. In an ideal world saying would be believing but she knows intoning this mantra isn't going to get her anywhere. Big sad goo goo eyes, black and glossy, stare back at her. Hmm....or maybe they’re a deep dark shade of brown, I need to retouch my kaajal. Her hair's brown, he never thought so but then what does he know how many shades of black there are...... he isn't Indian. Why baby? Why are you doing this to yourself? Is it really that hard to be happy? She reaches out to herself. She wants to hug herself, hug herself like her mother hugs her. But this is one pain that even mummy can't take away can she? No, she knows. Another big orange sign and this time a turn right into the street where no one knows she exists. Perhaps Gareth. And Michael. And the waiters who see me walk in and out of the alley way, we're like ghosts for each other. She shakes her head, and turns the key. Walks in, drops her bag on the floor and heaves a sigh of relief. The house is empty.