my, my, the ways i've changed since then.

close to me

this post should be read to the soundtrack of the cure.
this is from my japan days.

i came here to find myself, but all i seem to be doing is losing the ability to communicate in english. i don't quite belong in either of these worlds, i feel like i'm existing on the peripherals of life, where the colours have somwhat faded, the vibrancy dimmed. i want to stay, want to be in both places yet neither. i want to find a reason to stay, to fight against all of the reasons to leave. i love japan, honestly, but right now its making me tired. i'm tired. i'm forgetting most aspects of my life in australia before i left - abstract concepts like names and relationships, intangible ideas that have no place in such a foreign land. i'm so used to japan, to this life, that i'm losing touch with who i used to be. i can't remember anything clearly, the lines, the edges, everything's becoming blurred the longer i'm gone. my previous life is painted on canvas in violent strokes, but the inks are running and smudging in the rain. you can't hold back natural forces, natural progressions like time and change.



but i'm home now.

i need to write this down

i need to write this to get it off my chest, as i cannot bring myself to speak of it aloud. i've tried to push it to the back of my mind, but it surfaces at the most unwelcome times and constantly is returning to haunt me. so i'm hoping if i lay it all down here, i'll be able to get over this incident. but at the moment its the first memory, and the most vivid, of my return to melbourne on sunday morning. i wanted it to be perfect, seeing my family again after three months. but as i was retrieving my luggage from the carousel, this japanese girl somehow fell backwards, with this sickening crack at my feet. and the force of the impact, the way her head hit the hard floor, she started convulsing at my feet. eyes bulging, mouth open in a silent scream. the look in her eyes still gives me nightmares. her arms were outstretched in my direction, her legs flailing as she spasmed, jerking. i'd never seen anything like it; my first thought was of a child's attempt at a game, a scary face to amuse someone but then sounds emitted from her mouth, and the most horrible wailing assailed my ears. i started crying because i'd never seen anything so horrible happen right in front of me, and also because japan has caused me to become fragile emotionally. the school group she was with - teachers and adults crowded her, helpless as she was somewhat paralysed in her desperate flailing. my mother pulled me back and we watched in horror as her supervisors covered her in a blanket, as if she were deceased. else they did nothing, and my mother was asking if an abumlance had been called but no one heard her. such a crowd had gathered, watching with the sick fascination of an approaching train wreck. because she wasn't our responsibility, and i was having a near emotional breakdown, we moved away. the excitement of being home was marred by my inability to get that girl's eyes out of my head. i don't know if an ambulance was called; or if she was okay. i don't know what the damage was, or her injuries. i just can't seem to escape the look of her bulging eyes and outstretched arms in my direction. or the convulsing, as her entire body was seized by the impact of the fall and everything failed to function.

home.

i feel strange.