FaeFallen

You mustn’t be afraid of your nightmares. Not because they aren’t real- because they are, oh, they are. But because they are like moths, or butterflies; they settle on you in the night to feed off the gentle electricity of your sleeping synapses. A nightmare is nothing more than a delicate tangle of tamed lightning and silver gossamer. You can roll over, and they will disperse in clouds, lifting away from your sleeping bulk to drift, mindlessly, on the currents of the night air. The ones you want to fear will stalk you during the day. They will pounce as soon as you open your eyes. They will lurk in the tiniest of spaces, such as

Dear _________________________, First of all, I want you to know that I am not judging you, or pitying you, or scolding you. I don’t pretend to know you well- or even to know you at all. But I do know the look in your eyes, because I have felt the same way. You needn’t worry; it’s not obvious. I have seen that look in the mirror before. I think you are hurt, deep down inside, and you have been for a long time. Maybe you wanted something that never materialised; maybe you only had drips and drabs of it. You may be sick of waiting for it, and you tell yourself that you’ve given up, but you can never stop looking for it

Hiraeth. At first glance, it is a simple collection of letters- perhaps an unusual collection, if the word isn’t already in your vocabulary.  Roll it around your palate; what does it sound of? Autumn seas, perhaps, the sorrowful rush and sigh of waves that, no matter how hard they try, cannot return the chalk cliffs to what they once were, land under sea. In this you would not be far wrong. Hiraeth is a Welsh word that expresses such depth of emotion that it is difficult, very difficult, to translate it into a language originally designed to tell the other Neanderthals where the ripe fruit is. Hiraeth, with all its undertones and overto

Do not fall in love before you have learned how not to hate. Hatred is something you will be taught. It is an easy lesson. Do not turn yourself into a statue wrapped around with barbed wire. The rusted spikes will gouge your skin, and though you may not feel it, the marks will remain. You may have veins of gold and a heart of living rubies, but people will not see past the metal and the marble. I know. I am Medusa’s work of art. I was magma once. But Medusa’s gaze turned me to igneous rock, sculpted in my last attitude. I was lava once, before her cold breath hardened me. Before I lost my heart once, twice, three times, then ag

The path began to slope sharply downwards and became little more than a line of bare soil amongst the pine needles. The roots of the trees projected up through the earth and made useful ridges for them to lock their feet against. Every so often, Tom turned and helped Alice down over the places where the earth had dropped away, leaving a high step. It took a good hour and a half before they reached the low of the valley. The air was cooler and moist as the track wound around outcrops of earth and trees. It looked to Tom like there had once been a river that ran down here, long enough ago that the bed was now almost indistinguishable from the

Talk to me about leaves and books, Sitting in the street café with your fragile Hands wrapped around the coffee and the porcelain Tell me about the goblins in the cupboard and the Angel you saw when you were three, walking out of your window Like the Messiah Tell me about the golden rolling days of childhood summers And the autumns under six foot of snow and time And the winters that are never as good as they used to be Tell me about the time you found out you couldn’t fall in love again, And how you realised that you could beg For a dying child you’d known for all of three days Talk to me about God and men and curs

“You’ll be starting in here.” Sedgewick’s expensive shoes sounded loudly on the polished floor as she followed him down the aisle between the filing cabinets. He was wearing a white shirt under a green and brown zigzag jumper and he’d rolled up his shirt sleeves. “Research,” he told her, “is the basis on which we build our theories.” “Really.” “She always appears as a girl in her late teens,” he said, over his shoulder, “or sometimes an adult woman. She always has dark hair and dark eyes. She drops in and out of history. Sometimes she is in significant place

Man shall not live on bread alone, But Eve's daughters thrive on fruit forbidden.

My bones belong on this golden hillside Held in the dark embrace of this sweet earth Soaking in the echoes of old storms And pagan rituals My bones are something precious to you An ivoried framework held together by The knotted scarlet threads of remembrance Hung about with the faded silk scraps of my past lives My bones are a dancing shield Puppeteered between the fire and the night A leaping, clicking whirl of dead limbs To keep you safe from the emptiness My bones are the comfort for your children The crooked grin in the moonlessness And the watchful hands in the light Invoked with a fear flicker and finger curl My bones are your ban

What are you fighting for? For unnamed things, for precious things, for things that I learned to treasure too late. For things that slip away before we know that they are all around us. For the rising of the sun and the scudding of the clouds, for the slow wheeling of birds and the run of water over stone. For the cold air and the harsh wind, and the still of high summer. For the loneliness and the heartbreak and the acid burn of tears and the hollow chest ache of breaking up. For the balmy breeze and the muted laughter and the summer evening and the purple dusk. For the water pearls on cobwebs and the frost on windows, for the moist mist o