Softer, Softest.

On the train. V-line. I love V-line trains though I guess I kind of romanticise them more when I’m not on them because it reminds me of Europe or Japan and being a vagabond and having all of my possessions in one bag and not caring about much at all. I hate coming home and looking around at these useless objects that clutter my existence. When my aunty lived with me here (and she had a lot of useless crap as well) we would joke about wanting the house to burn down (provided no one was inside or harmed of course) so that we could just start again, a clean slate, fresh rooms with nothing inside. I spend my days looking at houses for sale in inner city suburbs, not long now not long now. Only people who live in Ivanhoe understand how sickening Ivanhoe is, from the outside it looks like a quaint suburb with a main street and an aquatic center and shit like that. But there’s something strange I mean something’s not right. There’s something so insidious and awful about it. I can’t put it into words myself. Like a small town, where everyone knows each other’s business, and all the old ladies gossip and turn their heads with fake smiles over their picket fences and carefully pruned roses. It’s safe to say my house doesn’t fit in – physically it looks shabby, for a month or two earlier this year there was no front fence just a pile of bricks that were hit with James’ car, I never mow the front lawn, we leave our curtains open all the time so the front windows have full display of Patti Smith posters and dangling strings of fairy lights. The three of us, Kassie Seb and I, don’t belong in Ivanhoe. This house was a place I used to love, but now I feel like the walls are closing in and I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here. I need getaways, I like staying with friends, I like staying with Jack, his house isn’t ‘IVANHOE’ either, I like that we’re outsiders.

Anglesea. Kira’s house. I still can’t believe it had been two years since we had seen each other. The last time would have been at falls maybe? Not a very good new years. Long time ago now. Geelong train station, reunion hugs and laughing and exclaiming and car drives and talking fast laughing fast so much to say so much to catch up on. So much to explain. Life. How much has happened in two years? A lot. If I tried describing last year alone. A lot I can’t really say, can’t really get the words out. There are some people and you see them after a long time and it feels sterile and cold and forced, and then there are others like Kira who greet you with the warm smile like you’ve never left and words roll out like a being themselves and you don’t have to think you don’t have to try it’s natural like riding a bike. I don’t speak to many people who I knew in high school. My best friends now I only met last year. I guess there are things I wanted to put behind me, a ‘me,’ a version of myself something - something I didn’t want to have to think about or be reminded of too much. But now I feel more at peace, refreshed. I have a tendency to build things up in my mind and shut off trains of thought so that they fester and become nastier uglier then they ever were in reality. I need reality checks with things like this, a reality check in the form of a conversation with a friend that’s like an outstretched hand saying ‘It’s okay, you’re okay’.