Autopilotting

I type this from a self contained booth at the internet café I frequented two years ago during my time in Osaka. Before returning to the UK, I have one day to revisit all old the places that I used to go to, that until now stood at the back of my mind like phantoms. So far I've wandered round Osaka castle park; which is a place I used to cycle around late at night. Often at top speed out of fear from the gunshots (later discovered to be kids with fireworks)… then I walked to my old house and stared at a lady and her son leaving for school. Then I walked past the hospital I worked at. Gosh, life was so lonely back then. That’s why I went mental on the weekends. Later I plan on going into town. There’s a café that I used to go to, where I’d always devour a gigantic hot cake and a mug of black coffee, which in between bean sprouts and 0kcal jelly pouches, would sometimes be the only thing consumed for days…being alone does things to my head. Whatever, I survived.

Yesterday was interesting too…here’s what happened (I was writing and walking, I mean, I’m a human geographer. It’s in my nature to be continuously observing and recording)

A trip to the bank.
I am still walking a bit funny, but this time it’s for a more physical reason: in my bag is 20 quid worth of 10yen coins. That’s 5000 brown coppers, all about the size of 2p. Also, there’s a pouch of 1 yen coins but these are so light they may as well be plastic. I’m surprised they haven’t yet floated away.
I wander with my booty (the money, not my arse, which is always with me regrettably), looking for a place to change it into real money. The first three places all turn me down: luckily the Clerk-sans use such polite language that I walk away smiling, half because their tone makes me feel warm inside and half because I want to burst into hysterics: I feel like a dodgy salesperson trying to flog my wares. Finally, I reach it. Ghetto bank. I walk in and it looks like any other bank- strange cube shaped sofas, ticket machines, staff in toy uniforms fussing over grumpy customers. However this bank has something else, something far more worrying. On the far side is a big yellow Mc Donalds sign. I’m not even joking. The bank isn’t even discreet about it; there aren’t doors to divide the two establishments. They’re conjoined twins. Mc. Bank. Unsurprisingly, staff here were more than happy to change my coins up.

ten nights of dream

I dreamed...

everyone was doing the washing up in the giant kitchen

somewhere I rode a toy train

why do people do that, I asked

you want to go to the shop that wasn't owned by the place we were in

elsewhere, a fight breaks out

I try desperately to remember everything I see. I hold two fingers to the glass tracing the path of the train tracks running side by side.

I gaze in the mirror at my face. My tongue has grown; it has purple psychedelic bits trailing underneath. On top, an open nerve sits 14cm long. Waiting to be cut so I can vomit and shit myself.

What it this place that I live in, with you? All these people here, they live together.

The kitchen is large and the people in it work together so that everyone can survive.

I stumble backwards from my spot on the platform, the spot where I gazed at you for the last time before you vanished. A strange, hexed spot. A spot that would make the whole world seem massive as soon as our fingers unlinked. Bittersweet, it would be ending right where it began.
A spot that would rob me of my ability to make sense of the world.
As I try and walk I hear the stupid, soothing train music playing. I wish it would stop because it is not okay. Things are not fine. I'm thinking these things as I lift each leg and chuck it somewhere in front of me, each step laboured because the distance is much further than perceived. My steps are heavy and my legs are forgetting how to walk: a symptom of the desperate attempt my body is making to block everything out.
As I slump myself behind a bright yellow sign, I look at Tokyo. Tokyo looks back at me, silently.

I feel as if I've worked something out. That to get through each day, you need to love someone. I don't know why it took me 21 years to work this out: I grew up surrounded by love.
Anyway, when someone comes along who makes you instantly feel like you've arrived home from a long and demanding trek through a blizzard, you'll want to hang onto them for ever and ever. You'll be able to do nothing other than love them completely and innocently. Anyone would.

Vanished

In the dark , We come out and play

We are its children, And we're here to stay

Running through , Hungry for strays

No invitation, take me away

I'm not cruel, But thats still what you see

Club to club, Come see this city with me

Hungry for life, Without your pity

I don't want it, But you give it

still cant say she wont start up

still cant say she wont start up a fight

you go city

cause in the city of life she cant she cant wait

In the darkness, A killer awaits

To kill a life, And the lies you make

You do another, So this death can live

Just keep on dancing, To the movie you're in

The smell of your sweat, Just lures me in

Your heartbeat, does things to me

running feet, Beats my blood

My ghost inside you, Soon will be

still cant say she wont start up

still cant say she wont start up a fight

you go city

cause in the city of life she cant she cant wait

Now its over, You've taken your life

The dark grows thin,

And I'm left to hide

I don't regret it, But its sad anyway

Now were both dead, And scared of the black

This life of games, And diligent trust

Its the things we do, Or the things we must

Im now tired of being cussed

So go sleep forever end to dust

November Rain, Part One

They say that to express oneself in Japanese the politest way to go about it is to be really really indirect. The English language too, is founded on beating around the bush. Take last night for example. I desperately wanted to say to someone 'I hate you,' but I didn't. Instead I opted to tell the person in question a hundred bits of information; each was a token piece of the jigsaw puzzle which they would rearrange by themselves. A game that would eventually reveal the truth. That I felt incredibly sour about almost every aspect of their sad little life. Hopefully when they realised this, I would be far away.

Said person is not a friend. Nor are they an enemy. Only a random human, met by chance through another human last night. And thankfully, I will never see them again. Let's set the record straight though – I don't think I'm being harsh. Everyone's the same: some personality traits make me shudder. And this blessed person managed to incorporate all of them into his being. I should congratulate him.

oh and one last thing...

That last post was depressing. Life is good other than money. See photo evidence. Money isn't everything. Money isn't anything, I know it's true, but it's somewhat hard to belive while standing in Tokyo feeling as frail and windswept as an Autumn leaf!

a traumatic afternoon at the department store

2pm, Sunday, drifting time. Let's get lost. I’m laughing at a loaf of bread that costs 924 yen. That’s nearly £7. omg a free sample…I’ve just eaten £3 of free samples. Now, what’s that? nori seaweed sheets. Huh, 10,500 yen?!!! (£75). Isn’t it just a shitload of nori? Or does it hold magical powers? Who knows? Fake cake. Jaffa cake, fairy cake. I’m drifting around a mountain of salad.

There is nothing quite like the Japanese department store. It is something else. Maybe I just haven’t experienced such spaces back home…what about Harrods’ food hall? It isn’t quite like this though…I’m sure. England is just so crappy. England is a collection of half arsed attempts that never get completed. I really hate it.

Actually

This place (E.g. every department store in Japan, nay, the world) is hell. An anarchist’s nightmare. This space is meaningless. imagine centuries and aeons before when the department store didn’t exist, Shinjuku wasn’t anything. It didn’t have a name. Perhaps it was a glade. Or a beautiful windswept moor or rice paddies or a tiny, smoky village by a dewy forest or maybe Shinjuku was just a barren wilderness. If that’s the case, well then maybe nothing’s changed.

It is an impossible feeling to describe. Pain rushing through my fingers because if you weren’t there I would be completely stranded. Watching you spend £200 on biscuits and crackers. When I watch you doing that, I just want to disappear. I feel sad for you, that I haven’t yet disappeared. I know that you aren’t responsible for me: that nobody is responsible for me. But right now, I am completely dependent on you. And that when I go home I won’t be able to afford dinner. That the only reason I’ll get home is because you paid for my ticket. And I have to smother the little voice in my head that says ‘hungry’ or ‘want to go there’ or ‘need toothpaste.’ I can’t afford to listen to that little voice now. I soothe it by reminding myself that I haven't yet gone hungry and my teeth are all still intact.

It makes going to the department store easier, because when faced with infinite consumer choices remember that you only have one: take nothing. Oh, and feel sorry that you ever tried to imagine what it would be like otherwise.

I’ve never felt this disempowered and useless. I’ve never wanted to get the hell out of my own life more than I do right now.
It makes drinks hard to swallow, food hard to swallow. Tears are hard to control, when everything else is so brutally restrained. Fear is only half a heartbeat away; the fear that something might happen, and then I’d be completely fucked. I’m drifting through Tokyo knowing that there is no money and there is no backup and that I am completely alone in this barren wilderness.

i also stood in the rain that was trying to fall

The rain that didnt fall, it just drifted somewhere from the sky and landed somewhere near me. maybe on me but indefinitely so. i got home damp, in any case. and Family Mart didnt like my credit card. i scolded myself for spending my last note in the world on...on...on something useless, perhaps a bus ticket or a sandwich full of soggy noodles. rain doesnt fall on me. it fell around me. it fell inside me, but it never fell on me. my feet felt wet on the top from the steady moisture freeing itself slowly from the clouds. my feet felt wet on the bottom from the mucousy vomit i'd only five minutes ago stood in. The culprits, shouting at each other across the road, didnt know that the contents of one of their stomachs was all over the sole of my foot. later still, i would nearly fall on more vomit, smile broadly at more songs being sung, plan my secret escape once again. secret escapes are the best way of exiting any situation. when one becomes sick of themselves; of their responses, of their lack of ability to provide help. they can escape. also, when one becomes sick of the influence they have on a person, on a group, on a decision, they can choose to opt out by slipping slowly into the background and making like the rain and reversing themselves back somewhere secret where nobody knows they exist

kaleidoscope

I can see my feelings. They're dancing around before my eyes like flickering lights. Sometimes the feelings get so intense that the flickering lights splinter into patterns and kaleidoscopes. It's the warmest, safest, happiest sensation. I don't want it to leave my body. I can feel all my blood running up and down each limb. All of me is in the centre. I'm floating in this amazing pool of sensations.

I haven't written a 'proper' entry for a while. Tokyo distracted me. I've been learning to live without any financial security. mmm. It's been difficult, not knowing if i should spend money on this or that or take a bus or eat a meal. It was killing me, and then i came to a conclusion that made it a lot better-

I spoke to a friend back in England who told me that he never felt guilty for anything he did. When he said that, I thought it must be an amazing state to be in, especially since I blame myself for everything that goes wrong. But i'm realising now that feeling guilty won't solve anything; it's a negative veil that chokes the life out of me.

Besides, there are people out there who love to blame others for their misery. People who insist on judging are just killing themselves. They save up their pain, holding it tight, holding it close. Until a suitable opportunity arises and they throw it all into the fire and are 'purged' of their woes, feeling a dizzying sense of self righteousness from snapping their finger at him and her and them..if i lived my life blaming myself and feeling guilty, there'd be no one on my side. Iwouldn't stand a chance!
So i wont be feeling guilty from now on. Guilt and responsibility are two different things. I've got to have faith in myself..