Some of these will be written specifically for CS, others pieces that I've dug out a drawer and made an attempt to decipher. A few will be things that I've been working on in my free time.
I have some more poems and musings published here if you want to take a look.
please note wrote:I wrote this story and the following poem quite some time ago, and I've only just revived this thread. Scroll to the bottom for more recent works!
Win a Green Toxic competition - CS.
In the Shade of the Apple Tree
I ran up the concrete steps, their heavy footfall thudding below me. I could see Ben in front, but I didn't know I'd you were still behind me. Ally that I could do was keep running: don't look back, keep going forward.
I'd met you 2 years ago, perched in the tree. I hadn't seen you around, and you had a strange look about you I didn't recognise. Maybe it was your green eyes, slanted a little like a cat's, or maybe it was your wicked laugh. I never did work you out. You were my only unsolved puzzle.
Ben reached the top and turned to me.
‘I don’t know if it’ll hold for all three of us. But we’ve got to try.’
The floor here was loose and crumbly, and pieces of it trembled as they came closer.
‘You go first,’ I said. Ben paused for a moment, then gave a small nod. Next thing I knew, he was safely across the danger zone.
We were comrades, me, you and Ben, after meeting that day in the tree. Every time I saw you, you had a sneer on your face and a malicious glint in your eye. It was only when summer began to fade and our tree turned to fire did I see you in a different light.
I think you thought you were alone, stood at the top if the tree. The buttery golden sunset was streaming onto your face and the red leaves twirled around your jet black hair. You looked different somehow, nothing big, but definitely different. I don’t know when I worked it out, but eventually I did: you were happy. No malicious expression, no twisted words. You were beautiful.
I never saw you like that again.
‘Jump,’ Ben said, and I realised that I’d been standing there, frozen with fear and memories of you. ‘Takeira will be fine. Just look into my eyes and jump.’
I looked into Ben’s eyes – those warm and welcoming eyes, although a somewhat non-descript hazel, gave me my strength. The eyes that couldn’t be more contrasting to yours.
Takeira, my mind yelled. Was she OK? Where was she? Had she been – caught? What was I doing jumping away from her?
‘Jump, Maia, ’ Ben urged me, ‘jump.’
It was then I made my decision. My decision to leave you. The decision that I would regret for the rest of my life.
I jumped.
I’m still not sure why we took to you. We brushed away most people, Ben and I did, in favour of our own company. Maybe it was your unique skills – picking locks, climbing trees, silent footfall – or perhaps it was the spice you brought to our life. The dangerous spice that kept us coming back for more, whatever the consequences. The poison that was swept into our veins when we first saw you. And then you were gone.
Everything became a blur after that. I heard you scream as the police caught up with you. I didn’t see you being led off, didn’t see them as they roughly detained you. But, for an instant, I saw your eyes burning with the fierce fire of betrayal. I knew that we’d broken whatever link we had, in that moment. We wouldn’t see you again.
Of course, I hear whispers of you long after the incident: you’re in prison, you’re on the loose, they’ve let you go on the terms that you’re underage. But I don’t see you again. I know that every night, you will whisper to me in my sleep, and I will be haunted by the picture of you in that golden sunset.
I have to live knowing that I’ve betrayed you, and you know that’s worse than whatever you’re experiencing. Knowing that the poisonous, beautiful Takeira is gone. And I killed her.
