Liana writes...

  I had a dream last night. I was in a train station. There were several platforms, empty, yet I sensed the presence of others. I just couldn’t see them. The air was cold, the kind of cold that pierces your nostrils as you breathe in. Dusk had settled on the station and left the sky a hazy livid colour with a stripe of orange on the horizon that was slowly departing. I was hyper-aware of the sounds surrounding me. The electricity sparking against the tracks, a tap left running in the public toilets on the platform, and crows watching me diligently, occasionally breaking their silence to release a caw. Whilst a crow’s cry usually stings to hear, in this dream, its voice harmonized with the other sounds . I felt calm. At ease. I didn’t see the man approach. It was a sudden grasp around my neck and mouth. I didn’t even have time to breathe out. When he chooses, his movements are gentle. In that station of running taps, crows, and electrified tracks, he was silent. I tried digg...

My promise to myself of getting all my work done by Friday evening so I can have the weekend off is working out well. Treating Uni like a job rather than a lifestyle. I'm so sick of having to-dos and stress constantly lingering over my head. This way, I get to relax on the weekends and put time into my hobbies. Time to find the real me, improve the real me, and just generally feel better about everything. Sure, an empty two days results in an opportunity for depressive feelings and a low mood to harvest. That being said, this first attempt at a chill weekend has gone well. It's only Saturday afternoon though. I watched a few episodes of Netflix, read my book, and then studied some Japanese. Yeah, you read correctly. I actually studied Japanese. For the first time in four years. I thought fuck this. Actually, fuck this degree. I don't want to learn about fucking Nietzsche or the conjugations of traer. I don't give a fuck. Yet I need the degree. I will get my degree and I...

 The past few days have been a complete fuckery. I've gotten over my ridiculous agitation over J's new girlfriend. Yes, I still think about it, but now I don't really give a fuck. He was a total arsehole and the person I fell in love with didn't exist to begin with anyway. Sometimes I think about him, especially when I realize that it's now been 3 years since we met. So much has happened. So much pain from so many things but somehow it went by so quickly. I also get satisfaction out of J taking 3 years to date someone else. But that's another matter.  So, what else has happened recently? Nana died but I am in complete denial over that. When it comes to death, I prefer to pretend that the person is just somewhere else, not in my reality. I wouldn't have seen her anyway whilst studying up north so I'd rather just slowly begin to notice her being gone over years, rather than acknowledge her gaping absence.  I then ended up in hospital for four days last wee...

 Urgh, why am I so fucked up in the head? I have a fantastic boyfriend, who treats me well, good-looking, a god in bed. Why for the love of God can I not get J out of my damn head? He was self-obsessed, boring, unadventurous, but I care so much about why the fuck he didn't fall in love with me? and why the fuck I fell in love with him? I almost got over it until he started dating his new girlfriend Michaela Field. I spoke to him a few months ago and found him uninteresting. I ended up ignoring his replies and never thought about it again. I can't even remember what he said.  I find myself not fixated on J, but on M. I've always been like this; I still stalk the socials of R and Y, the new (now ex) girlfriends of previous crushes N and C. When was the last time I stalked N, C, or J? Honestly, it was so long ago I have no idea. R, Y, and M are stuck in my head though. The girls that got the guys I always wanted.  With N, he was a prick who didn't even bother to get to kno...

Kant, Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. All names going in one ear and out the other as I sit in my weekly German philosophy lecture. The class is taught by Lars, a podgy man in his 50s. His cheeks were always swollen with small capillaries bursting on the surface, creating a map of fine red and purple squiggles. Sometimes he rested his hand on his protruding belly like a pregnant woman as he spouted anecdotes about his life in the eighties and how it somehow related to Freud’s theories on sexuality. He strutted up and down the front of the lecture theatre with such confidence. I always wondered how people did that; I struggle to just walk into that theatre and sit down next to someone I’ve known for two years. I guess when you know what you’re talking about and no one is really listening to you, it’s easy to ramble with ease. I’m very good at making sure I look like I’m paying attention. I doodle in my notebook but ensure that my hand is making jagged movements, never failing to take my e...

I preferred a quiet life. One with little happening and a consistent routine. I woke up at 8am, ate a bowl of porridge, took a shower, and headed out the door to work. After an hour or so in the office, the staccato rhythm of the clock would eventually fade into the background. Most days I became consumed by crunching numbers. I'm good at it. My forte if you will.  When I saw her for the first time, it was the dead of winter. The air pierced my nostrils as I stepped out of the office to make my way home. The company has one of those concrete office buildings they erected everywhere in the sixties. Ghastly things. Juxtaposed to that building was a charming Tudor cottage. It was going into disrepair but an investor transformed it into the local coffee hub for housewives with too much time on their hands. Sat in the window, latte in her hands, was one of the most exquisite women I'd ever seen. Maria.