nine million heartbeats

a gift of all the gold

we who feel the most wounded and frightened, hurt others the most.

to have a woman beside me who understands this, when i forget; 

a woman who has the grace to keep smiling, even as i try to hurt her, and afterwards seeks no revenge;

a woman who can see through the projections of my confused mind that it is not about her, it’s about the chaos in my soul;

a woman who has the love, the pure love, while my whole world spins out of control, to simply lay her hand on my heart and whisper, i am here!

a woman who keeps shining her light, so that as soon as i allow myself to trust it, it can illuminate my way out of blackness;

to have a woman like this beside me, it is a gift of all the gold in the world.

the audacity of an angel

through embracing my limitations, learning to let go, and with serenity accepting that i do not need to control all of my life, only my here-and-now, i keep myself safe from crashing. but recovery is not about mere survival, enduring sobriety, it is about finding true happiness in sobriety. 

all of us are angels, even though the abrasion of our daily lives wears down our feathers and deceives us into assuming that we are feeble and flightless. 

many resign to live and die flightless, grounded in a yard fenced by this deception. only a few ever discover that they have the 

power to change the world and the wings to seek salvation. 

the last bees in the world 

she removes her hood and gloves. as my heartbeat stills, i timidly do the same. bees now form a living halo around our stillness. bees skim my skin like tiny dodgems, exploring, playing. 

this is no longer a quest for honey. this is another step in my continued search for meaning and my connection with the eternal. i am answering the hive’s call to adventure. 

i am overwhelmed by emotion. tears well up in my eyes until one flows slowly down my cheek. a tiny dodgem settles softly by the salty stream on my skin.

i close my eyes, deeply to engrave this magical moment into my mind. my warrior sister squeezes my hand as the last bee in the world sips my tears.

all possible tomorrows

to watch my idealised mirage sink into sand and walk away;

to see my dreams burn up in a furious bonfire of ‘could have beens’;

to find that after a grueling trek, the path ahead seems longer than ever;

to carry in my heart the hurt of others, whom i can no longer help to heal;

to let go of parts of me, without shattering altogether;

to escape the gravity of past tragedy and its clutches of guilt and shame;

and to suffer all of this without straying from my path of recovery and not looking back;

this is the letting go, which allows me to heal.

when i let go of the me of yesterday, i can truly become the me of here-and-now, and the me of all possible tomorrows.

even serpents shine

meanwhile, even serpents shine is a novel, which i published in 2003, although it feels a lifetime ago.

it was then critically described as a 'passionate literary vanitas' and 'a mystical descent into distorted love and obsession'. 

it's set in amsterdam's richly subversive 1990's subculture, my world at that time. 

the book is currently out of print, but we are tentatively planning to republish it soon. 

in the meantime, you may be able to secure a copy here.

[ISBN 0-9545145-0-5]