ELLIE L. H. MACKAY
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I wish I were the rain

12/5/2018

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I wish I were the rain
So I could flow endlessly
A heavy, constant patter of refreshment
Never stalling in my endless journey
To cool, wide ocean

I wish I were the rain
So I wouldn't have to worry
About bills
And deadlines
And societal pressure to
​be
just
right.

I wish I were the rain
So I could float around the globe 
Taking my pick of jungles or cities
Upon which to unleash my torrent
And gather strength in numbers

I wish I were the rain
So I needn't bother with
Waiting for you to call me back
The rain never needs anyone
To splosh its way through life.
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My family of strangers

12/5/2018

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Where do I know you from? 
Your face is so familiar
With its creased brow and dark, strong eyes

You are Greek, I think. 

Your hair is different, wild and free
I seem to remember you normally wear it up.

But when was that? That you wore you hair up?
Where do I know you from?

I'm trying to look at you longer, to catch a memory within your face,
Without you seeing me staring at you,
Staring into you to find that memory.

I steal a glance, and then another
Each time brings another twinge of knowing
And the memory of you dances teasingly around the shaded outer edges of my mind.

Where do I know you from?

Are you the woman who works in the bakery opposite my housemates office? Did you sell me a pomegranate scone that one time? I try to remember you smiling but I can't, even though your eyes are kind.

Are you the cleaning lady the agency sent the day Annika was away? I seem to remember she was slimmer, her jawline more defined. 

Are you my binman's wife? The girl who used my phone when she lost her bike? Are you the delivery woman who always hides 
my parcels in a safe place? How do I both recognise 
and not recognise your face? 

You are a polar bear in the desert. a person out of context, and in spite of your familiarity you are an enigma to me.

Are you the cashier at my local Waitrose? The mother of a boy I used to teach? The woman in front of me in the post office line just this morning? Are you the receptionist at my dentist? Where do I know you from?

How many molecules of memory we must have to maintain, locked away within our brains, hanging on to all those tiny seeds of recognition of all the people in the periphery of our lives. The people who are so significantly insignificant, so familiarly unfamiliar. Ever present, influential, necessary, unnoticed. And funnily,  they will never meet one another, my very own family of strangers.

Perhaps you are the ex-girlfriend of my boss' son, who got too drunk at last year's summer party? No, that's not it, that's not it, you are closer, sooner, more present in my life than she. 

And then, our eyes meet again, and suddenly there you are, placed all at once in concrete. You were surrounded by white in the cool of the studio. You are the yogi whose class I tried, about three weeks ago, on a Tuesday night. I was stressed and your class overran. You look different in evening clothes. 

Suddenly I realise that you were teaching the same class tonight. The class I was supposed to attend, but missed, because I wasn't sure you and I were quite the right fit. And now I'm here and you, you on your way home from the class I just missed, you are looking at me with your kind eyes, and now this is even more awkward.

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The Big Day

12/5/2018

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Finally, in a sleep deprived, anxiety-riddle haze, after all the song and dance and circus of it, after all the stress and clenched jaws and held breath and tension, I was alone at home. The events of the day suddenly dissipated, melting away like a fog clearing under a heavy grey sky. Slowly, I sat down on my bed, and I wept.

I wept for the loss of her. I wept for the celebration we were unable to give her. I wept for the bleak and impenetrable future, and the fact that we had been unable to reach her - a powerlessness worse than any I've known previously. And I wept for the sadness I now share with him, a bond neither of us wanted but with which we are now indefinitely saddled. As though we have both been unwillingly drafted into a war with no end in sight, we now face the world together but without the one rock who has bonded us for a lifetime. It is unsettling, and sharp, and distressing. But under it all, under all the anger and confusion and grief, it is a heavy, aching sadness. And so, until the sun rises and quiets my tears, I weep.
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I have known you, loneliness

12/5/2018

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I have known you, loneliness, for longer than I would have liked. I have watched you move in, with your sharp edges and battered corners, and all your solid weight. I have listened as your whispers become howls and your howls become deafening. I have felt you over my shoulder, laying your rough hand on the nape of my neck and applying endless cruel pressure. I have felt your dark shadow throughout it all, gliding in at every quiet moment. You, loneliness, are my most reliable friend. My ironic companion, sitting silently beside me, waiting your turn to gather up the shards of every dark moment in my life and lay them across me like a stiff, black blanket. And even though I sometimes feel for just an hour or two that I may have lost you, I know you are there, waiting to return soon enough. It is a strange sort of unwelcome comfort, loneliness, that your familiarity both soothes and hurts me. At least, of all things, I know you will never leave me.
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    Ellie has been writing her whole life - journals, poems, short stories, scripts... allowing words to flow has been a constant cathartic process for her. This blog is an outlet for her writing, no more, no less.

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ellie's quote for LIFE

"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone should be."

​- Clementine Paddleford (and Ellie's mummy!)

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