‘Blackberry Jam’ – GDST Poetry competition Winning Entry

Sometimes I dream that our planet used to be much bigger than it is now. I dream of vast expanses of water to glide through freely. I can see it so clearly; gloriously blue in its endless enormity. The ecstasy that permeates my entire being as the water slides over my fins and across my back feels all too real to simply be a figment of my imagination; it’s no surprise that I often confuse it for a memory. What’s puzzling, is that in the dream, I feel that I am there, wholly, authentically, and free of burden. However, when I wake, I’m back here, clasped in the tight embrace of darkness and hostility.

21st August 1997, Otaru
The time is 2:47am and I am at my desk overlooking what is a barren and empty sight before me. A singular shawl is strewn across my bed. It was my mothers from the eighties – rather fashionable in those days, but not so much now. There is a bonsai tree by my windowsill which has not been watered in months, and has wilted, arid leaves. Like most nights, the familiar hum of crickets slips through the crannies in my window – normally this would bother me, but tonight it doesn’t for some reason. My fathers’ old desk lamp is propped up on a stack of comic books – its fitful flickering is faintly lighting up the room. In the corner of my room are two suitcases which hold the contents of most of my life’s belongings.

It always seems to be the winter months which are the hardest. The sky is painted a forever shade of grey that dims the light in peoples’ eyes, trees cast crooked shadows on the cracked pavement and all the streetlights apparently die along with the sunset. In the winter too many words are uttered from chapped lips, sweaters feel constricting rather than comforting and it’s unclear whether the shivers felt in the night are from the cold or from hollowness. The sounds I hear refuse to drift from my head like they do in the summer, they rattle around in there like old keys on a chain and play on a loop on and on and on and on.

The sunlight tickled her face as it fell in swathes through the kitchen window. The morning light lay languidly over the table, coating papers and paints with a golden lustre…