a little day-to-day (365) diary for the both of us -- for the things we want to forget, and the things we never, ever, want to lose. (Started 3rd August/13)

• 3rd August/13

[ lily ]blue nights, lying in the backyard, crickets, soft sigh of traffic, "how we fucking got here", d. singing //michicant - bon iver//, heaven is so quiet, silent phone calls; you can't keep it in a jar

• 4th August/13

[ june ]opaque skies, the sun on half my face, laughter (so much laughter), being kissed, softly, for the first time, d. singing michicant over and over, singing //kiss me - sixpence none the richer//, "kiss me under the milky twilight", everything so thick and liquid with love and soft nostalgia, everything spilling over with possibility; nothing - nothing - hurts today

[ lily ]scummy, ol' maths; love, love, love, singing with d. and june 'til midnight

• 5th August/13

[ lily ] man reading a book outside the hospital, jamming with d. and jin -- 11:39 PM "don't look at me that way/'cause I'm hanging by a rope"

• 6th August/13

[ jin ] go away, leave me alone, shut up, i'm fine. crawling back into bed as if crawling into a different yet familiar skin. how did the emptiness manage to creep back in?, like an evening shadow, like the echo of something you thought you'd finally shaken off; "pressed against the pane could see the veins and there was poison out"

[ lily ] motes of dust in the morning; so, so, so much sun -- on the couch, in his hair, in his eyes; a brick arc, birds on the telegraph line, baths full of foam, lazy sleeps with the mister, scribbles on the wall: " everything is temporary, but love is eternal " a blue, blue night -- woman on the steps (dimly lit neon-orange cigarette)

[ jin ] midnight; crying with lily over richard siken's // i had a dream about you // oh, the tomatoes, the blue television light, the red and the brown and the red, the pear tree; "there's nowhere to go. there's nowhere to go" - everything so clear, everything so sharp, striking our nerve endings, breaking us in half. lily - you and i, we're blood oranges, dissected slowly in half, bleeding into a wooden cutting board

[ lily ] feeling all too much, too - too much, being molded like wet clay with strangers' fingers -- strangers I don't know who I do know who I don't know but will know but now know, breathy poems over the phone, confusion, confusion, " these are the dreams we should be having. I shouldn't have to clean them up like this. " writing, feeling like I'm not enough,empty, empty barrel; being filled: drunk men with bottles of golden beer foam-tipped, foam-mouthed -- jin,you are my person.

• 7th August/13

[ jin ] "the lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap" ; everything so sterile, so artificial, so intangible. where is a good thunderstorm when you need it most? drench me to the core. remind me why i'm still alive. discovering ólafur arnalds' // living room songs // from lily and aching to create something so beautiful, so raw. something that can touch the innermost parts of people. someone lie with me in a meadow under all this heaviness. here's a secret: i don't want to die but sometimes i wish i were never born. i'm so sorry for all this, i don't know what's wrong with me. and all my words have left me. they are so brittle, so ugly, so useless and so hollow. goddamn.

• 8th August/13

[ lily ] Midnight of the 7th , giving/passing (the loss) of something precious, "do you regret it?" curling up against the window pane; mornings like an eardrum drowned in rain, kind librarians, sweet tarts.

• 9th August/13

[ lily ] lotsa' snot and harry potter

[ jin ] lack of sleep; melancholic yet hopeful tunes; one chapter into 'orlando' and mesmerised already

[ lily ] 1:26 AM and talking to strangers. i) 30ish Scott from UK is a geography lecturer at a university, has the whole day off today because of wife and new born (named JD! for john david) ii) 22 year old Luca from Italy has a favourite book which is kerouak's On the road; dreams of going to Africa; "are you driven more by fear or love?" "I'd say love ..I guess it's always both, but one always prevails." "how do you know?" "you look at the choices you've made in life and try to understand why you made them." iii) Chris; afraid, tender - a vulnerable age - soft, soft; dreams of finding someone

• 11th August/13

[ jin ] sinking and drowning. the feeling of something pulling me under, of something poisoning everything good in me. feeling so small, so alone, so confused and lost and wondering why i'm still here, why i can't go to sleep and sleep and not wake up. wanting to kiss strangers under dim orange lamplights but also wanting to crawl under a table and be alone forever. how do i keep going when this is always how i end up? under a flickering blue mosquito light on the floor of a bathroom inside a mall that has closed for the day. listening to slurry soft songs by Mazzy Star with lily, everything smudged, everything so comforting yet sad. sad, sad, sad. wanting to lie down in the sound and sleep forever.

• 12th August/13

[ lily ] Down with a cold - and it's sure gettin' nasty.

• 13th August/13

[ lily ] mineral green bathwater, the room so full of light, outside the window - Luca's italian snow-capped mountains, heart aching aching aching, boys are so beautiful people are so beautiful - the world so watery

• 14th August/13

[ jin ] droopy eyes, the weather beautiful but my insides clenched; missing v. like i never thought i would miss anyone, my heart aching like a tooth decaying after too much sweetness, the aftertaste of whatever we shared under my tongue; "promise me you'll stay awhile..."

[ lily ] shutters closed, we are in a room a blueish-grey, the light seeping through the bits between our fingers like cracks of lava orange, water in a plastic bottle; a white orbiting disk

• 15th August/13

[ jin ] reading anne michael's fugitive pieces and underlining every fifth sentence, dog-earing every tenth page. scrawling my own memories into the margins. every line so evocative, so fragile, filling me to the brim. my heart aching in the best way possible, my hands aching to be held. the sun setting and the sky dissolving into a light, tender peach; imagine lying down in that wash of pink and orange edged with blue, listening to the soft jostling of passing trains through my open window

• 16th August/13

[ lily ] little lunch jam with sonia, sting, jane & mr dunstan // Love is all around - The Troggs // things with d. are cold.

• 17th August/13

[ lily ] the moon and the sun in the same sky - last chapter with d, a bath too hot, //Can't help falling in love - Ingrid Michaelson// snuffling with jin and feeling much, much better c:

[ jin ] 1:15AM; a night of wonderful snuffling with lily after a day spent with e.-- finding each other again, as we always do; pancakes on the rocks for the very first time; mind drifting back to v...how i want it all or nothing, all or nothing...

• 19th August/13

[ lily ] lying on the grass with sting // four-leaf clover

• 20th August/13

[ lily ] english extension 2 opening night & Year 12 music showcase: Kate Lorimer singing Big Yellow Taxi, Sonia playing Dawn Lament on her beautiful cello, Me - playing Elegy Op. 3, No. 1 by Rachmaninoff, Philippa playing classic Gershwin, Issy White's 'Waterfall' composition (& more & more & more)- walking out of the concert hall into the night - white fairylights tangled in the branches of trees

• 21st August/13

[ lily ] the most beautiful husk of a dark blueish-violet/purple, sitting outside the libary, wearing the night like a cape & eating buttered toast with hot english breakfast tea, the bright tennis courts...

• 22nd August/13

[ jin ] 3:33PM; lying next to cindy in the darkness of her bedroom, the heater humming, the shade pulled down; watching people sleep (or trying to) does something to my heart; her body jerking occasionally as if in fear; music that lulls you to sleep, to sleep, to sleep... blocking out the world again and again and again...

• 24th August/13

[ jin ] lily's house so full with light and character, everything delicate and sweet, so many patterns and textures and little trinkets, the warm feeling of a home shaped from years of love and care; watching and re-watching scenes from candy ; knowing i should try to stop thinking about v. but thinking anyway

• 26th August/13

[ jin ] half past midnight; reluctant to sleep, listening to // joshua radin - star mile // (thanks lily), thinking about how fiercely kind and compassionate people can be, how much hurt people harbour silently inside their chests, how bright the darkness seems once it is shared. james, thank you for your story, even if it doesn't help mine. thank you for your conviction, your fight. i never expected it from you. but that's how it often seems to be i s'pose...; listening briefly to the sound of d.'s hurt and hoping he'll grow old one day, that he'll be happier one day. hoping that i'll be happier too. lily staying up to work on her VA, lily making me feel better -- always. i love you to bits, okay? you're my person, you're my person, you're my person. you have no idea how very, very special you are.

• 26th August/13

[ lily ] drinking miso soup in an empty corridor with danny & mon, feeling both relieved and disappointed that art major works have ended, mrs faith wanting to chop my ears off (the next van gogh), sorting out paintings of flowers for dom, going home and episodes and episodes of dae jang geum...aaahhh

[ jin ] singing, recording, singing. delving into music as a coping mechanism...or just another procrastination tool? je ne sais pas but it feels good so i s'pose i'll keep at it for now. close to midnight and webcamming with tom - always so strange with him - i don't know whether i like him or dislike him, with his two such different characters - one so soft and complex and intuitive and emotional, and the other so very egotistical; sharing sad songs: // chris medina - what are words, javier colon - my little girl, braid paisley and allison krauss - whiskey lullaby, five for fighting - superman //; jamming to // frank ocean - thinkin' about you // boys can be so beautiful yet ??????

• 27th August/13

[ lily ] finishing 'bird by bird', nodding and laughing and crying to so many lines, up til midnight with jin talking about love, strangers, time & universe, tiring our little pea-brains out, not doing any maths homework that's for sure..

[ jin ] lili crying up in the library - how beautiful and real people can seem when they cry, even when they're all snotty and their skin all splotchy; talking art with helena on train - how beautiful marina and ulay's love story is; discussing tao lin later in the night - how he captures the constant ennui and sterility of the postmodern globalised world...; talking late with lily about all the love things and fate things...

• 29th August/13

[ lily ] alex calling me in the middle of the night, drunk, repeating "I love you" over and over, ("I french kissed a man!!") over and over..

• 30th August/13

[ jin ] WITH LILY: humid 27-degree day, deep blue night, maccas on a swaying wharf, birds like moths like birds circling above the opera house, lying on the middle deck, our hair tangled together; running around with lily snapping shots; sweet lil asian grandpop; IN THE MIND OF IGOR; chocolate paddle pops and lighted staircases; everything beautiful

[ lily ] WITH JIN: the fifth hour of night already a faded-out blue, eating cold maccas on a creaking wharf, rollercoasters, birds like motes of dust illuminated by opera house lights, flashing camera - photographing jin, lying on the smooth cold ground, a strange but kind old man, watching 'in the mind of igor' - so absolutely raw and intense ( the constant death bell, white dust, a swaying golden ball, igor stravinsky's 'in the rite of spring', kill your only son; isaac isaac , woman in white, a two-horned beast, death & rupture, a man writhing with ropes on the stage to the tune: [ bass chords\Bflat Aflat\ Eflat-F-G-F-Eflat-Eflat-F-F(hold), bass\G\ F-Eflat-F-G-Aflat-G-F-F-G-G ...... ]), eating chocolate paddle pops in the city afterwards

• 31st August/13

[ lily ] WITH JIN: a hot, sweat-bubbles-on-your-nose kind of day, glebe, sour-lychee candy sticks, paisley dresses, golden notebooks, eating a delicious pumpkin-raisin salad, freshly squeezed lemonade, buying leather bags, UTS ""for the free food""", lying on the green lawns of sydney university, spotting shapes in the clouds "that looks like a frog-eyed skull ....... and a penis (???????)" , warm spicy noodles in a red restaurant, fairy lights in the trees, //hello - martin solveige ft. dragonette//, glow run in the city, dipping our toes in the harbour, the buildings all wobbly in the water, eating icecream on the way back to town hall, accidently crushing it, salted caramel and passionfruit macaroons, falling asleep on jin's shoulder on the train ride home..

• 3rd September/13

[ jin ] bright, sunny day; laughing in stitches with the group over year 7 profiles and time capsules; wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli with cindy @ OWAB; catching up with ms melky; watermelon juice and jasmine tea at cindy's house; hours and hours of maths and good music; cindy with her headphones, singing loud and off-tune; salad with lettuce, strawberries, tomatoes, almonds, walnuts and sesame seeds- drizzled with balsamic vinegar... getting back into the groove of things... talking to lily at night; thinking about lily leaving for ANU...

• 4th September/13

[ jin ] a good day - made it to school on time for first period; grade treat during meet period - playing big fat pony, dodgeball, and eating the prefects' baked goodies... singing and laughing and dancing 'round and 'round with the group; year 12 vs. teachers basketball match at lunch; watching an interview with marina abramovic late into the night...

• 20th November/13

[ jin ] yive's 18th, her house at night strewn with little golden christmas beetles, dead and alive, some wriggling on their backs, some squashed on her deck; torch flames flickering in her back yard, damp grass and word games with strangers with boys whose grins and chuckles warm my heart... jono drunk, wrapping his arms around erica, his chin leaning over her shoulder, her hand on the side of his face, the two of them wonderfully in sync; tripping over my words and sentences trying to explain to dorothy what writing and books mean to me... drinking too much soda to calm my jumpiness and ending up with an upset stomach... lying on the sofa at the rusty end of the night, the living room light harsh over everyone's bodies, the boys shouting over poker in the next room, my feet sore, everything lukewarm and dreary--and again, there is the displacement, the feeling of needing to leave, to disappear, to retreat...