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This blog has been revamped and moved to a different address! Due to new ideas and an artistic partner, the new blog incorporates stories and artwork. I'm really excited about it and I would love you to follow me on this new adventure: http://paganpages.wordpress.com/ Thank you for your continued support and interest! Jess x

Strange Romance (First Written 21 February 2012)

I knew there was something different about Jamie the moment I met him. In fact, now I come to think of it, I had known there was something strange before I had ever met him in person.

I'd been single for a year and was looking for something new. People around town were so boring, so... 'normal'. I was always attracted to the abnormal. People who lived outside the borders of society. I was attracted to the anarchy and the danger of a man who understood no difference between right and wrong.

Sure, Klaus had been different – it wasn't everyday a woman fell in love with a cannibal. At first it turned me on, listening to a human heart sizzling in a frying pan; watching Klaus' huge arms tense as he sliced brain matter. But he lived in his house, he listened to Beethoven and didn't want to see the world. I wanted to see the world and more.,

After a year of searching for my match in the clubs, I gave up and gave in to the Internet. I joined a dating site. For three weeks I trawled through pictures of men who claimed they were 'fun', 'crazy' and 'not like anybody else'. I'd almost given up, even looked on the animal rescue website for cute cats, when I saw him. Pale skin. Dark, dark eyes. Crimson lips. Jamie. My match. He stuck out from the rest. He liked midnight strolls, he'd seen the world and he was experienced.

We met under a full moon. He said he felt spiritual under the moonlight. I felt spiritual in his eyes. Like he had a hypnotic power in those dark eyes, that touched my soul and caressed every inch of my skin. The smoothness of his voice, the coolness of his skin, the feel of his sharp teeth on my neck.

It only took that one meeting to know he was 'the one'. He wasn't like any other man. He was dominant and powerful, yet polite and deadly calm.

We're still in the early stages of the relationship, but he has invited me over for dinner at his house next week. He tells me he's done well for himself, and owns a huge manor near the docks. He loves Victorian Gothic and tells me he collects strange artifacts. He says he thinks we'll be together forever, as long as I don't bring garlic into the house... It must be the smell I suppose.

The Other Woman (First Written 12 February 2012)

I feel my soul shrivel and fade within my tired body. I see the woman. She is beautiful. Her back is straight and her skin glows. Her hair shines deep chocolate, swishing around her delicate hips. I wrap my frail hands around my skinny frame. I can see what he saw in her.

I don't know what I did wrong. I don't know when the change started, but it is too late to change things now. I could surrender and let him go, but he would not leave. My loyal man. The man I continue to love, although I know he wants to leave. I will surrender one day.

While I lay in my bed, old and tired, I see her in his eyes. Her glossy hair and healthy skin. My bones are like sticks and my skin is dry leather. I am not the girl he loves. My hair lies in curls on the pillow where I rest my restless head. My stomach is empty and hollow where there could have been life. My heart is weak and suffering. And still he sees the woman. He tries to do it in private but I have caught him. I do not punish. I do not even gasp. I have barely enough breath to keep going, but I do. My heart faintly drums on amidst the pain. And like a wounded animal, I drag myself on through this madness, trying to heal an opening that has not ceased bleeding.

I am going to die. I have accepted this, but he has not. He no longer speaks to me. He no longer sits with me. I lie alone in my bed, while he briefly looks me over, to check my chest is still rising. I see her in his eyes. I know he will be seeing her in the room below me. As dawn creeps closer, as the end creeps closer, that video with the beautiful woman I barely know, wearing my white gown on my glowing skin, swishing my long brown hair around my hips, continues to play.

The Woman Who Never Married (First Written 18 January 2012)

She walked to the Pretty In Pink dress shop every morning. She never went through the door, but stopped short on the pavement outside. Eyes wide, she'd stand and gasp at the dress in the window. A placard at the foot of the white dress informed in fancy lettering; 'Wedding Dress of the Year'. The woman wouldn't care if it was the worst selling dress of the century; she had fallen in love with it months ago.

The staff watched the woman stand at the window every morning, lingering for ten minutes, before she bustled off. They never asked her if she wanted help, or whether she was interested in buying the dress, and only speculated she was planning a wedding. One day the woman walked into the shop, bursting with excitement. “I would love to purchase the Wedding Dress of the Year.” She spoke with her hands and didn't wait to try the dress on; she said she knew her perfect size.

The woman took her prized dress home, the dress every woman would wish to wear on her wedding day. She hung the dress up on her wardrobe door, and stroked the silk lovingly. She slid open a drawer and opened a tiny box, putting it beside the dress. She opened a shoe box from under her bed and carefully placed the white shoes beneath the dress. She took out the shimmering ring from the tiny box and slid it onto her finger. On the dresser was a framed photograph of a man, cheerful and relaxed, laid on a bright towel on a beach. A tear came to her eye as she smiled at the picture of her dead fiance and whispered; “We never made it to the wedding in life, but you will always be my husband.”

The woman wrapped the dress up in a plastic cover and kept it hidden away. She wrapped the shoes in tissue paper and kept them hidden away under her bed. But she kept the ring on her finger, on show forever, and she always called herself 'Mrs' if she was ever asked.

The Wart (First Written 12 January 2012)

I can see it when I look down my nose. It's getting bigger. It's trying to take over. My sparkling piercing, the piercing I longed to have for years, is disappearing from view. My wart has a voice now. It tells me it won't leave. Bulbous and ugly, it waddles as I walk. It sniggers as I stare in the mirror. Where did it start to go wrong? I thought I'd have this piercing forever. I'd been looking at rings. And then this happened. This wart came and ruined everything. I went to the doctors today. They gave me some cream and a threat to the wart: freezing. That's stopped its sneers.yes, wart, you can be stopped. And, with the wart, my piercing must leave me. I'll give it a good burial. I'll put it in a box, hidden safely away, and I'll remember what it looked like before the wart ruined everything. And it'll sparkle in its box, just like it always sparkled in my nose. RIP.

Circles: A Poem (First Written 11 January 2012)

Everybody wants to belong,
In a family, in life.
People are caught up in circles,
The circles of life and death,
The circles, constantly turning.

Everybody breaks off, becomes one,
Once entwined with another,
Now walking alone in the road.
Photographs cut, discarded,
Memories cut, never discarded.

Then one meets another,
And the Two-Headed Beast,
Again, walks as one.
The circles of love and heartbreak,
The circles of life and death.

The circles, constantly turning.

The Cowardly Me (First Written 11 January 2012)

"Go away." I told the darkness. "Leave me alone tonight."

Her sad eyes stared at me from the corner of the room. "But I'm scared to be on my own." She whined.

"You're not following me around. I'm meeting Lauren's friends and you'll only put them off. You're staying away tonight."

I could see the tears begin to form in her eyes. I shook my head. "Don't start crying."

"Why doesn't anyone like me?" She sobbed. "Why is everyone so mean to me? I always get left out."

I rolled my eyes. "Because you stand in the corner and don't talk to anyone. You're a coward and you won't change. I don't want you with me tonight."

She had her head in her hands and I could see her shoulders shaking. She was pathetic. She stopped me getting the friends I wanted and if she hung around any longer, she would stop me doing what I wanted to do in life. Sometimes I thought I had gotten rid of her and then she'd creep her way back up to my side, lurking by my shoulder. She doesn't like it when I'm drunk but she always comes back in the morning, bright and early. I thought bullying would make her leave, but it only makes her whimper.

She's been with me all my life. When I was asked out by a guy, she cried in the corner because she didn't think she was good-looking enough for him. When his friend sat next to me in the pub, she sat in silence, playing with a beer mat.

I tried to accept that she was just a part of me and wanted others to accept her too, but I only lost friends because of her. I may have lost that guy because of her. I think I even lost myself at a time.

Maybe she'll never leave me. Maybe she'll sit with me on my deathbed. I don't know, but I can force her to stay at home when she needs to, and perhaps that's enough.