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the audition.

My jaw was rattling. All these strange eyes on me, I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I leant my elbow on the windowsill and popped my head on my hands, like I was un-bothered and deep in thought. The engine rumbled and my head started bobbing up and down. I knew they saw it. I pretended they didn’t and that I totally meant it and leant my head against the window instead, where the vibrations hit my brain and shuddered down. I could still feel it now. These busses were once an hour and the fucking worst.  Suddenly I realised just how gross this entire place was and panicked. My make up! I fumbled around in my handbag, a black hole of a place, trying to feel for my mirror. I’d smudged some of my foundation and eyeshadow leaning against the window. Fuck. I felt around for a q-tip and my bottle of micellar water and tried to clean the edges. “A cotton-bud isnae gonnae fix the state of that!” Some ned sitting across from me piped up. His deadbeat friends and desperate clingers on a
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the siren.

follow my voice i'll promise you everything sanctuary and freedom, a beautiful song listen; and forget everything from before  be swept away. i am temporary. you can't settle here waves crashing against the rocks no sweet melody can ever hide  that there is something better on the shore the land will always be more promising. this mortal body will sink flesh picked off by predators and prey alike i was a temporary bliss my bones lie on the ocean floor.
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gold rush.

The crunch of the gravel under my heels felt so loud. In fact, everything seemed like it had been turned up 1000% - my heart felt like it was going to burst out my chest; the sun seemed too bright, the grass too green. I had done this so many times and yet never felt any less nervous in the moments before.  I casually glanced behind me to see if anyone was looking. Thankfully no-one else was there, and I had seen the valet sneak off for a smoke with the doorman after I handed him my keys. The coast was clear. I stopped for a moment, smoothed down my dress and caught my breath. I can do this, I repeated as a rythmic chant in my head. I. Can. Do. This.  I reached into my purse for my pocket mirror for one last visual check. Not a hair out of place, nor a single smudge in my makeup. I was ready. I. Can. Do. This.  One, two, three, four, five more steps through the gravel and I was onto the solid stone stairs leading up to the chateau. I straightened my back and relaxed my shoulders. The i
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lone.

She moved the scarf further over her face, protecting it from the sand and her identity from any prying eyes. They were alone in the desert for now. She estimated they had about half a days worth of water left in their canteen. Petunia stuck close to her side, her paws wobbling slightly. They had gone too long without food, or rest. But stopping and sleeping somewhere put them at risk of never waking up again. They had to keep trekking until they found water, plants… something.  Ideally not people. People meant trouble. They had to leave their last settlement due to… a stupid mistake, one she’d never be making again. Since then it’d just been her and Petunia, her golden brown sand cat, wandering the plains finding water and shelter where ever they could. Petunia was great at hunting and had kept them both well fed over the first few months. But things had slowly started to get worse.  Gangs had infiltrated the plains, pushed out of the ruined cities. They would set up camp and drain th
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women's trauma is not a game

Content warning: the following piece contains references to domestic abuse, sexual assault and rape.  I am tired of women being played as political pawns in some nightmarish game. A game where you only support survivors of sexual assault when it suits your agenda or set of beliefs. It has been an exhausting eighteen months. A man and a woman have a huge argument in their flat. The words "Get off me'' are screamed. A neighbour calls the police. It turns out it's one of the Conservative candidates for prime minister Boris Johnson and his then girlfriend Carrie Symonds. The concerned neighbour then turns into a Labour political activist determined to ruin the career of Boris. Over half of all women who are killed in the UK die by the hands of their partners or ex partners. A group of nine women go to the police after they all experienced various levels of sexual assault. They didn't go to the police for years as they didn't want to jeopardize their work
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the archers companion.

The sun was starting to set and she was becoming more and more anxious. She'd been tracking this deer for nearly an hour now, and it was still evading her. She hadn't eaten a proper meal in two days, just snacking on berries she found on her way. A deer this size would feed her for two weeks or so, given she set up a couple of campfires to cook all the valuable meat right away. She needed this kill. And she needed it before the sun went down. The wind died down and she climbed up to a secluded spot a little higher up off the floor. It was completely silent, nay the usual bird chatter. Finally, the creature was standing in a clearing, sunlight filtering through the trees to frame it in her line of view perfectly. She grabbed her bow, fed in her arrow, had the deer in her aim... when suddenly it leapt away.  She shoved the bow and arrow under her arm and jumped back down the forest floor. "What the fuck keeps spooking you?" she muttered under her breath. She would
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wandering.

It was 4am and I couldn’t sleep. It had been a night of fighting with my thoughts. Stuck between staring at the ceiling, the time on my phone, the journal tucked under my pillow. Thinking about everything. Playing it all over and over again in my mind. I was so tired. Not just physically. Mentally, emotionally. I felt like a circus tiger trapped in a cage. I needed to escape. The lamp post on the street below filtered through the blinds and made patterns across the ceiling. Every so often a car would drive by and it would distort - slats would disappear, colours would change, and then back to the same. I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a spare room apologetically offered to me by a friend. Boxes filled up the rest of the room - memories from old apartments that there just wasn’t the space for in this new life of theirs. Next to my bed was a holdall packed with the things I’d deemed essential: passport, money, toothbrush, phone charger. No room for anything sentimental.
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