oneword.: dynamic: "I want to feel dynamic, all conquering, unstoppable. I want the tasks to fall before me, defeated, completed. I want. "

oneword.: why: "does it still hurt? I know she is old now, I know she does not think, but I also know she never did think. She makes me feel small and worthless and unloved. Useless and a waste of space. Why does my mother do that? "

oneword.: technical: "Techinical knowledge, it's like my artistic ability, I have it in fits and starts, sometimes it all comes together and other times it is like another lauguage, incomprehensible. I love to draw, sometimes.. "

oneword.: twenty: "when i was twenty i lived in a workers cottage in the middle of the city, I knew if the day would be smoggy as I would wake with a headache and ease it by drinking too much coffee and sitting in the sun in the backyard stirring fabric in dyepots. when i was twenty "

oneword.: marshmallow: "There was a rumpus room where the old garage used to be and they had installed one of those fireplaces with the beaten copper cone style hoods. I think it was the first fireplace I had ever seen, we toasted marshmallows and Louise's big brother showed us his mother's book called 'The Joy of Sex'. I was eleven. "

oneword.: severe: "It's just oh, so serious lately. All that I do, day in, day out just so bloody serious. I look in the mirror and ask who is that ugly bitch with the severe expression. Stuff this"

oneword.: elements: "it's cool and damp this morning and I should walk to the beach but can't bear the thought of facing the elements today. The bite of the cool raindrops or the sharp cut of the wet sand on my toes "

oneword.: between: "Between when I wake in the morning and when I climb between the sheets at night, I sit here, this screen is consuming me, owning me. If I could money another way now, then I would. I need out! "

oneword.: belief: "If I could have that belief, would my life be simpler? If I could just not question but accept, swallow that story then would my life be better? Maybe all I need is self belief; that I can make it even if others make me feel I can't. "

that is today. the cloud has gone and the crickets are singing under the hot blue blue sky. it is the sound of school breaking up and summer excitement awaiting me, glorious

oneword.: discontent: "This is a great word for me today, I am wallowing in my discontent and am too pathetic, so I am told, to do anything about it. Discontent, today it owns me. Tomorrow maybe I will throw it off, a sweaty hat discarded on the floor."

oneword.: regard: "I regard my face in this mirror this morning, I see my brown eyes search out all my faults, they linger longer on the most hated aspects of me. Then stop longest on themselves, they out of all eyes can see inside my soul and they know where the true ugliness lies. "

oneword.: regard: "The way that you choose to regard me with such contempt even though I have only ever shown you respect, the way you think you deserve more when all you have ever shown to the people around you is your rude self-centeredness. The way that I regard you now, dear mother-in-law, is with pity. "

oneword.: constant: "all day every day. unstopping it goes on and on and on and I know the only way to change things is to be brave and i don't feel brave anymore and the longer i leave it the less brave i become "

oneword.: tender: "i touch you with my mind, a tender stroke upon your cheek, your eyelashes, so familar, shiver when my reach gets too close. the curve of your jaw relaxed, the corners of your mouth a soft tender curve of happy "

oneword.: production: "I am a product of my past, all tiny shards of memory and pain and laughter and tears, I am. I have small pieces of you all, all you people who have left your mark on me, some the softest tan, others scars deeper than the greatest canyons. I am your production. Are you proud? "

oneword.: depth: "Perhaps I am simply out of my depth. Perhaps this career just is not for me, but that is what I always say and that is why I will never be a success. I cannot stick at anything, at least thats what my mother tells me. "

oneword.: seduction: "I suppose that was all it was for him, a summer seduction, a fleeting thing. A few weeks of passion and fun to fill in a blank spot in his calender; but he changed my life. "

oneword.: thief: "you just walked in and took it, you said you'd never do that and i believed you but when you had the chance i saw you, you reached out and grasped it in broad daylight and then you just walked away, with my heart. "

oneword.: shelter: "if that was all we needed, if we could have our shelter and be happy? but we crave more and more and i don't really know why, only that i feel a responsibility to create the best investment that i can "

oneword.: level: "That is what the playing field never is, level. There is always someone with the upper hand, someone with more chance of a victory. I guess I am selfish enough to hope it will always be me. "

oneword.: orchestra: "in the centre of the town, ringed by cobbled streets was the arts building. it was beautiful, stone, solid and majestic. our seats were on the upper level and we looked down at matthew playing his violin in the school orchestra. I smiled to see his cheeks flushed with nervousness. He was very, very good. "

oneword.: balance: "I run my foot along the smooth blonde wood, my pointed toes feel my way. I stare straight ahead and pretend the 10 people watching are a crowd of ten thousand. I hold my arms with attempted grace. I am 10, I dismount the beam and neatly land, feet together, perfect balance. 10/10 "

oneword.: skills: "sometimes i think i have them all. skills that no-one else could possibly have as good as me, other days i feel useless, a waste of space, a pretender. I have no piece of paper to say i earned this place, i just get by, i sell my meagre skills. "

oneword.: bank: "there's nothing in there for me. i guess i could work harder or i could save harder but in the end would i be any happier if the bank was full of money that i earned. i am happier if i call my life experience my bank, it's full but always there is room for more "

oneword.: foundation: "on what was it built, so when all feels unstable and fleeting, pointless and weak, i ask. did we start off the right way, did we build this life we have on a firm foundation or did we start for reasons soft and shifting like the sands? "

oneword.: clash: "
each step we take some days is closer. we walk the ways we have to go and there is no way that we can stop it. the clash we have to have. mother, daughter, love and fear and determination. and so we clash."

oneword.: "I scout around the house and see what I can find that needs done now, I need to clear my space and clear my mind, I scout around my mind and clear my house. It needs done now"

oneword.: roses: "I woke up this morning thinking of my Grandma, I guess I had been dreaming of her. When I was first seperated from her when I was ten, I drew her a rose. I missed her then almost as much as I miss her now. "

oneword.: saved: "in the scheme of things i have never really saved enough, i like to enjoy each moment, after all, life just isn't long enough to waste it saving everything for a day that may never come. perhaps my savings are my memories? "

oneword.: finish: "friday again and i take stock to see what it is i have to finish and what i can leave to drag into the next week, heavy like a lodestone. I want to feel achievement at all that i have completed but i feel pressured instead with all that awaits "

oneword.: simplify: "that's what i want? the smooth effortless glide of how things will be when i learn to simplify? in all honestly i would die of boredom if everything was too simple. i think the complications of life are what makes it all worth the bother "

oneword.: commotion: "Every morning it is fast and furious and intense, then the commotion leaves the building to catch the bus. With them goes the noise and the aura of stress and I am left with a soft blanket of peace. I love schooldays."

oneword.: advance: "i see her soft black feet, they sneak, inching slowly through the air she advances across the lawn, her yellow eyes fixed in super concentration. the hunting cat "

oneword.: final: "it feels like a few finals moments could really sum it all up, the day, the week, the year. i just have to get those moments right. all the choices made before won't matter if i can just get it right this final time. "

oneword.: forward: "i am trying to move forward here but technology is stopping me, i can't believe how reliant I have become on a machine, and now it is a machine that is failing me intermittently and that is jeopardising my employment situation. damn computers, damn them "

oneword.: dedicate: "i dedicate this day to you, let it be yours to do with as you will. take it, devour it, live it "

oneword.: "arid but not desert it is isolated and so quiet that it is frightening. i used to hear strange noises, but not until i had been away and then come back, suddenly the birds calling sounded disjointed and wrong whereas before they had simply belonged to this region."

oneword.: marked: "it doesn't matter how much time has passed, it doesn't matter how well i think i have forgotten. i am still marked, i can blame him and i can blame circumstances and i can move on and spend my time with people who didn't know me then, but in the end all the really important people are the ones i knew then and who still love me anyway. "

oneword.: spare: "in the evening i am tired and he circles me with questions and queries and stories and needs and quite frankly, he drives me spare. don't get me wrong, i love my son but sometimes he is so very tiring. "

oneword.: counter: "how many days til my daughter's birthday? how many days until christmas? how many days until i know myself? how many seconds until i run out of time to ty.. "

oneword.: stretch: "it's a bit of a stretch to ask me that. can i be there to boost you up then can i please dissappear when you feel don't you need me anymore? i do it anyway, i must be made of rubber"

oneword.: valuable: "the most valuable thing we own will never be a possession, my daughter is being a demanding bitch again as i type, i think the most valuable thing we can ever own is our manners "

oneword.: lavender: "I love lavender, I love the colour, the smell, that it makes me think of the mediterranean. I love hot days and flowering lavender on my deck. Lavender is love."

oneword.: limited: "Sometimes I feel limited, locked into being something that I am not happy being, then it dawns on me that the only one who truly limits me is myself. In the end it is my own expectations of myself that matter, and those of others only carry weight because they matter to me. "

oneword.: dive: "His skin was smooth and brown, with a few dark freckles on his strong adolescent shoulders. His eyes were green, I would always think of 'Irish Eyes' when I looked at him. He looked at me then, to be sure he had my attention, then climbed to the top of the high dive tower and twisted and tumbled with athletic grace into the water far below. A quick glance again as he pulled himself from he pool. Oh yes, I was watching"

oneword.: echo: "there is a beauty to having space about you, a place with no people, it isn't the beauty that you can see but that of having a place where you can yell as loud as you like and listen to your own voice echo around the hills, priceless "

oneword.: forced: "the worst thoughts come with this word, images that one would rather forget and i suppose i would rather a different word had been chosen for today......no-one should ever be forced to do anything they don't want to do "

oneword.: lack: "There is always something that I feel I lack, not possessions, but a certain strength of character that I feel I should have. Some say I am hard on myself, but in truth I simply lack the motivation to improve myself. "

oneword.: never: "I know now, that I will never see him again. I always thought he could be around the next corner. I was always on my guard. I always thought it wasn't over and I would see him again, and now I know I won't. Why don't I feel relieved? Why ? "

oneword.: favorite: "coffee, dark chocolate, red wine, ocean views, sunlight and no wind, a good book, comedy, good music, good friends; these are my favourite things "

oneword.: execute: "we spent hours on those mats, we tumbled, we fell we laughed, we felt our bodies strain and stretch, my sister was my coach, until you can execute that move with perfection, she said, you cannot leave this gym. i was suspended from school before the competition, she has never forgiven me. "

oneword.: acrobat: "when i was small i thought it would be great to be an acrobat, i would walk along the top rail at the cattle yards for hours, never looking at my feet, imagining myself balancing on a tightrope and the crowds cheering below, then dad would call and i would jump off, landing barefoot in the manure filled mud. back to earth. "

oneword.: used: "Ever the recycling queen, she had a bag of used plastic bags behind the kitchen door. She would save them to keep food fresh in the fridge then wash and reuse them. They smelt stale and acidic and made me want to be sick. "

oneword.: contained: "keep those emotions contained, put on a face of calm and control, don't let anyone see what you are feeling. i could never do that, i am always like an open book, what you see is what you get "

oneword.: distance: "it's that neverending road in front of me, it frustrates me. i want to be there now, not sitting here in this hot car the vinyl seat sticking to me, the flat countryside making me sleepy, slipping past so slowly, always the same, on and on into the distance, always the same. the road home. "

oneword.: training: "hot and sweaty but i will not stop, i run until my muscles burn and my head throbs, i throw water over my face but i will not stop, i will be fit and thin and i will win "

oneword.: profile: "Is my nose french? I always thought that because my name is french as well, there was something french about my profile. When I was there I saw my brother everywhere, his twins striding every street, profiles proudly sillouetted in the white Paris light. "

oneword.: doom: "I can't stand people who walk around in a cloud of doom. I remember selling family portraits once and a young mother said to me, 'Why would I want a photo of my kids? The world will end in a few years anyway so what is the point?' "

oneword.: cash: "it is 3 in the morning, we stumble out of bed to see what the commotion is. he is in the kitchen, laughing, friendly, rolling drunk, from inside his tweed coat he pulls a roll of cash, fat as a beer can. 'my beautiful girls, i love you kids. here have $20 each, don't spend it all at once', he slurs, 'i'm just having me a drink to celebrate me winnings. i love you kids, back to bed with ya, it's a wee bit late' he laughs. thanks dad. "

oneword.: tricky: "it is so much harder than i thought and thats what is good about it i suppose, finding something that is just tricky enough to keep us fascinated and life is always fascinating, don't you think? "

even though i only really lived there until i was 10, when i see that word i think of the house i was a child in. i dream of it's rooms as they were then, the sounds of it's doors opening and closing etched in my memory. it lives on inside of me as it always was, not as it is now - home

i could decide to feel that the only way to go from here is downhill, but there's no way i am going to do that. i have to find a challenge, take an uphill battle on and win it, why not? - downhill

in a way it is like i have reached a point of saturation where i simply cannot absorb anymore. i have had enough now. i can walk away and know that i have given and taken as much as there is to give and take - saturation

i love deadlines and i hate them, but seriously, if i never had deadlines i would never get anything done, it makes work worthwhile or something, a reason to bother, aside from the money ofcourse - deadline

when i was a teenager i dreamt that i woke up under the christmas tree and i had a beard, i was the brother my age i always wanted, i thought it was fun then discovered it was hot and sweaty and uncomfortable, i woke up glad to be a girl - beard

she saved everything, i guess there wasn't much choice, you had to make do with what you could get, i used to have her tea tins, they were black from oiling and heating to keep them rust free, we used them as sugar containers and she would be so annoyed if i spilled any on the floor, she hated the feeling of it cruching under her shoes - container

why do i feel i have to be superwoman to get it all done, and then i always end up failing. one day i will get there i am sure, i will reach that utopia of achievement. self satisfaction will consume me - super

i carried it along the road, it was heavy, really heavy. i tried to balance it on my head and wondered what the passing motorists thought, so he got a stereo for his birthday, a stereo lugged home with love - stereo

down by the creek there is a wall of rock and when the water hole was full, my big brother would help me swim all the way across, then we would climb up on the ledge below the big cave and dive into the cool dark depths of the waterhole. it was deep, i never found the bottom - ledge

my shadow is 100 feet long, it reaches before me in tall slender elegance, I lift my long graceful arms and watch them race across the afternoon grass - shadow

i have a request of you. i beg your honesty, there is nothing else so valuable to me as your opinion, I don't want pity or masked truths, i plead for your complete honesty - request

she has it...it surrounds her like an aura and draws us to her like bees to a honeypot. her home is the epitome of style, the parties there are filled with interesting people, hand picked like accessories - style

when i was 8 my mother bought me a small book, in it's pages were the prettiest butterflies ever, i walked around the garden with a fish net and tried to catch one, we only had the orange ones, not the vivid blue like in the book - butterfly

yesterday i climbed over this fence, i walked this path and found this outcome, i don't want to go there again.... climb

they had an ageless feel about them, those giant spreading branches which would serve as swings. we climbed high the scratchy barked limbs and smelt the sharp aroma as we squashed the pink pepperina berries in our dirty fingers - climb

this sparks my interest to try and write some words about a word. i often fail but sometimes love what comes to mind - interest (again, i am addicted to this ritual)

sometimes it is just what i want, to be enclosed in your embrace, but other times it feels like wires binding me there, suffocating me, trapping me...

give me a valid excuse, just one and then perhaps i will listen. but in the meantime you can talk until you are blue in the face and i cannot hear you. there is no excuse for selfishness. i should know - valid

thats the whole thing isn't it, i just want to protect her, i want to make the road she travels as smooth as i can and yet at every turn she wants to walk the hardest path, i cannot force her, i have to let her fall and then be there when she needs to have her wounds tended - protect

just around the corner i know everything will be ok, you tell me that it seems you just keep walking around the block and there is no other option, but i know that just around the corner there is a change for you, you just have to learn to turn the right way (or is it left?) - corner

my acid tongue, i don't even feel the anger and spite which pours forth yet still it comes, it burns those around me, but more it burns me i hold the acid in for days until it builds then gushes out in a torrent of danger and pain - acid

we kept them in stalls. these large animals in stalls barely large enough for them to turn around in, in there was a trough, which refilled itself when the level lowered and iced over on cold winter mornings, when i mucked out the bullstalls - stall

i need your shoulder to cry on, no-one else's can give the same comfort. my cheek just will not fall into place so readily anywhere but there, i need you - shoulder

i like the saying "It was a blast", sometimes things are just like that, it is such a buzz to see someone or go somewhere that this is the absolute best description and today even my work was a blast! - blast

I was almost old enough, but not quite, the others ran away up the paddock, but i had to stay behind. grandma took me by the hand and we sat in her room and she told me stories and i stopped minding so much, there will come a time, she said... - almost

i am beat, there is no other way to describe it, it is all too hard, i made mistakes i cannot undo and i am someone who should never have been a parent, i am beat, by myself by my 14 year old - beat

if it is out there where i cannot see it, i cannot reach it, it makes no impact on my life, then why do i care, what is it that gives me the fundamental sense of wrong, that an eye for an eye is wrong - external

stuck on this word, maybe that's my problem? I am stuck in a rut, new avenues keep opening but I cannot get off my rear and walk them, I am glued to the spot, is it fear or laziness? - stuck

if i could strike the right chord with you, if when i spoke it would bring you pleasure, but when i do i feel your irritation, dissatisfaction and i wonder if we will ever sing the same song? - chord

i would like to think that i have the strength to pull myself free but i seem to be stuck here, somewhere between freedom and slavery, somewhere i should never have let myself be. i want to go back and stop what i started - stuck

it looms above me, old, timeless, mysterious, i feel it there behind me every day as i walk about my house, i imagine it falling, toppling over me, i hear the echo of its history in my imagination, it is a legend, it echoes it's past in my dreams - mountain

they are unbreakable, i know they must be, yet it feels like she cuts through these bonds with a mere glance, her eyes like razors slice my apron strings, it hurts - bond

what can you get for a pound? it seemed not much more than i could get for a dollar, it didn't seem too much to pay 2 pounds fifty for a sandwich for my lunch, then i converted it to aus dollars and lost my appetite - pound

i loved saturdays, we would all get on the bus and they would take us to the dam, the sabots were unloaded from the trailers and i would look hopefully around for a boy who knew how to sail, and beg them to pick me to crew for them. at the end of the year i won 3rd prize in the sailing comp, though i had never sailed alone - sail

in the distance it would loom and i would sit in the car watching it gradually become closer, it was the goal, the landmark, when we reached that volcano shaped mountain it meant we were there, you could see it from 200 miles away - lava

the cave was hidden behind a bush, just like in the enid blighton book, i took my visitor, the mailman's daughter, there, and tried to share this secret place, but she said it was stupid, barely enough room inside for two. i couldnt understand why she couldn't share my imagination, the rooms beyond were enormous in my mind - cave

she does have perfect pitch, i don't understand where she got it, but when the music pours from her lips, i actually want to hear it, she turns a casual hum in the car into a performance - pitch

he has that about him, a simple strength, not solid so much physically, but of a solid constitution, he retains a strength through everything, he is my friend - solid

i liked to be the centre forward, they said i was a good player and i was picked for the city team. i was too unorthodox though, and was banished to the wing, out of the centre, just another player - player

it would have been a bumper crop, but we were 8 and we held the long poles between us as we ran along the furrows flattening the stands of wheat between us, we made a pattern - bumper

i used to stand in the kitchen and look up at the bathroom mirror, i could see a little of myself but i wondered was that really me or another girl living a life just like mine but in reverse, i wanted to crawl through the glass and play with her, but she just stared back at me... - mirror

apparently i never crawled, i sat upright instead and dragged myself around on my bottom using my heels to pull me along. my brother said they could always find me by following the wet streak left across the floor from my nappy - crawl

i would rather scream at you and scratch your eyes out, pant you say? pant? you can pant! while i cower here in an utter agony that you will never experience, this baby rips my body apart - pant

one word a day, I love this site

the crack wasn't as wide there as in the centre, but there the boards were worn more evenly. Feet had run and stepped and walked and slid. This was the place - floor

it was cold, the stars were dull in the black, there were whisps of fog, i walked and walked, but it didn't make it start again. this was the end - end

walking down the street there were three of them, they are sitting in a huddled group weaving pulseras, they are dirty and snot covers the mouth of the youngest, i drop some pesos in the old hat, i don't feel good - orphan

it was overflowing. Bottles, teatowels wrapping rolls and cakes and sandwiches neatly packed, there were 2 glasses - basket

I am running but my feet won't get me anywhere, the harder I try the less ground I seem to cover, I am getting tired and am moving slower and slower, it seems I will never reach the top. Sometimes I think I am already over the hill - hill

i like the hardness of the cloth as i pull it out, the machine has been loud and rambling, to the point that the whole house vibrated along with its gyrations. i pull out the wet material, it is heavy and smells like my childhood - spin

some days are like that, you just can't get past it. there is that barrier that keeps stopping you no matter which way you try to approach it. today feels like that already - glitch

this time it will be different, we will be more enlightened, more forgiving, more loving, more empowered, better educated, better equipped, this time we will.......make the same mistakes all those before us made. Why? - generation

in the afternoon light i watch it hang in the window, we used to sell them at the markets "austrian crystal" we would say, hang it in the window and watch the rainbows spin around your room - sparkle

they kept their old things up there. we opened the hatch and pulled down the shiny new silver expanding ladder. i was impressed, up there the sun streamed through the skylight and the dustmotes danced - loft

i am stumbling along and my feet can feel the cold dirty lino, i know it is not far, i reach out and try and find the wall to feel my way along, i lean forward and feel suddenly as if i do not know up from down, the room feels to be spinning, i am blind - blind

i sat there, frustrated, there is almost nothing i love more than to watch to ground fly past below me, there is nowhere worse to sit than above the wing, damn - wing

we walked down the street to the show and paid our way in, they were both there my 2 boyfriends either side of me, paul bought me a siver heart on a chain, they both held my hands, i was 12 - pendant

large heavy goblet, red, rich wine, the fire crackles, the roast dinner settles, this is winter wine - wine

the photo didn't really show much, the colours were dull, but the lines reached out to me and i wanted to stare at it forever, i wanted to find the photographer and thank him or her, for finding just that perfect angle - angle

She has that effect on me, as she walks in to the room I see a look in her eyes and I feel myself harden against her. I will not let her make me feel small, I will not let her dominate me, she is my mother-in-law, will I ever learn to drop my guard around her? - guard

this morning the air is so clear, the sun so bright, the ocean so blue, the elements of perfection surround me, i feel blessed - elements

i am a queen i am a princess i am a ballerina. i hold my arms out straight and look straight ahead feeling the way along the beam with my pointed toes, i love that everyone is looking at me - beam

i took the photo through the grass, it shows the tower reaching into the blue blue sky and the seed pods clear in the foregroud, why is there a tower in a cemetery anyway? It makes me think of merlin - tower

we would be up before daylight to pack the last few boxes in the car and fill the coffee flask full of freshly brewed coffee, we would stream down the highway to the country market and i would roll a joint for the trip, when we got there we would be remote and stoned, unpacking beauty to sell in our stall - stall

we walk through the creaky old house, this is home but with no lights it has become an alien landscape. my sister is behind me, i am scared of the dark, we walk to her room, our footsteps vibrate the house and her sliding door rolls open by it's own accord, the cold air from her room extinguishes the candle. i scream - candle

we used to get it just above the big waterhole, there was a little gully that trickled in there and if you reached in behind the curtain of water the clay was there to be grabbed in big fingernail bending handfuls - clay

my first job was for a hairdresser called mavis in the school holidays when i was 15. the salon was "on the wrong side of the tracks" wedged between a dodgy pub and an empty boarded up shop, mavis had a dog that looked just like her with wavy yellow hair, she would make me take it out the back and wash it with her best redkin shampoo & conditioner then bring it inside to blow it dry, one time she even got me to put curlers in it, i remember wondering what the next customer would think when yellow dog hair combed out of her new purple-rinsed set.